Armitage III Poly-Matrix (Geneon Signature Series)

Customer Reviews:

this movie gave me rabies.......2007-07-24

[NOTE: due to me recent death, caused by me contracting the rabies virus from watching this movie, I am now writing this review from heaven. please accept my obvious bias and anger towards this movie]

I am at a loss for world right at this moment. How can anyone sane possibly give this piece of trash movie anything higher than one star? While watching this...thing... I quickly felt a change take over me. Anger cursed through my body and I started foaming at the mouth. My brain began melting from the sheer stupidity of this film, and then I had a heart attack and died a painful death. Even the thought that anybody could like this moronic trash was enough to make me laugh, but then I go on Amazon and see people calling it "thought provoking" and the "best anime ever." WHAT? I could not believe what I was reading, so now I am here to tell the truth about possibly the WORST anime ever made.

the movie starts out well enough with the murder of the world last country music star (YES! I hate country music) but takes a dramatic turn for the worse when the "cop" that tries to arrest the murderer turns out to be a 16 year old girl who looks like she got her uniform from Hot Topic and Victoria Secret. She has a heart belt buckle on her cop uniform, please. The "cop" whips out a bright red gun (I'm surprised there weren't any flower stickers on it) and starts shooting in a crowded airport. As this is going on our main character, a cop from earth who is your stereotypical buff guy with a sensitive spot just sits there and watches. Some cop he is.

From there on the story just gets worse and worse. Turns out that Mars is going through some sort of crises. Robots are taking people jobs away a, and now a bunch of out of work bums are roaming the streets trying to kill robots. turns out though that Armatige, out half naked 16 year old Victoria Secret wearing cop is really (shock shock) AO ROBOT. Yeah, I know, I didn't see it coming either.

This film tries to hard to be something its not. It want to be Ghost in a Shell with a deep philosophy hidden underneath its skin but end of being nothing more that a cheap imitation. They try to play off Armatige as a real person, but lets face it people, she IS A MACHINE!!! It's not like in Ghost in a Shell where the Major was born human but given a cyborg body to better fight crime, Armatige never WAS human. She is 100% pure robot. Her emotions are artificial, her brain is an AI, she is nothing more that a very high tech toaster, and yet she is treated as if she were really human.

Because of this I found it EXTREMLY disgusting when the male lead actually slept with her. First off, even if you want to think of her as human, she's still only about 16 years old, and he's what? 30? This makes him a pervert regardless. But the idea of sleeping with a robot is just too stupid to comprehend. It's the equivalent of Sara Conner sleeping with the terminator. Disgusting. I don't care how human she seems, I don't care how much she thinks she's human, she is NOT HUMAN!!!

There are so many great anime out there that you can skip this one and not miss it. If you want a philosophical movie about cyborgs, see Ghost in a Shell. If you want sci fi action that takes place on different worlds, see Venus Wars or Cowboy Bebop. If you want cyber punk, see Serial Experiments Lain. If, however, you want to commit suicide, then this may just be the movie for you. But be prepared for a painful death. After all, rabies hurts man.

Naomi is one of my heroes, BUT.......2007-06-22

Polymatrix is a movie version of the OVA. While it's fun to look at, there is too much taken out of the original series. Yes, it still makes sense for the most part, but the relationship building between Naomi and Ross is not as strong, Jean Claude's motives don't seem to make as much sense, and the true bitterness Ross feels about robots isn't as telling in this film.

My biggest grlpe is the voice actors. Elizabeth Berkeley and Keifer Sutherland give the most deadpan and lifeless performances that it really sucks the magic out of the characters.

The OVA is far superior to this release.

Loved it!.......2005-06-17

I loved this movie. Made it on the top Anime/OVA and overall fav. movies.

As a Elizabeth Berkley fan, I was pleased with her work in this film. Not her best, but it worked well. I sometime though Jess from Saved by the Bell once in a while which in my view is not to bad.

The movie was great though, great plot, music, visuals, character interation/reactions, it was all good. It filled many genres.

Skip This -- Get The OAV.......2003-11-14

There are tons of great reviews for this movie. That's understandable if none of them have seen the original OAV series this came from. See, back in 1994-1995, a 4-part OAV series called "Armitage III" came out in Japan. "Poly-Matrix" takes that 140-minute series and hacks it down to ~90-minutes. Thus this 1997 dub-title is born. So a lot of the story gets cut and things aren't nearly as good as the original. If you've seen the original, you'll be annoyed at all of the cuts and poor edit choices.

As to the dub cast (there is no Japanese cast on a dub-title as they simply re-edit an original Japanese product for American consumption), having big stars lend their voices makes it a better dub than a lot of anime titles/series. But it doesn't make up for the complete and utter hack job the series was given to form this movie.

Bottom line: If you thought this was good, the OAV is tons better. If you haven't seen this, get the OAV instead.

Thought provoking.......2003-11-10

Armitage III - Poly Matrix is in a class all its own. Almost as if it were an anime version of Bladerunner, Ross and Armitage hunt down and destroy thirds. Similar in theme to Metropolis (2001), the characters are fixers in a world of technology gone awry. It is gritty, sassy and a bit graphic and is not for the weak of heart. Much has been said about the graphics but little is mentioned about the implications of the story of a sentient robot out to destroy her own. Unlike Ghost in the Shell, which focuses on the issue of cyborgs -- this one is steeped with robot lore. As part of the big four (Ghost in the Shell, Akira, Princess Mononoke, and the Armitage series) is a necessary element to appreciating this ever changing and very dynamic genre. Hyroyuki Ochi, although creating something short of a classic, has created a thought provoking saga.

