METROPOLIS (2001)  **1/2

Reviewed 1/25/02

Anyone who has seen a lot of anime will tell you that a disproportionate number of them fall into the “makes-no-sense” category relative to other genres, and METROPOLIS adds one more to the list.  Scintillating to look at, the title city is a combination of the landscapes of Fritz Lang’s own METROPOLIS (and one of this film’s inspirations), BLADE RUNNER, and writer Katsuhiro Ôtomo's own AKIRA.  Every corner of the screen is filled with scraps of retrofuturist steampunk detail, but the filmmakers don’t give so much care to their story, which is just a total mess of familiar sci-fi tropes.  A wealthy mastermind has a robot girl built to run the world from his Tower of Babel.  His strong-headed adopted son’s attempt to destroy the robot only manages to set it loose on a reporter and his nephew Kinichi from whom the robot learns to have emotions.  Whoever chose the early-to-mid-20^th century American vocal and jazz pieces for this movie seemed to have been more than a bit oblivious to how it would play in a different cultural context.  It certainly does not have the absurd lyricism of DR. STRANGELOVE that this film aspires to.