Overview: What happens if you take the original Terminator idea, morph it with T2, get rid of any semblance of a coherent, cool story, but add a really hot chick in leathers kicking butt to it? Answer: Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines! Director Jonathan Mostow really kicks the FX up a notch, but unfortunately, the story fades into more of a prop than the centerpiece it was in the first two movies. While the key cast members are all fine (terrific in the case of Lokken), they can only work with what they’re given.

The Story: In Terminator 3, 10 years have passed since John and Sarah Conner destroyed Cyberdyne Systems and stopped the Skynet apocalypse. Unfortunately, it seems that the future is not what we make of it (As Desirina reminds us in the T2 comments), instead, fate is now predetermined. Why? Who knows…roll with it, buddy. You’ll get no well thought philosophical time travel notions here. Instead, the Terminator mystique is just that – a façade to get us to the juicy action sequences!

Over the years, John Conner (Nick Stahl) has turned into a drifter – he never really believed that the end of the world was abated, so he has spent his life leaving no clues as to his existence (no phones, bank accounts, and FORGET that damn phonebook!). He wrecks on his motorcycle, and due to his fear of hospital records, decides instead to break into a local veterinarian’s office and take some random medicine in the hopes that it’s a pain reliever (apparently, in the future time of 2003 the west has forgone local clinics that treat illegal aliens without recording their names and addresses). It just so has it that Conner has broken into a vet where Kate Brewster (Claire Danes), a former junior high fling of Conner’s, works.

While this is going on, The TX (Kristanna Loken), or Terminatrix as Conner refers to her, arrives from the future. The new Terminatrix is nanotechnology enabled, and can control all computer networks and most electrically powered machines - in short, she’s a badass. Because Conner has all but disappeared, her mission is to bump off his lieutenants, and if possible, to then locate and terminate Conner. Arnold Schwarzenegger as the obselete CYberdyne Systems 101 model is once again captured in the future and dispatched in an attempt to save John Conner, and his future wife from the nuclear holocaust, and if possible, protect them from the Terminatrix.

Philosophical Problems: I understand the desire to “go to the well” once more in the Terminator series, but it seems like they could have been a little more sophisticated in how they went about it. For instance, why, if Skynet is going to keep sending Terminators from the future, doesn’t it send them all back to 1984? Even a little throwaway line, similar to Star Trek’s magical matter-anti-matter converter, telling us that this isn’t possible would have helped this. Also, there’s the problem that Skynet’s grid was smashed in T1 – which was the whole purpose for the last ditched desparate attempt at a retroactive abortion. If the grid has been smashed (which if Skynet is an AI, what does this even mean?), how is it that Skynet can keep on producing newer Terminator models? Clearly, things are going all that badly for Skynet. I almost envision Skynet being in it’s “last throes” as similar to another conflict in today’s time. 

More harmful than the problems above is the issue of fate being predetermined. Um, OK, sure, I suppose it could be, but couldn’t they have tried to justify this a bit more? The Original Terminator provided us a wonderfully nuanced time loop; Terminator 2 at least still kept a pretty solid story with the idea that the future is what we make of it. Terminator 3 basically says, “Fuck it. You’ll all screwed anyways, so lets just throw down!” And throw down they do.

The FX: Although the story takes a significant hit in T3, the special effects do indeed rock in an over-the-top sort of fashion. I thought the truck-car race was a bit too over-done, but I LOVED the Terminatrix’s FX. And truly, Kristanna Lokken played her wonderfully. I loved her facial expressions and demeanor. She knew what the part was supposed to deliver (a hot android terminator chick kicking ass) and did it wonderfully. The FX surrounding her from beginning to end are reason enough to watch this movie.

