Father chose his mad scientist very well
We just finished watching Osamu Tezuka's Metropolis. It's a timeless tale, really: boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl, girl turns out to be a robot built in secret by a mad scientist acting on the orders of the leader of a semi-secret cult whose goal is to take over the world by means of a giant radiation source that somehow only affects robots and not humans and also happens to contain a giant mechanized throne with which the robot girl interfaces and eventually goes mad and attempts to kill the boy and nearly succeeds but is thwarted by the cultist's tenacious ward who has been trying to destroy the robot girl all along to protect the cultist but ends up destroying the girl and the giant radiation source along with the cultist and a horde of robot attackers. Oh, and there's a bit of man vs. nature symbolism, too.
I can't really recommend this bizarre movie, although the animation has its moments and soundtrack is impressively goofy. If you do see it, be sure to keep your ears peeled for a sound effect that sounds exactly like the Millennium Falcon breaking down (several scenes were cribbed wholesale from the original Star Wars trilogy, too, but as jaded moviegoers we're used to that by now, right?).
Posted by ned at October 20, 2002 11:15 PM