Patlabor: The Movie (1989)

A simple plot that even then wasn't fully developed. The main antagonist is nothing but a name - neither physically present nor any hint of any motive or rationale. There's one minor twist in the plot but it's revealed too early on to register as anything particularly special; and isn't really believable in the context either.The characters are similarly simple and undeveloped. All you really get is a bit of goofiness and an overdone grump. There were family elements, differences in opinion, unique relationships, etc, that could've been exploited to good effect but were left empty.So what drives the movie? An odd mix of: a) Typical anime action. Nothing new - just robots and robot suits bashing on each other. b) Art-house style trying-to-be-philosophical long pauses and random quotes.Might be intriguing if you like both of the latter. But don't watch it for either the story or the human element.

I started watching this not expecting too much. I was very pleased when the story turned out to be very tense and the characters quite believable. It was at all time a very entertaining movie, the score consisting of various types of acoustical underlay blended in harmonically with the visual art. Even though the animations look a little aged, they still did not disappoint me. I liked the high degree of details that was put into almost everything. I was surprised several times of the awesomeness, for instance when the rescue-team reaches the arc that lays in the dark. The atmosphere of that particular scene reminded me strongly of "Alien" which is also a very good movie I might add). There were some humorous parts as well that nicely rounded the mood of an otherwise sinister animemovie which I have to consider one of the best ones I've seen. I recommend it to everyone who in the slightest likes anime 9/10

Here is what happens: the movie starts with 10 mins of nice action scenes; the movie ends with 30 mins of very nice fighting scenes; in between, there are 60 mins of deadly boring static uninterrupted dialogues that will make you wonder what the hell the director wanted to demonstrate with this! I usually appreciate static scenes, but this is way too much!My suggestion: see the start, then skip forward, then see the end. Or get something else.

Japanese animation has become very popular in the past few years. Somehow, it also gained the notoriety for "extreme" sex and violence, though it's a misconception that all Japanese animation is about that. Yet, animation in general is viewed as a kids only fare.I recommend anyone to watch Patlabor: the movie. It has a very mature storyline. When I mean mature, I meant well-thought out story that can leave you thinking.In the future, giant industrial utility robots called labors are used throughout Japan. Those in the law enforcement department use labors called Patlabors (patrol labors). Lately, there are reports of labors running amuck on its own. From this point we follow the heroes in a detective like story.There are no nudity, violence is pretty tame compared to your half-hour dose of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers (a series also a byproduct of Japan, I know but I'm not here to discuss my distaste for the Rangers) TV show. What we have is a straight-forward mystery as the story unravels what is going on. It also explores about man and technology and how it's like the Tower of Babel in biblical literature.The movie is based on the tv show and comic. I only got to see a few episodes of the show. The movie, like the show, do not have the robots dominating the story, thus focusing more on the human characters. Watching the movie, I almost feel like I'm watching a PG/PG-13 live-action movie. Akira and Ghost in the Shell also have a deep story in them, it's not as involving perhaps they were covered so much cinematic effects (and sex and violence?). Patlabor blew me away in that it successfully simply told an honest-to-goodness story without being covered in so much effects.The verdict: 5 of 5 stars.