The Bottom Line: While this movie rates highly as a “hot chick kicking butt” flick, it suffers in comparison to its two predecessors as the ending to a trilogy. Terminator 3 certainly was enjoyable, but not in the sophisticated sense that the first or second one was. The sliding scale I see with this series is as follows: Terminator had an awesome story and pretty great visuals for its time; Terminator 2 delivered a very good story, and provided awesome visuals – the type that raise the bar on future movies; The third does away with the cool story but at least still delivers the visuals. In short, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines is a bubble-gum chewing summer blockbuster, pure and simple. But on that level it works fine. However, based on the downward quality trend, if Abbot & Costello were still alive, I’d say that the next movie should be titled “Abbot and Costello Meet the Terminator.” Regardless, 5-6 stars is a reasonable place for a movie that delivers extremely well on the visuals but falls off on the story. In this case, 6 stars seems appropriate. Watch it for the FX and Kristanna Loken-Arnold battles, not for a continuation of the story.

Overview: Often sequels are just made to cash in or earlier successes with a rehash of the existing story. To Cameron’s credit, he comes up with an entirely different take from the original Terminator movie, yet still maintains some level of believability to the story. Cameron certainly ratchets up the FX, but doesn’t forget the essentials that made us love the original (a well told story). Arnold Schwarzenegger returns as the Terminator, but this time he’s the good guy. Sarah Conner’s transformation from the girl next door to toughened soldier, willing to do anything to see to her son’s viability and stopping the enemy.

The Story: In Terminator 2: Judgement Day (T2), over 10 years have past since the events of the first movie, and the Skynet from the future has made one last attempt (um, well, until T3, that is – I believe the final last attempt will be Terminator versus Predators) to destroy John Conner. This time, they have skipped the “retroactive abortion” ploy, and are targeting him directly. This time, they are sending a more advanced unit – the T1000 – an android made out of liquid metal. The T1000 has the ability to copy virtually anything it touches, but prefers to assume the form of a police officer (Robert Patrick) to aid in its pursuit of John Conner.

John Conner of the future, in a desperate attempt to save the gains made, captures, reprograms and sends back Cyberdyne Systems model 101 (Arnold Schwarzenegger) to protect John Conner in the past. His primary mission is to ensure John Conner’s survival by any means necessary. A secondary aspect of his programming states that he must take orders from John Conner.

John Conner is currently living in a foster home, as his mother has been committed to an insane asylum by the good Doctor Silberman (Earl Boen). Now, disenchanted to learn that his mother has basically fed him a fantasy his whole childhood, he has become a troublesome youth. He spends his time stealing money from ATMs, jerking off with friends, and playing video games.

As the plot evolves, the familiar chase and pursuit feeling from the first movie returns, only this time we get the added benefit of Terminator on Terminator conflict. John Conner eventually hooks back up with his mother, and they decide to make an attempt to eliminate Cyberdyne Systems in the present, thus, eliminating the apocalyptic future that awaits the human race. Unfortunately, the T1000 has other plans.

The Acting: The most impressive aspect of T2 is the personal training Linda Hamilton put in to make her transformation to a soldier absolutely believable. She really looks the part, and for a short time, almost comes across as a terminator-like powerhouse. Her acting is also spot on, as is Edward Furlong and Schwarzenegger. Robert Patrick puts in a serviceable job as the T1000, but still pales in comparison to Schwarzenegger’s character in the original. Joe Morton is also decent as Cyberdyne System’s top scientist, Dr. Miles Dyson.

The FX: T2 is remembered for raising the bar on CG enhanced FX. Cameron transformed the T1000 into almost as large a phenomena as Schwarzenegger’s Terminator became in 1984. The liquid metal effects had the benefit of looking ultra-cool while not requiring the detail necessary for facial features. In this way, Cameron really played to the strength of the available technology. However, over time, as FX have continued to evolve, the impact of the T1000 has been significantly diminished, while the original Terminator is more embedded in our psyche than ever.

