Armitage III: Dual-Matrix

Armitage III Dual Matrix

With a futuristic theme and a lot of sci-fi Armitage III Dual Matrix is a must for those who like science fiction and robots. You'll get the classic Matrix style action, high tech battles and a very interesting environment.

Though a few details are left shrouded in mystery, a lot of character development does go on, making it a worth-while movie.

It does have the classic and often overused theme of a robot becoming very much like a human, but it's not sappy about it in the least. While some search for the logic that explains an event proving that humanity, which is not ... the common "I have feelings too" claim but a different kind of event, others can't help it but to be amazed by the mystery. To say anything else would spoil it, so just watch it for yourself and enjoy a great sci-fi movie.

Takes place several years after the OVAS (not the Poly-Matrix movie), Naomi and Ross are living together in St.Lowell with their daughter Yoki. However, Naomi discovers that someone is trying to resurrect the "Thirds" project and Naomi travels to Earth to find out why. On Earth, she discovers that a man named Demetrio wants Armitage to revive the Thirds and to use them as their servants for mankind. she refuses and obviously, all hell breaks lose again. Now Naomi must save Ross and Yoki from the organization, destroy the "Thirds" project and get back to their home by all means necessary.

The story in this ... movie focuses more on the heroine Naomi. It focuses on the 2 sides of her; One that she is a Third type fighting machine and the second is that she is a loving mother who will risk her life to save her child from any danger she faces. The relationship with Naomi and Yoki is very hearfelt and you can clearly see that she cares for her own daughter, even if Naomi is a robot. Ross is still good but he has little to do in this movie and he's only useful in the last hours of the movie where he is protecting Yoki from a bunch of Thirds prototype robots that love to kill and for some reason, they can't stop laughing. The villain in this movie was boring as shit here and he's there to be an evil stereotype guy with no purpose whatsoever. Even the side-characters are as boring as ever in this movie and have barely to do in the story, minus that clown looking guy that helps Armitage (forgot the name).

The animation is improved in this movie for the better or worst. For the good about this animation is that it looks more slick and stylish than the first and the colors are greatly improved. For the bad part is that the animation company AIC had a low budget for this project and they used incredibly cheap CG animation that looks terrible and doesn't even fit with the 2D art style but I can't blame them. The English voice-acting is improved tremendously and Juliette Lewis performance as Naomi Armitage is badass, cool and most of all, heartwarming and she did a bang job at her role. Hank Wilspank's performance as Ross is a greater improvement over Sutherland's and while it isn't perfect, at least he gives more energy to his role than what Sutherland did in the first movie.

While not as good as the original, Dual Matrix offers enough depth and charm that it hardly matters if the sequel is better or not. If you're a fan of the OVAS or the movie, then I recommend this to you but don't expect this to be the perfect sequel that makes the original look bad cause it's not. It's only a solid and fun movie.

Armitage III Dual Matrix is not a bad movie sequel but it's not a masterpiece either.

The OVAs had a solid premise and mystique to them, this one has new animation which improves certain aspects of the movie. It's a bit of a mixed bag in Naomi's design, they improved her outfit, with tighter dress fitting but the facial expressions of the OVA felt more polished to me maybe it's my cel shaded bias, don't take it as if the details are not there this one has plenty of Naomi details, for the rest of the world building aspects unfortunately it suffers from the not so ... great 3D animations wish they went for the 2D animation only, for the Ross and the mecha animation sequences are very crisp.

Story takes a back seat due to the antagonist being one dimensional fare and the exploration of Earth is not shown that much, if we recall the OVAs we get a deep dive into Mars ecosystem. That however you wont be noticing much. Since they added some political drama into it which makes it worthwhile on understanding the universe. Also somehow they abandoned that idea of Earth being somewhat liberal centric from the OVAs, perhaps the focus of the story is minute. And somethings do not get proper outcome.

One small aspect I would point out is the OST is not a strong aspect of this movie.

The standout part is how Naomi's character arc gets some fleshed out story, that's the top class achievement by the staff here. They took her OVA character and improved on her without taking anything away, she gets to keep her hot style, caring. Ultimately making her into a woman. This makes up the whole story. Plus the best part is Armitage is a Cyberpunk show and it sticks to it's guns and elevates. For the fans of OVA they will not be disappointed even it falls a bit short of it since this is a niche genre and we got this to enjoy the best of Naomi.

Like the review I just did on it's predecessor, it's biased but time has had an effect. After the first Armitage, Naomi and Ross are together. With their daughter. Yeah, Ross knocked up a robot, figure that one out.

This time there was another attempt at producing more like Naomi, on Earth.
They are killed and the last one emails her dying memories to Naomi...on Mars... Okay, we got some WTFery here, not gonna lie.

Naomi abandons her family to go kick some ass, some old guy sends Ross and their daughter to a big Earth conference in his place, ... kid is snatched, mom is pissed, the big bad has a couple imperfect copies of Naomi try and kill her, and that's about it.

Wasn't the best written even back then, but like the first they had a really good OST, the animation is improved by a decade and is very bright and colorful, looking more like early 2000s titles.

The best? Meh. The worst? Nah. Worth it? I say most def. One of the rare better sequels.