To get the most important thing out of the way first, Metropolis is one of the best-looking animated movies ever made. Even putting aside a huge budget that avoids simple frame rate problems, Metropolis is practically an ode to nearly every major type of animation, combining hand-drawn, painted, digital, and computer generated backgrounds and objects with fluidity I never thought possible by keeping background shading consistent even when parts of the backgrounds are from different origins, and by keeping colors and tones consistent yet broad in a fantastically surreal way. Similar to Rintaro's direction, Metropolis's animation combines the classic era with the modern era, and even borrows several architectures and themes from the sets and story of Fritz Lang's Metropolis. This is the kind of unrestrained imagination animation was meant to bring to life in ways live-action is limited by, and although it largely comes from a base of nostalgia, Metropolis is still a forward-thinking animated movie among any of its lower-aiming contemporaries.
The advanced city of Metropolis is the world's leader in both technology and culture, but although the gigantic city has a glitzy outside and a powerful public reputation, turmoil is threatening to push the city downwards from under the surface. Detective Hige and his assistant/nephew Kenichi are sent to investigate Metropolis in search of the mad scientist Dr. Laughton. Dr. Laughton is hiding in Metropolis under employ from the city's ruler Duke Red, who's commanded Dr. Laughton to create an android (similar to the one in Lang's Metropolis) of his beloved yet deceased daughter Tima to soothe his grief and perhaps be part of a much more sinister plot. Meanwhile, Duke Red's adopted but neglected son Rock grows jealous of his father's attention, and also due to his prejudice against robots seeks to kill the newly awakened Tima as Hige and Kenichi attempt to protect her and discover Duke Red's true plans. Meanwhile, unrest increases between humans and the robot labor force (another theme borrowed from Lang's film), and at the center are a group of anti-robot terrorists known as the Marduks and Duke Red's latest pride and joy, the flying mechanical blimp known as the Ziggurat.
It's quite a lot, isn't it? Indeed, Metropolis bites off a lot for its average 107 minute running time, and it never has a second to not talk with its mouth full. The faults of Metropolis and the reasons why it never caught on enough for the whole world to be aware of it are all located in the narrative, which is very dry despite the always impressive ambition and its attempt at a Shakespearean-esque tragic epic in scale. The story is in a bad spot of both recycling themes through its homages and not portraying them in any stronger or new ways beyond aesthetic, and even the fresh aesthetic is more of a hybrid of different sources rather than something truly unique. Most importantly though is that the story lacks any sort of a strong immediate hook. There are no great characters to get attached to other than the clearly complex Rock (who himself has little background or development like everyone else), and though this has the potential to be forgiven as individuals getting lost in a much larger story about a society, the city of Metropolis that is, the city's culture before the turmoil is barely established in order to service the plot and its downfall is sudden, not as natural as it should be, and not that cathartic. The characters being uninteresting is a serious blow to a what progresses as a detective story, as the background of the setting itself also takes the entire movie to unfold, so the full significance of what's happening isn't felt. This leads to the viewer being dragged through set pieces that are weak in important context.
Metropolis hopes for its story to succeed based on sheer size, and hopes that the powerful art direction will compensate for the story and characters' lack of width. This is a successful gamble when it comes to being pure entertainment as there's not a second when Metropolis isn't visually engrossing, but as Fritz Lang would put it, style is the mediator of the brain and the heart. These disparate qualities of Metropolis should work together in tandem rather than be a series of pretty patches. Though Metropolis is a very frustrating film as its faults are practically pronounced alongside its great potential of what it wants to achieve, it still manages to cement a place in pop culture regardless. Why? Because Metropolis is far from a film that can be faulted for lack of trying. It's a gorgeous feature that never completely loses sight of its grand ambitions, and its excitement and the love put into it is perfectly palpable with or without its shortcomings. If certain other anime films can become renowned as classics for similarly "traditional" themes on the basis of affecting art direction, then so should Metropolis. It's a movie that should be mentioned to anyone with an interest in animation, and given how rarely a film comes along that tries to top it in that aspect, it'll probably remain a stand-out animated film into the next generation or further.
