http://atmo.se/film-and-tv/metropia/

So the story is set in this extremely extravagant city, which has just completed the construction of their ziggurat tower.  The city and technology are in some sort of semi futuristic world where we have decided it’s a good idea to build as high as we can in a vain effort to stop ourselves being able to produce food or something.  Despite this extreme technological breakthrough we still use sort of steam punk style machinery along, with cogs and everything.  If you add in the futuristic visual version of the internet and you have a warped sense of technology.  A sort of Ghost in the Shell meets Steamboy type situation. Throw in the film noir detective and a robot police officer and i think you start to see the picture more coherently.  The society seems to be split up into two strands, the people who live topside, reaping the benefits of the enslaved robot race that runs the city.  These topsiders are juxtaposed with the Proletariat underdogs who live under the city in Zone 1.  Subsequently they are very unhappy. We also have a set of terribly Victorian bad guy gentlemen with amazing facial hair, top hats and canes, the works.   So it’s a sort of adventure, film noir, cyber-steam punk extravaganza.  All of this setting is brought to life with brilliant character animation and backdrops.  The city is extremely well illustrated and lit. My only criticism here is the use of some dodgy CGI in certain places, but it was 2001, so we shall let them off with it.

So we have the rich capitalist types mentioned above, wanting nothing more than to control the world in proper bad guy style.  They have a giant tower and want it to be ruled by the Supreme Being.  But we have a young hero and his older private detective Uncle on the case, with a super advanced robot girl tagging along for good measure, who also happens to be the Supreme Being in question.   Throw in some vigilante armies, who aren’t controlled by the city, but instead by some evil corporate super villain.  Some revolutionists, angry robots and nice robots and I think you are most of the way there.

So obviously the film actually has a lot more than this. It is a clever journey into common sci-fi themes we have all seen before, but loved to see over and over. It has good strong characters, some brilliant hair styles. A somewhat 80s Anime feel at points, some stunning machinery and locales. To top all that off we have some genuinely moving moments. Don’t go into this expecting Ghost in the shell though, it’s not. I say if you haven’t already seen it, do so at your earliest convenience, its brilliant.