Metropolis (re-release)

It took the German restorers four years to ready this print using dupe negatives and old prints found in archives around the world. Their work speaks for itself. Each frame of this classic is drop-dead stunning, the more so now that the movie no longer hiccups its way across the screen.

What you come to see are the strokes of a visual master. You will not be disappointed.

Trashy and glorious, the restored Metropolis is a pop epic for the ages.

You've seen the rest; now see the best.

The greatest of all pulp fantasies.

Departing from a masterful manipulation of space, Lang transforms the futuristic city of the title into a field of dreams centered on death and sexuality.

After half a century, does the story hold up? Eh, pretty much. In the end, the story doesn't really matter that much as this is really a vehicle for the amazing visuals.

What is to say about Metropolis that hasn't been said already? For me, probably very little. Metropolis is an awe-inspiring and influential masterpiece of the sci-fi genre, and one of the best movies I have seen in recent memory. Metropolis perfectly demonstrates the artistic vision of director Fritz Lang. Lang was a fine and intelligent director, and Metropolis shows this loud and clear as Lang's direction is superb. The film is very rarely boring to me, both the pace and length were well-judged in my view, and while the message may seem muddled to some people for others including me perhaps it is relevant and even powerful. The music is haunting, beautiful and evocative, the story really impresses with its originality and the acting is expressive, although silent the facial expressions and gestures speak volumes. The best part about Metropolis and what resonates with me are the visuals, the cinematography is fluid same with the lighting while the costumes and effects are wonderful, but the real revelations are the city landscapes and settings which are gorgeous. All in all, a brilliant film and an influential film not only of the genre but of cinema itself. 10/10 Bethany Cox

An unmitigated landmark for the science fiction genre and a triumph for the filmic medium in general, Fritz Lang's 1927 opus "Metropolis" thrives on breathtaking production design and visual effects, as well as some potent thematics and an imaginative central tension. Though I think, for me, things do get a tad indulgent here and there, with a few moments (particularly within the some of the performances) taking me out of the experience overall, I'm still grateful to even be able to see this in its entirety. The amount of trouble the restorers went through to bring this to us is still absolutely astounding to me. For that reason alone, I'd say it's more than worth a watch. Sure helps that this is quite an impressive visual feat to behold as well.

Fritz Lang's science fiction godfather has suffered through several levels of re-cut hell over the past hundred years. Slashed by nearly an hour for its original western release, trimmed further by **** censors in 1936, color tinted and re-edited in the '80s (with a modern rock soundtrack) by Giorgio Moroder, then painstakingly restored for Blu-Ray in 2010, using lost footage from an old print in Buenos Aires. Up until now, my entire memory of the film comes from the Moroder version, which didn't make much sense from a story perspective but always wowed me with its wild, futuristic visions, ambitious special effects and expansive set designs. The restored version offers improvement in both respects. Now cast in gorgeous monochrome, as intended, the art direction is even more stunning. New scenes and high-resolution scans give us fresh opportunities to admire the sprawling city, to really soak up the vast scale of Lang's concept. And the plot, naïve and airy as it may be, actually moves in sensible directions now. It's incredibly slow moving and drawn-out, sure, overloaded with long shots of talking heads (which seems unnecessary for a silent picture) but at least it's headed somewhere. As a long-time fan of the film, I'm glad to have finally seen the full thing. Metropolis is an iconic marvel, an artistic triumph that's, somehow, just as hypnotic now as it must've been in post-WWI Germany. That said, wading through the scenes without some sort of huge, dazzling art deco set piece, well, it can feel like work. I needed four sittings to get through this two-and-a-half hour behemoth, and I was already personally invested before it hit my media shelf. First-timers will, no doubt, find it smothering. Deeply influential as a production, astounding as a purely visual showpiece, but critically flawed as a whole. Now excuse me while I revisit a few tunes from the 1984 release.

Interesting movie, and I can see why it gained high praise for it's time... But the 1980s soundtrack RUINED the movie! The Music is completely out of place and has no actually connection of mood or ANYTHING to any part of the movie. This movie would be MUCH better if it had an orchestral soundtrack. Very random in terms of scene switching, too fast paced.

I thought this was a good movie, but it was not like that, anyway, the story was boring and I felt weird to see it