Brilliant and touching

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

(spoilers are a real time saver)...Imagine a world, in the not so distant future, where people resemble CGI renderings of the "Team America: World Police" puppets...So lemme get this straight - natural resources dried up and the global economy collapsed as the 3 sentence text intro narrates for us. And yet, they were able to link up a continental metro system and keep it up and running? mmkay.Dandruff shampoo is used to read and manipulate the minds of the masses. Altho the shampoo doesn't eliminate dandruff, it is used by everyone (actually half of everyone), including bald people, ... unconditionally. (What did you think of my conditioner pun?) Maybe that shampoo is their only option because of a future shampoo monopoly. I mean, You can't just not wash your hair in grungy dysfunctional dystopiaville. Or maybe the hot blonde in the brainwashing ad was just too convincing. I don't know, everyone uses the same shampoo, just go with it.And listening in on your thoughts (as provided somehow by shampoo) from the other end is some dude at a desk. There's a one-to-one ratio between people on the shampoo and people being controlled. Half the population controls the other, but hey, they just work there, what else can they do?Look, I understand it's an art form and you gotta take liberties, but c'mon, this is just too dumb to be serious. I dunno, maybe I'm just too left brained for this one.The main character is just a "normal" guy us simpletons in the audience can identify with. Ah, how pleasantly belittling.The music was as empty as the blank expressions on that blonde girl's face.It was so dark I could barely see half the time.Some of the voice acting felt flat, forced, like read from the script. Comparing it to a cheap video game would be a slight exaggeration, but it made me think of such nonetheless.I used to enjoy dystopian movies, but I guess I'm getting burned out. What are they supposed to represent? The evil corporations? The ones that put high fructose corn syrup in everything? Little known fact - the only reason we know about high octane sugar is because they're required to give us an ingredient list.

So. Metropia. Well, I really wanted to like this film. I love science fiction, especially intelligent science fiction, but Metropia does not cut it. I didn't like the flat, one dimensional way they did the CGI, but that's just me. They wanted to try something different and it didn't work for me. However, I didn't find the whole thing visually interesting. The grayish, sepia tones helped establish the mood of the film, but too much of anything can become monotonous. In the first 'Alien' there's an undercurrent of dread, even before anyone dies, but the lighting changes depending on what part of the ship they're in. Even '1984' changes lighting more often! The dialogue is good, but hardly remarkable. The main character didn't evoke much sympathy. He's a bit TOO much of a schlump. Too much of an everyman to be interesting. The voices in his head do a good job of confusing him and the audience. Are they actual voices, or is he slowly losing his mind? However, that too is a bit confusing. And not in a good way. It turns out the corporation, run by an old, crusty, almost decrepit old businessman is in fact monitoring us all. They are feeding us instructions when we stray from the path of conformity and obedience. However, we don't learn to what end. It wasn't clear what they wanted to accomplish. If that was mentioned anywhere in the film, it was not clear. And to me, that's poor storytelling.I rented this on a Friday night, got about 45 minutes in and fell asleep. Never a good sign in a movie. A movie can be slow paced, but there still has to be dramatic tension. Or suspense. This movie did not have it. Of course, I should realize; any movie Vincent Gallo's involved in is going to plod along unbelievably slowly. The premise is good. The average person needing to wake up and not be controlled by corporations or advertising or whatever, is a good idea. I give the movie credit for what it attempts, even though it's been done many times before. However, the execution of this idea was pretty poor. Kind of like when the blonde tries to alert the protagonist to the danger and get him to help her. She tries to seduce him, unfortunately in her underwear instead of completely nude. (And since there was nudity earlier, the movie didn't hold back to be a nice PG film.)If she'd approached him stark naked, he might have found her impossible to resist. She too had a good idea, but it was very poorly executed.

...although its odd, noir-ish animation and production design briefly intrigued; "Metropia" simply couldn't hold interest with its sadly derivative and mostly unappealing story. We've seen this all before, many times, and in far more interesting and less obtuse ways. As a dystopian warning, it would have worked much better had it been shorter, and for that very reason I'm going to keep this blurb concise as well. I respect the intent (despite the irony of American Express sponsoring what is essentially an anti-corporate piece), but the execution was overly indulgent and too soporific for its own good. Freebie viewing only.

Before seeing this film I heard it was made with an innovative visual style, so challenging the technical aspects took a long time to create. But what struck me immediately when it began was how bad it looked. Those who called this visually impressive can't be serious, the film is simply ugly. At parts I feel like I'm watching a video game from the 90s. There is absolutely no depth in the picture, the movements are extremely slow and everything is overall so stiff. The characters are so lifeless it's like you are watching statues. But someone might say the technical is not all. I agree with that but the design is just as bad. The dystopian scenery has no originality, just the normal stuff in this kind of genre. If the houses and stuff are just the regular the design of the humans is kind of special but in a negative way. They look like statues made of clay. They've come somewhat close to the uncanny valley effect. The big heads and slow animation make them seem so lifeless it just gets worse. The voice acting is surprisingly weak, surprising because there are some usually good actors in the cast. But the voices are so wooden, it causes the characters to feel even more lifeless if possible. But maybe the dull acting is to blame on the directing and script, which brings me to the story. So the outside of the film is very poor but is there something on the inside then? The simple answer is no. I've already established that there can be zero development in the characters and the plot just maintains the low quality. The story is just stupid. Inspired by the 1984 kind of stuff but developed to something laughably dumb. Naturally it never gets the least interesting but it's also so ridiculous one feels embarrassed to be watching it. Who approved this story I cannot imagine. The story is not just dumb it's extremely thin, lacks in any substance and most twists are so poorly explained anyone pretty soon into the film realises most of it makes no sense. But it's so bad that one couldn't care less. Metropia must be one of the most boring films I've seen in years. If there is anything to be thankful about it's that the film is not that long but I still struggled to keep myself awake. To summarize Metropia is just plain rubbish. Visuals, technique, design, characters, story, everything fails completely. I did not like it to say the least 3/10.