The Bottom Line: While T2 is a very well made film, personally, I still like the original lots better. Simply put, the movie is a very well made sequel, and still includes the best android fight on film. But in my mind it’s not nearly as sophisticated in terms of the whole Time Travel angle, and worse, it invalidates a key part of the original story – that nobody goes through after the first pairing. One wonders why they Skynet of the future didn’t just send the T1000 back to the same time as the first movie – then they’d have 2 Terminators pursuing Sarah Conner (or 3, 4, or 5 depending on how many Terminator movies we finally end up with). Still this is a minor point, and I know of many who disagree with me about the original being better.

T2 Page 2: More Screencaps–>>

Overview: Cyborg 2, we are led to believe is a sequel to Pyun’s Cyborg. I say this because right at the beginning, a cut scene of the cyborg in the first movie is shown. But quickly we learn that this is only shown because Cyborg 2 didn’t have the budget to make low quality cyborg FX. In fact, Cyborg 2 has NOTHING to do with the first more. In the first movie, cyborgs were human brains encased in a cybernetic body. In Cyborg 2, cyborgs are robots. Furthermore, in Cyborg, we found a lawless dystopia, yet in Cyborg 2, we find a battle of two mega-corporations.

The Story: OK, the story is just hoaky, but unlike Pyun’s Cyborg, at least it holds together once you give up on the absurdity of it. In Cyborg 2, the Pinhole corporation has decided to kill off the management of the rival cyborg corporation by embedding one of their androids (called cyborgs) with a special chemical, that, upon orgasm (yes, I guess androids in the future not only have sex, they orgasm!), blows up the chick and everything around it! It turns out they can also use a detonator switch to do explode the androids. So the idea is they will send a hot android chick (played by Angelina Jolie in her debut starring role) to visit a party at the rival corporation and explode! Why don’t they just set off a regular bomb there, you ask? Good question! If there’s an answer, we aren’t given it.

Cash, the hot, sentient android chick (Angelina Jolie), gets word of her new implant by a disembodied mouth (Jack Palance) who tells her Pinwheel’s plan for her demise. She and her human lover, Colt (played by Elias Koteas) escape Pinwheel and attempt to escape to a place far off where free cyborgs live in peace with humans. Pinwheel corporation hires a crazed bounty hunter (Billy Drago) to go and retrieve Cash. The rest of the movie is comprised of bizarre chase and confrontation scenes, similar to the first movie, only this time the good guys are on the run.

The Bottom Line: Schroeder’s Cyborg 2 is not a good movie, but in comparing it with Pyun’s Cyborg, it does come out better storywise (it’s not as good on the fights though). Once you get past the absurdity of the story, things do start to hold together better. On top of this, we get an absolutely gorgeous, young Angelina Jolie kicking ass and even throwing in a nude scene for good measure. Billy Drago provides a memorable performance as a lunatic bad guy, and Palance, if you can get over the close-ups on his disembodied face, is pretty good to see for the brief time he’s on. I’d give this 4.5 stars if I had that available, but instead I’m bumping it up to 5 stars both for Angelina Jolie’s performance, and the thought they give to how cyborgs and humans could have a life-long love affair.

Overview: Overview: Sometimes we find movies are able to rise above truly absurd stories and transform movies that had no business being watchable into something enjoyable. This is what we find with Virtuosity. Virtuosity has a story with is barely bothers to try to hold together, but yields memorable performances by all the major leads. The pacing is at least fast enough that its possible that some unsuspecting viewers might not notice some of the absurdities presented.

The Story: In the near future, Crowe plays SID 6.7, a virtual reality (VR) composite of 200 personalities, each and every one a killer. His purpose is to serve as the key bad guy in a new police officer training simulation. To test the simulation the corporation uses former cops – now criminals – to test the hyper-real VR training system. Former Lt. Parker Barnes, convicted for killing a mass murderer (and some bystanders) who murdered his family is one of the lucky ginea pigs. After entering the simulation, all is not as is seems, as SID 6.7, who has grown sentient, has modified the safety controls to allow him to actually kill the test subjects. Barnes’ partner is killed and Barnes barely escapes the Simulation.

