More about this DVD  •  DVD Info  •  Movie Main Page  •  Message Board

Rintaro's film is a big-budget visual extravaganza blending state-of-the-art computer generated imagery with traditional animation. Almost every shot is crammed to the brink with layers of detail and movement, including a few production design nods to the original Metropolis, Akira, and other notable works of science fiction. The mix, however, is not entirely seamless. The character artwork, adapted from Tezuka's original drawings, is designed in an intentionally old-fashioned anime style featuring large-eyed Caucasians with exaggerated childlike appearances. This may be off-putting for Western audiences, and to be honest I found it distracting at times when it should not have been. There is basically no attempt made to place realistic characters into the heightened realism of the film's setting. I understand that the objective was to contrast an old style with a new style, much as the film's story plays with the motif of old versus new, but this doesn't always work as well as it is intended to.

It doesn't help that the movie is hampered by a simplistic storyline and some naïve political beliefs (rich people are bad, the proletariat is always oppressed). These are traits it shares in common with the Fritz Lang film, of course, but one might have hoped that in 80 years filmmakers could learn from past mistakes rather than repeat them. Metropolis gives you much to look at, but there is not a lot of story here. The film has more spectacle than substance. Otomo tries to work in themes of class warfare, man versus technology, and a none-too-subtle religious metaphor, all of which have been handled better in previous science fiction films. The robot struggling to establish its identity as a being rather than a machine was tackled more effectively in Blade Runner back in 1982, with just as much visual expressiveness and more philosophical depth.

What does work for Metropolis is its decidedly retro feel, seeming like a 1920's vision of the future as recreated with modern technology. This is a bright, jazzy fantasy loaded with verve and style, one that moves along at a steady clip right up until its gorgeous, apocalyptic climax. The movie's most impressive set-piece works so well that one might even forgive that it, like much else in the film, was copied from elsewhere (and even mix of Dr. Strangelove and End of Evangelion). I enjoyed much of Metropolis and I would certainly watch it again, but it could have been more than it is. Like the robot at the center of its story, the film feels like an artificial creation masquerading as something real. It comes close to transcending that boundary from one to the other, but doesn't quite get there in time.

Video: How Does The Disc Look?

The picture is letterboxed to its theatrical aspect ratio of approximately 1.85:1 with anamorphic enhancement. The opening scene may seem a hair too dark, but other than that the transfer is fine. The color palette is vivid and I detected no artifacting or compression flaws. Despite its cluttered and multi- layered art direction, there is something about the overuse of CGI backgrounds that flattens the depth of the animation. As a result, the image is not quite as vivid or striking as the Akira DVD, which I use as a standard of measure, but Metropolis has its own share of visual razzle-dazzle and the disc serves it well.

Audio: How Does the Disc Sound?

The DVD has a variety of language options. The original Japanese soundtrack is available in Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS 5.1, making it only the second domestically released anime title to sport a DTS track (the first was Jin-Roh). For those unable to watch a movie and read subtitles at the same time, there is an English dub in Dolby Digital 5.1 and a French dub in basic Dolby Surround.

We get not one but two sets of English subtitles (both yellow), one labeled "Original Japanese Translation" and the other called "U.S. Theatrical". This is confusing and rather misleading. I am not sure which subtitles the movie had when it played in American theaters (in a rare move, the film was released with its Japanese soundtrack instead of the English dub), but I suspect it was the actually Original Translation, not the other. The essence of the information conveyed by the two tracks is the same, but the wording is quite different. The so-called U.S. Theatrical track appears to be a literal translation of the Japanese words, meaning that its English is often awkward, while the Original Translation seems to have been adapted by a native English speaker and reads much more intelligibly. I recommend sticking with the Original Translation. My first suspicion was that one of the subtitle tracks would actually be a "dubtitle" (a transcription of the English dubbing script), but when I compared them to the English soundtrack neither set of subtitles matched it at all. I have no idea what happened to the dub script, but as recorded it is completely different than anything else on the disc. As if all of that weren't confusing enough, the disc is also encoded with true English closed captions from the same translation as the "U.S. Theatrical" subtitles and has additional subtitles in French, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Korean, and Thai.

Now, getting all of that out of the way, we can finally discuss the actual audio quality. The Dolby Digital is very nice indeed with lots of active separation effects and rocking bass, but the DTS track is even more spectacular. It has so much power and depth that I feared my speakers might blow apart at any second. The DTS has an amazingly broad soundstage with thunderous bass and crisp highs. Subwoofers will get a workout but the bass is very clean, not boomy at all. Luscious music seems to float in the air and creates a richly enveloping soundfield that comes at you from all directions without ping-ponging between speakers. This is a reference quality soundtrack that effectively balances quiet passages with intense action scenes, and it is delivered magnificently on the DVD.

Supplements: What Goodies Are There?

Columbia TriStar has released Metropolis as the first 1 1/2-disc special edition. After the movie, the only supplements on Disc 1 are the American theatrical trailer in non-anamorphic letterbox and some promos for other unrelated titles. Disc 2, however, is the first ever 3-inch "pocket DVD" and contains the rest of the supplements. So what exactly does a pocket DVD do? Well, about half as much as a regular DVD.

The largest bonus feature on the tiny disc is the 33-minute Animax Special: The Making of Metropolis. This is essentially the Japanese equivalent of an HBO First Look program. There's a bit of interesting technical talk with the animators and some tantalizing stills from the original manga, but overall this is a very promotional piece that is light on substance. The special itself really only runs 20 minutes, but there has been another 13 minutes of cast & crew interviews tacked onto the end. I have no idea why they were arranged this way, because elsewhere on the disc is a dedicated section for Filmmaker Interviews. This second section of interviews runs only 8 minutes and has comments from director Rintaro and screenwriter Otomo. Repeated several times throughout both the Animax special and the interviews is the claim that Osamu Tezuka specifically forbid this comic from being adapted into a movie while he was alive. It was only after his death that the film could go into production, and no one involved seems to feel particularly guilty about that. Both of these supplemental programs were recorded in Japanese and offer optional English subtitles.

The most informative supplement is the History of Metropolis still-frame text document, which provides a good deal of background about Osamu Tezuka and this specific work. Following this is a very short Photo Gallery of character design sketches and art direction storyboards. Finally, there is a section of Animation Comparisons where you can view various stages of animation individually, or toggle between them using the DVD player's multi-angle function. Two scenes are available.

The 3-inch disc worked perfectly fine in both of my DVD players. It has animated menus like a regular disc and offers the normal range of DVD functions, but is undoubtedly just a marketing gimmick designed to disguise the fact that we get half as many supplements as a normal special edition. At least it's cute.

DVD-ROM Exclusives: What do you get when you pop the disc in your PC?

No ROM extras have been included.

Parting Thoughts