Like its previous predecessors, the film takes place in a futuristic city called Kamina City. The main character of the series is Rune Ballot, a young girl whom suffers a near fatal fate after a certain incident from the first film. However, she survived with the unlikely help of a man named Dr. Easter while at same time undergoing some transformations that alters her body. What makes her existence fatal now though is the fact that her life is still in danger and every day is painful to live in.
The third film directly continues off from where The Second Combustion left off. The Bluegg Casino gives off a feeling of intensity as our characters ventures deep to discover secrets of the past. The casino game itself balances between a bit of psychological warfare with our main character Rune Ballot. Even though she is no longer human, Rune still looks human in many ways. The casino game itself also twists around in a form of mind games. At one point, characters mentions that the burden of winning can sometimes be even greater than losing.
I do give some praise to the action of the film in being consistent with the full throttle execution. There’s the brief road war and quick movements by our action girl Rune Ballot. However, the scenes were presented in such a fashion that it almost felt like it was over in a flash. On a more psychological side though, we get to witness more scenes revolving around Rune Ballot’s violent visions/flashbacks. Through them, it’s easy to relive those grim moments and realize that she is a character created by tragedy. It can make us feel pity for her because of her circumstances although by now, it should be a bit obvious already especially for those who’ve already seen the first two films. There’s also questions regarding Shell, the man responsible for both Rune’s reanimation and near destruction.
The violence returns as well with bullets being fired, blood being spilled, body parts torn off, and scenes of torture in cases. This is directly displayed by Rune Ballot later on in the film with her anger and hatred. Now it seems like that rage is directed at mistakes in the past as well as towards Shell. The result? Self carelessness and more ruthless decisions with unpredictable outcomes. Surprisingly enough, there’s not a whole bucket load of fan service. Unless you count the violence with blood being splattered as service, the amount of skin being shown on screen is minimal. I guess in a way, the movie tries to wrap up the trilogy up mentally rather than visually. Oh and speaking of mentally.....among other emotions displayed in Mardock Scramble is a lack of compassion. This is usually heard from the tone voices of the antagonists. Then again though, in such a violent world, there’s not much empathy for anyone as much as anything goes.
Artwork wise, I do give praise to the movie's visual standards. The concept of the cyberpunk world is presented clearly to reflect its theme. More than that though, the visuals gives an aura like background with rich details. Rune Ballot’s design is a fusion of both a girl and cyborg and matches the science fiction idea well. Soundtrack is also decent especially during battle scenes and more of the psychological themes in the beginning. At the same time, we can hear a mixture of emotions and sorrow from Rune’s VA Megumi Hayashibara.
Overall, this film wasn’t earth shattering at all. As the final film of the trilogy, the climax did settle a conclusion but it wasn’t something that made me go “wow, now that was worth waiting for”. No, instead it was more like a feeling of completing the series in order to move on. Why? Because the plot, characters, and themes tied together overall wasn't explosive or lived up to expectations. Ultimately, this film lands a 6/10 for me. It’s only slightly over an hour long though so there’s not much loss to despair over. What I did lose though were my somewhat high expectations. But if you're a fan of the Mardock Scramble series, then have a blast at this film to finish off this trilogy.