After the corporation decides to shut the project down, Dr. Lindenmeyer (played by Stephen Spinella), SID 6.7’s creator finds a way to save SID 6.7. It just so happens that another scientist in the corporation has just completed a nano-android – the first of its kind – and is now wondering how to embed it with sentience (yes, they really expect us to buy this – companies always have magical projects just hanging around that anyone can get access to!). Lindenmeyer tricks the scientist into uploading Crowe’s program into the nano-droid, which serves to free SID 6.7 from his simulated cage.

It turns out that one of SID 6.7’s “dominant” personalities which he has been created by is none other than the murderer of Parker’s family. Parker is offered a pardon if he can capture or kill SID 6.7. Parker is joined by Dr. Madison Carter (Kelly Lynch), an expert on serial killers. From this point on, we get a police-serial killer chase movie with a good bit of cool nano-droid restoration visuals. The rationale for why the police can’t stop SID 6.7, or why Dr. Carter must join parker are both pretty weak. More interesting is the fact that the police never seem to bother showing up when SID 6.7 decides to kill people in front of massive crowds. But such is life – again, at least the leads all play this far more believable than this film has a write to be.

The Bottom Line: The VR visuals are decent, the acting is very good, but the story really doesn’t hold together. The worse part of the story is that the the nano-droid and VR sentience are essentially posed as magic. We get no explanation from the key cyberpunk aspects of this, such as how 200 real-life personalities from dead serial killers are embedded in a VR simulation, nor are we are given an explanation for how this incredible nano-droid is developed, or could be developed while not having a purpose. Still, Russell Crowe as a very memorable crazed villain and Denzel Washington both put in great performances, and are very well supported by Kelly Lynch, William Forsythe (a crusty police chief and Parker’s former boss) and William Fichtner (who plays a creepy corporate type). In short, they make the movie worth watching.

Overview: No movie has been more imitated in cyberpunk than the Terminator. While most of the imitations have been grade “B” shlock films, they attest to the intense effect that the Terminator had on our consciousness. This film is legendary, and easily ranks in the top 5 or 6 most influential cyberpunk films ever created (Blade Runner, Metropolis, Ghost in the Shell, and The Matrix being the other four, and Alien if you consider that cyberpunk). Terminator is a film with terrific replay value – so much so that I’m guessing all of you have seen it enough times that I don’t need to bore you with a plot overview. With a 6.4 million dollar production budget, this is far from a big-budget blockbuster. The reason it’s stood the test of time, and in fact comes across as a block buster, comes down to incredible execution by beginning film maker James Cameron and cast.

The Acting: From Schwarzenegger’s eery style of acting, to Linda Hamilton’s growth on screen from a shy teen to tough mother of mankind, to Michael Biehn’s tour-de-force performance from beginning to end, the leads flat out carry this movie. That said, the background characters are all terrific, including Bill Paxton at the beginning (“Fuck you, asshole!”), to Paul Winfield (Lieutenant Traxlet), Lance Henriksen (Detective Vukovich) and psychologist, Earl Boen. There are too many memorable scenes to relate here, but the real strength of the acting in this case comes more in expressions and setting mood than it does in delivering the lines, although Beihn’s narrative in particular is riviting.

Reece’s character does straight exposition to explain the story, which is usually a lousy delivery method. However, the mix of action and exposition just works. The dialogue was terrific, and Reece delivered it in the context of a high-tension chase. During this, Hamilton’s character literally transforms from a vulnerable, girl-next-door to a hard-edged, do-what’s-necessary, take charge kind of gritty leader. Their chemistry is terrific. They have a shy tension, that eventually turns into an intense, believable love affair. It’s kind of amazing that the studio originally wanted Arnold Schwarzenegger to play Reece. Schwarzenegger as the Terminator provides us one of the all time characters in all of scifi. He is the ultimate warrior android, and has been imitated far too many times to count.

