City Slicker

Kenichi, wha?: It takes anime to show real imagination in America's theaters.

Details

Opens Friday.

Related Content

• Dog Lays A Mac Down
  February 3, 2011
• Australia
  November 27, 2008
• Star-Crossed and Speedy
  August 13, 2009
• Debbie Does Dallas
  March 13, 2008
• Pretty in Pink
  August 28, 2007

More About

• Duke Red
• Baz Luhrmann
• Animated Films

Like this Story?

Sign up for the Events Newsletter: What's happening in town? From underground club nights to the biggest outdoor festivals, our top picks for the week's best events will always keep you in on the action.

Privacy Policy Cancel Continue

Anime director Rintaro (X) is out to dazzle us with this adaptation of a 1940s Japanese comic, and for the most part he succeeds. Blending eras as deftly as Baz Luhrmann in Moulin Rouge, he gives us a detail-heavy computer-animated city populated by hand-drawn characters who resemble old newspaper comics characters such as The Katzenjammer Kids. Basically, we're following a young boy named Kenichi and his uncle Shunsaku Ban in their search for a missing scientist named Dr. Laughton. To assist in their quest, they rent out a robot detective, amusingly decked out in classic film noir trenchcoat and fedora. The robot becomes a source of tension, as are all robots in a city where the workers are losing their jobs to machines. Even the most minor positions, like dog-walker and birthday clown, have robots for the job. Taking things to extremes are the Marduk party, a red-shirted fascist movement bent on militant action against all robots, and a less-organized gang of underground Marxist rebels, equally opposed to robots but placing the blame where it belongs, on the industrialists who hire them. Both, unwittingly, are pawns in the power struggle between President Boon and billionaire Duke Red, whose giant building promised in the beginning is actually a secret superweapon. Red is also having a robot daughter made for himself, one so advanced she won't know she isn't human and will be able to love. The plot sags a little toward the end, but the movie overall shows more imagination than anything else in theaters.