'Armitage III: Poly Matrix' review by MartialHorror.

Source: http://freewebs.com/mha3

ARMITAGE III: POLY MATRIX(1997)
(Directed by Takuya Sato)

"No, there is no Armitage 1 or Armitage 2...I know, confusing, right?"- Signed by MartialHorror.

Plot: Two cops on Mars must team up to catch a psychopath who kills humanoid robots.

Review:

I had actually seen “Armitage III: Poly Matrix”, along with its sequel, “Armitage: Dual Matrix” at various points in my childhood, although I never made the connection between them and remembered very little of either. I never even really remembered the titles. But someone wanted me to review them, and “Armitage III: Poly Matrix” found itself in my DVD player.

Despite the fact I’m no longer much of an anime fan, I can appreciate anime(especially the movies) on various levels. “Wicked City” and especially “Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust” were pretty cool, and “Perfect Blue” is downright genius. Every once in awhile, I’ll look at my ratings of some of the movies I review and wonder what was I thinking to be too soft. In the case of animated movies, why in the hell did I rate “Golgo 13: The Professional” moderately positive? The more I think about it, Golgo 13 represents my issue with anime in general. It creates a character who is so cool that he fails to come across as remotely human, and I refuse to believe that I’m the only one who actually wanted Golgo to die in that movie. Thankfully, “Armitage III: Poly Matrix” is likeable in that it creates a protagonist who is a fully dynamic character and we root for her till the very end. This alone redeems the fact that it's not a very good movie.

Ross(Kiefer Sutherland) is a detective who has been transferred from Earth to Mars due to a recent tragedy, but as soon as he arrives, he witnesses an ass-kicking detective in hot pants, Armitage(Elizabeth Burkley) get in a gunfight with D’Anclaude(Dan Woren), a gun toting psychopath. D'Anclaude is driven away, but his luggage is spilled, revealing the corpse of a famous country singer. It turns out she’s a robot(one who can live as a human) and D’Anclaude is intent on slaying all humanoid robots. Ross and Armitage must team up to stop him.

While watching this movie, I was baffled at how baffled I was. This movie made little sense too me. There was too much plot going on, yet too little information! The relationships all felt thin, but were supposed to be taken as more. Sure, you have the typical love story, which despite being rushed, isn’t as rushed as your usual Hollywood picture. But certain lines are thrown in there that makes us wonder if we missed something. At one point, a character states how Armitage is a great cop, yet he barely knows her and all evidence points otherwise. She’s destructive, beats up witnesses and nearly kills someone until Ross stops her. She’s too emotionally driven to make a good cop. Furthermore, the relationships between the protagonists and their co-workers all felt thin, and once again, I was wondering if I was missing something. Oh yeah, I don’t even need to bring up the whole bit with Armitage and that kid robot. Well, I was wondering if I should’ve watched “Armitage 1” and “Armitage 2” when I found out that they don’t exist. The source material is “Armitage 3”, an OVA series that this movie was edited from. Yes, I say edited from. They took the series and condensed it into a movie. The result is that it’s very convoluted and occasionally shallow. I suppose fans of the series will understand it a lot more than I did.

The films animated style might throw people off as well. With everything so digitalized this days, this rougher, more traditional cel animation might seem crude and foreign to some. I found myself loving it, and the action scenes came across as pretty inspired and intense. I did feel that the finale was kind of……anti-climactic though.

But what really made it work for me was Armitage herself. Whereas anime characters tend to be either overly serious or obnoxiously hyperactive, Armitage creates a likeable blend of the two. At first, she seems a bit too cold and serious, but when she suddenly starts flirting with Ross, it completely throws you off. Throughout the movie, she shows a variety of emotions and comes across as really complex and really likeable. She was my anchor to the movie and she made it fully enjoyable.

The big draw here was that they got big stars in these anime roles…Unfortunately, it doesn’t work as well as you think. Elizabeth Berkley(Armitage)- Holy *beep* that was Elizabeth “Showgirls” Berkley? Wow……Anyway, she generally does good, but kind of lost me during some of her more emotional scenes. Kiefer Sutherland(Ross) generally does fine, but also has plenty of off moments. In both of their defenses, voice acting and live action acting are two different beasts altogether, so it’s expected that they won’t do as well…..Everyone else does fine though.

Ugh, who would I recommend “Armitage III: Poly Matrix” too? If you’re a fan of the series, there is probably no reason to see this. If not, then you might be too confused. But I guess I’d recommend this if you’d rather watch this over the OVA. The animation style is pretty awesome, especially in a nostalgic way, and Armitage is a pretty kick ass character. If you’re an anime fan but haven’t seen this, you should either check out this or the OVA series. The OVA might have more information, but the movie is obviously going to have a swifter pace. Either way, I enjoyed it.

Violence: Rated R worthy. Most is done to robots, but it’s still really unsettling.

Nudity: Yeah, there is quite a bit of this too.

Overall: “Armitage III: Poly Matrix” isn’t really a good movie, but it does enough right that I ended up thoroughly enjoying it.

3/4 Stars

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