The Pacing: The Terminator’s pacing is probably the most copied aspect of this film. The Terminator, from the very first scene to the very last is a chase movie. The tension goes from high to massively high to short breathers, back to massively high tension. You literally feel tired after watching this. While this doesn’t seem unusual now, back in the early 80s, The Terminator took the hectic fast pacing of Raiders of the Lost Ark and adapted it to a full scale chase flick. The real magic here was Cameron’s ability to embed a fascinating story into the chase, while changing the bad guy from human to robot to basically add a completely new feeling to the chase.

The FX: For the budget, Terminator’s FX far exceeded anything that should have been possible. The Endoskeleton, made up of miniatures, models and stop-motion animation, is now part of movie lore. The car chase scenes still look terrific, as do the explosions. The near-future dystopic scenes are completely riveting, especially the flying HKs! However, a few of the model shots of Arnold do look slightly dated now (most noticeably when Arnold takes out his eye).

The Score: Brad Fiedel’s percussive, driving beat that creates an industrial masterpiece that absolutely nails the feeling of The Terminator. You can still here the “dun-dun dun dun-dun” beat and IMMEDIATELY get teleported back to that sense ominous doom of the future that the Terminator portends.

Time Travel: The Terminator provides us one of the best time travel movies in cinema. It’s intelligently done in a coherent way that really sets the picture moving. But the real majesty is in the photograph (see above). I LOVE the picture and everything it represents. There, in that one image, we get the entire love affair of Sarah and Reece, John’s struggle relating to someone he knows to be his father (but who cannot know in return), Sarah’s future journey, and a wonderful mind fuck to boot! The placement of the time travel elements at the beginning and ending of the story really do add impact to its meaning.

Guerilla Filmaking: In watching the most awesome extras on special edition DVD, it’s clear that the Terminator was way over-ambitious (thank God!). In post-production, it was clear to Cameron that a number of additional unfunded scenes were needed in order to make a complete picture. Cameron used his weekly director’s pay to pay skeleton crews to go out and do additional shots – often which used incredibly low-end effects. For instance, the body bag used at the end was actually Cameron’s suit bag. The scene at the beginning where Arnold breaks into the station wagon was filmed with just him and Cameron, worrying about the police seeing them as Arnold breaks the car window (Arnold’s clothes for the scene were in his trunk – he had to change in the car!). More incredibly, the last shot of the Terminator, where the red eye slowly fades, was shot later – the smoke you see there was someone breathing cigarette smoke on the eye! In short, everyone gave blood, sweat and tears to make sure this film looked as good as it did.

The Bottom Line: The mood, energy and intensity of The Terminator oozes from every pore of the first shot to the last. If you are one of the very few who has not experienced this movie, you’re in for a treat! If you’ve seen it before (many times even), chances are you’ll be seeing it again. The Terminator definitely deserves a place of honor in the pantheon of cyberpunk flicks. One problem this film does give from a categorization perspective - they call the Terminator a cyborg, but he is really an android (even Cameron calls him this on the extras). The definition of a cyborg implies an augmented human, not an android covered with human tissue. I give it 9 stars as a movie, but add an additional star for its overall impact on film making.

Terminator Page 2: More Screencaps–>>

Overview: Even of Destruction, one of the myriad of “B” terminator imitator movies, is about a military project gone bad (Gee, that’s original!). In this case, they’ve developed an incredibly realistic android who can mimic humans. In addition to some very sophisticated fake cyborg exoskeleton stuff (similar to Terminator), they’ve embedded the android called “Eve” with memories from its creator, Dr. Eve Simmons (Renée Soutendijk). Eve can blend in, but also has incredible strength, terrific armor, great fighting skills, and also has a thermonuclear warhead embedded inside her body. Unfortunately, during “trial runs” while walking around the bay area, she accidentally gets shot during a bank heist.

The shooting ends up messing up her memory and programming, and after killing the bank robber, she takes his guns and leaves. To stop her, the military brings in its top man, Gregory Hines, a special forces cop type. Hines has to work with Eve’s creator, Dr. Simmons to stop this android before it blows up a bunch of city blocks.