Amazon.com

This sequel offers little of the Blade Runner-influenced vision of a despotic future that made the original OAV and previous feature so popular. After living peacefully under assumed names on Mars, Naomi Armitage and her husband Ross Sylibus are drawn into a standard anime plot involving a sinister corporation's efforts to create artificial humans. The curvaceous Naomi is actually a "Third," the most formidable type of cyborg. (She's even borne a child, which suggests just how sophisticated her circuitry is.) Naomi takes on the duplicates of her that the evil Demetrius Mardini has created, in a series of gunfights, fistfights, knife fights, and explosions. Despite the film's promising origins, clumsy storytelling and director Katsuhito Akiyama's tendency to stage many of the battles in dim dramatic lighting hurt its impact, as it's difficult to follow what's happening. Rated 16 Up: Graphic violence, violence against women, nudity, profanity. --Charles Solomon

Customer Reviews:

Could be better........2007-06-24

As with the OVAs, I feel that there is not a whole lot to this anime. I feel that is could have been much better with more antagonists to be delt with and the ones already there not so easily delt with. I still think that some people could enjoy it thus the three-star rating.

Not bad for a sequel.......2007-06-21

While not as gritty as the original series, Dual Matrix makes for a good follow up. The animation is crisp and very good. The story was great as well. What got me was some of the extended and drawn out sequences at the end with the evil robots. They just felt too long.

Naomi still knows how to dish it out!

Favorite Anime Ever.......2007-05-12

I am not a real big fan of Anime but my best friend one day showed it to me and i was amazed at how awesome it was. Great story line and stuff. my only true complaint is that they have a different voice actor for the main character in both movies

Not like the OVA series, but not bad either........2005-12-23

This doesn't deserve a 3.5 star average, it deserves at least four. Dual Matrix continues the Armitage story after the OVA series. Armitage is back in Chicago with Ross...but she has a child. An evil scientist wants to find out how Armitage can reproduce so he can build robots exactly like her. In the meantime, he builds two inferior copies that are designed to fight Armitage. The antagonist captures Armitage's daughter and holds her hostage in hopes to get Armitage to comply...guess NOT.

Like the OVA series, there's plenty of action and violence, but what sorta turned me off was the change in animation; it was animated by a computer instead, and you don't feel as emotinally charged for the characters. But other than that, its a solid anime flick, much better than the s*** that the "otakus" drool all over like InuYasha and FLCL. If you were a fan of the OVA series, I suggest you give this a spin in your DVD player.

Armitage rules!!

Not as good...but growing on me........2003-04-29

The first time I saw this DVD sequel to one of the best animes of the '90's on the shelves, I was skeptical. When I saw that Juliette Lewis was doing the voice for super-sexy robot ...Naomi Armitage, my feelings were mixed, knowing her to be a competent actress with a sexier voice than Elizabeth Berkeley (and certainly sexier on screen). When I finally watched it...I was disappointed. And yet...I watched it again, and I liked it a little more, despite the flaws.

As a sequel, it's pretty standard. It acknowledges the events of the first movie (except of course for the funny plot hole of why nobody on Mars recognizes Ross or Armitage when they figured to be such prominent characters in a government conspiracy in the original). The sequel expands (not answers, but expands) on certain questions from the first, like how does a robot have the ability to conceive human children? The action is pretty good, almost as good as the original, and it wrap things up nicely in the end.

The major flaws with this sequel are inherent in the animation. It's just not nearly as good. The animators went a little overboard with the use of CGI for some of the vehicular chase scenes (which were pretty cool, but obviously out of place with the rest of the animation). The panning is far less smooth than in the original, probably another result of CGI...it just doesn't look the same. The character design is updated slightly to give a sense that the characters have matured slightly. The backgrounds and setting aren't all that great either, but...it is mostly on Earth, not Mars. Maybe they just didn't want to go too far with it. There's also a problem in the plot, which is almost a direct rehash of the original, only instead of the government being behind it, it's the big robot-producing corporations that have a lot to lose if robots are allowed to be treated as human. Politics come into play a little more this time around, but that hardly helps the case the plot is pretty much the same. Also, the cliched plot devices of taking the child hostage and of a mother protecting her child is played out in perfect form here. Armitage could take out an entire army to protect her child...and she pretty much does (well...two ultra violent clones of herself, which is pretty much the equivalent of an army...and those clones laugh way too much, you just wanna bash their heads in).

The pros of this movie are that in spite of these little details, it's still a far better sequel than most Hollywood sequels attempt to be. As I said, the action is really good. The extended fight between Armitage and Ross and her two clones is pretty good, especially considering that the clones are more than just programmed soldiers...they seem to have a sadistic side, laughing almost every time they think they're about to kill someone...which was annoying, but it does helping you to hate them. The additional characters like the daughter Yoko and Mouse the Repairman are pretty enjoyable too. Yoko plays out like a typical kid in anime movies, but she's far less annoying than you'd expect. The little twist near the end when we see what makes her more than just an ordinary human is well integrated, especially after the villian made a big deal about not finding anything special about her. Mouse is just funny. The music by Julian Mack is different...still electronic-based, but more orchestral elements are introduced, and the presence of a female voice in the theme is rather interesting.

Customer Reviews:

this movie gave me rabies.......2007-07-24

Naomi is one of my heroes, BUT.......2007-06-22

Loved it!.......2005-06-17

Skip This -- Get The OAV.......2003-11-14

Bottom line: If you thought this was good, the OAV is tons better. If you haven't seen this, get the OAV instead.

Thought provoking.......2003-11-10

Miguel Llora

DVD:

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