Review – Metropolis

Every time I see this movie I’m amazed at how well a picture from the silent era can stand the tests of time. Use the words “state of the art visual effects” about a 21st-century movie, and you’re probably discussing a picture that’s going to be outdated and dull in less than ten years. But Fritz Lang uses effects so skillfully that his simple model and set work is still stunning in the age of big, noisy CGI. If anything, it’s the ham-handed moralizing of the story that comes across as clunky and dated. I’ve seen at least three different prints of this movie, and each uses a different strategy to cope with the missing footage. But the footage that we do still have, especially the robot transformation sequence, is breathtaking stuff. Buy the disc