The Bottom Line: While Gregory Hines puts in his usual decent performance, and Renée Soutendijk as the scientist. babe (and crazed android) puts in a pretty good performance as well, there are enough story issues to take away full enjoyment of this flick. This is even more problematic considering there is very little original here - you think they’d be able to get this right! Extra star added for acting well above the quality of the script, but not enough to make this good.

Overview: Masume Shirow’s Black Magic M-66 is one of the best Terminator anime clones. Most know Masume Shirow from his Appleseed and Ghost in the Shell Mangas, not to mention his myriad of other hot chicks kicking butt artwork (Intron Depot Ballistics is my favorite). Black Magic M-66 is his first anime. The visuals, while quality, are definitely 80s cartoon style.

In this “When Good Fembots Go Bad” tale, a tough and sexy journalist who likes to hang out in the buff picks up a military transmission on her scanner about an escaped weapon system. In her haste to get the story, she almost forgets to put on clothes, but finally comes back for a pair of pants. She eventually tracks the military to the woods and finds them besieged by an android weapon accidentally “turned on” after a horrible cargo plane crash.

This android chick is ultra-tough, nearly unstoppable, and, due to it running on laboratory test data, apparently has been programmed to kill the inventor’s daughter. The reporter figures this out tries to rescue the android inventor’s daughter, but the M-66 is hot on her heels. All hell breaks lose in this anime, which is essentially a Terminator-style chase from beginning to end.

If you’re a cyber-studies researcher in need of a good example of cyberpunk’s propensity for objectification of women, Black Magic M-66 is your movie! You get a bevy of good stereotypes here, including the tougher than tough, smarter than smart, ultra-hot reporter who doesn’t like to wear clothes, the needy and continually fainting daughter always in need of rescue, and of course the M-66 weapon system - made in a woman’s image for God knows what reason (other than the obvious, of course). Again, this movie doesn’t bother you with needless philosophies that might confuse things - its all visual.

The Bottom Line: Black Magic M-66 does not have in-depth philosophical questions - its not that type of cyberpunk anime. This is an action-fest from the get-go. It doesn’t bother giving you lots of in-depth set-up or character rationales. The action is good though, and the pacing is consistently fast and tense, and generally goes fast enough for you to ignore plot holes and bizarre side questions like why was the inventor’s daughter in the target the “test” data. The anime is still 80s style, especially in the backgrounds, but Shirow always does fine quality products.

Overview: Based on Metatron’s thread in the Meatspace, I decided to review this. Some movies are so bad they’re actually good in a funny kind of way. Others are just truly bad with absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever, and are painful to get through. American Cyborg: Steel Warrior is one of those kinds of movies. This film is the epitome of horrid, cheap derivative. There isn’t an original idea anywhere in sight, nor is there even a whiff of good craftsmanship, decent acting, decent cinematography, set designs, etc.

American Cyborg: Steel Warrior takes place in a shabby dystopic future where evil assassin cyborgs reign supreme. Humanity’s hopes rest with a genetically engineered Fetus that supposedly has what it takes to beat the evil cyborgs, and now, for unstated reasons, its mother (played horribly by Nicole Hansen) is carrying it around in a bag to get it to Europe, which is apparently the safe place. She is protected by a mysterious dude (horribly portrayed by Joe Lara) who, SHOCKINGLY turns out to be a good cyborg. All the while, they are pursued by a truly bad Terminator knock-off shabbily played by John Ryan. Terminator gets the bulk of the rip-offs here, but there’s a good bit of Robocop and Cyborg thrown in as well (you KNOW it’s a bad movie if its imitating Cyborg!).

The Bottom Line: Truly, there’s nothing redeeming here. Perhaps the only amusing thing is that American Cyborg is so predictable that you can literally guess pretty much every scene before it occurs. In short: This is not the cyberpunk movie you’re looking for…move along…

Overview: Slipstream is a movie directed by Tron’s Steven Lisberger, who, thankfully, time has mostly forgotten. This movie is supposed to take place in some future time where the continents have all reshuffled themselves due to Earthquakes (yes, you might think this would take hundreds of millions of years, but Lisberger apparently knows better). For the most part, Slipstream is a pretty lousy movie. Especially lousy are the costumes and set designs. The costumes consists of regular 1980s attire, while the set designs, what little there are seem hastily manufactured with little attention to detail.

The plot concerns an escaped android named Byron, who’s apparently killed someone, and has escaped to the fringes of society. The police bounty hunters, played by Mark Hamill and Kitty Aldridge, have just caught him after a 3 month trek, and are on their way back to bringing him in. On a stopover to get some food, they run into Matt, played by Bill Paxton, who sees Byron as his ticket to money and happiness. Without knowing he’s an android, Matt steals Byron from the police, and escapes down the “slipstream,” A river running down a huge gorge that seems to generate its own wind power. The rest of the movie is about Byron’s emergence and his friendship with Matt, while still evading the bounty hunters.

Android Freewill: The only interesting part of this movie concerns a scene where Byron has just been told he’s free, and, experiencing true freewill for the first time, is completely overloaded. He doesn’t know how to handle it and immediately asks for Matt to tell him what to do. This scene is a little too “in your face” but it is the highlight of the movie, and really, pretty much the ONLY aspect of this movie that feels cyberpunk.

The Bottom Line: There really isn’t much here. If you haven’t seen it, you probably won’t feel too bad. I will say that for the most part, the four acting leads give decent performances - this more than anything allows me to give it 5 stars. It’s a shame they had so little to work with. The plot is forced, the sets are aweful and the costumes are basically what the actors wore to the shoot.

Overview: Metropolis is a wonderful anime that, while it shares the same name as a far more famous movie, it is in fact a different story altogether. In this story, also set in an astoundingly beautiful futuristic city, with three tiers of inhabitants - the elite, the human working class, and all the way at the bottom, the slave-like robots. The powerful corporate leader who runs Metropolis, Duke Red, has created a structure called the Ziggurat, a huge tower designed to control all information and machines in the world. To make this possible, he hires Dr. Laughton, a genius criminal scientist to make a an super-android focal point of the Ziggurat, who is designed in the image of his daughter.

Fortunately for the world, their plans are disrupted when Shinsaku Ban, a detective from Japan, and his nephew Kenichi, arrive to track down and capture Dr. Laughton. They disrupt the “birthing” of the super-android, called Tima, and destroy the lab. In the ensuing chaos, Kenichi finds Tima, and thinking her human, rescues her from the destruction. They become separated from Separated from his uncle, and begin a journey of discovery in the lower levels of Metropolis.

Eventually, Duke Red learns that his super-android is alive and well, and dedicates everything to catch her. Over the course of the movie, Tima begins to learn her true nefarious purpose, while at the same time, begins to fall in love with Kinichi. This becomes a story of questioning what is humanity, and whether robots can be loved and treated like humans, or whether they are machines to be used for our purposes.

The Visuals and Sound: The visuals in metropolis are both varied and often astounding. We get a wonderful mix of 2D-3D graphics - unlike most movies, they are definitely weighted towards the 2D side. And I love how Metropolis makes the change in colors from almost a pastel-type opening to dark and dirty colors as the movie progresses. This is very similar to how Transmetropolitan does it in graphic novels. The characters are done in an interesting style, with almost completely round heads. This is disconcerting at first, but eventually you get used to it. And top top if off, we get some of the most wonderful use fo music in an anime. Some of the old fashioned Jazz tunes in here create a wonderful retro-type mood that really seems to fit.

The Bottom Line: Metropolis is a terrific little anime, although I would have liked to have seen a few parts of the script flushed out a bit more. Still, I love the movie, but it’s the ending that makes it for me. Tima’s question at the end pretty much sums up the purpose of the movie. This is a really nice exploration into the nature of humanity thing from a cyberpunk film standpoint.