Metropolis Reviews and Ratings


  • cineadicta86
    November 27, 2008
    cineadicta86
    Mi favorita
    Una de las mejores peliculas de ciencia ficcion que he visto. Me demuestra que los problemas de entonces siguen siendo problemas ahora.
    hermosa escenografia.
  • cosmo313
    November 24, 2008
    cosmo313
    Much has already been said about this film, so this will be short since I don't really have much, if anything, new to contribute. I will say this though: I knew that this fim was extremely influential ina number of ways, but it wasn't until I finally watched it that I realized ju...( read more)st how influential this film really is. Instead of wondering 'how much of an influence does this film have?', I began thinking, 'how much influence doesn't this film have?' I'm serious. This film really is that influential. Now, other than that, there are other reasons to see this film. It is good, entertaining, and compelling, and without this film, then cinema would cdrtainly be different, and not in a good way. Every fan of film needs to see Metropolis. It's a crime not to.
  • gizemb
    November 22, 2008
    gizemb
    Have to watch it again.
  • rcbatman
    November 19, 2008
    rcbatman
    Excelente pelicula!
    Quien dijo que el cine mudo es aburrido ?
    Fritz Lang era un genio!
  • azdw
    November 12, 2008
    azdw
    Review will be written when/if re-watched (Probability: Low).

    First viewing: 09.03.2003
  • elinwoods
    November 10, 2008
    elinwoods
    Although it is an important film for the labor force, the movie isn't the most enjoyable to watch over and over again.
  • jdmxrain
    November 9, 2008
    jdmxrain
    Really weird and so outdated. Its so depressing too.
  • babyinametalsuit
    October 27, 2008
    babyinametalsuit
    It's the biggest deal ever in the best genre ever with one of the best logos ever AND it has robots. Cha-CHING.
  • matricialynnicus
    October 20, 2008
    matricialynnicus
    OK film. It's been a while since I watched it, but if I recall correctly (and it's been a good 20 years since I saw it) it was kind of like that Star Trek episode "The Cloud Minders."
  • brandonklaus2
    October 17, 2008
    brandonklaus2
    I have no idea how they pulled off the special effects. Epic storytelling.
  • impersonatorofclaymation
    October 15, 2008
    impersonatorofclaymation
    Want to see it AGAIN
  • serverempire
    October 14, 2008
    serverempire
    Great film. Introduced the mad scientist and the evil robot.
  • supernowhere
    October 3, 2008
    supernowhere
    C'est dommage, le film est ennuyant! Je m'attendais à quelque chose d'intéressant, dans un sens, ça l'est, mais je trouve que le résultat final est...boiteux! haha

    "Le médiateur entre le cerveau et les mains doit être le c?ur" d'accord...ouais, c'est beau, et donc....t'a fait un...( read more) film pour nous dire ça?
  • crgrier
    September 29, 2008
    crgrier
    Probably the first distopia movie. Interesting story, obvious populist message. The only drawback for modern audiences is it is way too long and slow.
  • JarJarnSnoopy
    September 25, 2008
    JarJarnSnoopy
    A very good movie. If you like movies you need to see this one. Fritz Lang was way ahead of his time when he directed this master piece.
  • filmfanatic1982
    September 25, 2008
    filmfanatic1982
    Can't wait to see the newly discovered cut of the movie. A wonderment to behold.
  • aswinwilliam
    September 23, 2008
    aswinwilliam
    pretty interesting film about social crisis between workers and owners in capitalism. In fiction and future aspect of it. The storyline was excellent and was impressed with the music and the acting.
  • mistershinobi
    September 18, 2008
    mistershinobi
    *Review coming soon*
  • kangarookingpin
    September 15, 2008
    kangarookingpin
    this is the movie I want to see a remake of
  • richardfraser
    September 8, 2008
    richardfraser
    really interesting bit of cinema. must see for film fans
  • muelrox1
    September 5, 2008
    muelrox1
    This was so ahead of its time, when i watched i was amazed and thought "wow there are movies nowadays with worse effects than this"
  • nonix81
    August 27, 2008
    nonix81
    classic steampunk, wonderful imagery
  • andrzejbanas
    August 22, 2008
    andrzejbanas
    I want to see the full version now damnit! Fix it up faster!
  • monoringo
    August 15, 2008
    monoringo
    an incredible movie beyond its time... everything about this movie is so enticing.
  • jbardsleyjr
    August 8, 2008
    jbardsleyjr
    This movie is wonderful. Yes it's a silent movie and that type of movie isn't for everyone but even for those people it's worth watching for some themes that show up in other, more recent films. The effects are similiar to some 1950s movie. I loved seeing some standard horror the...( read more)mes (mad scientist, hunchback worker, pagan symbols, creating life), in what is called a scifi film. The mime acting and hilarious running do somewhat distract from the movie but not enough to hurt it rating in my eyes.
  • throblin
    July 31, 2008
    throblin
    One of the coolest looking sci-fi films of all time. See it!
  • TheMDogg
    July 25, 2008
    TheMDogg
    Essential if you're a movie buff
  • thethefan1001
    July 23, 2008
    thethefan1001
    An all-around WOW. Set design and direction take lead in this landmark film.
  • placeinthesun455
    July 22, 2008
    placeinthesun455
    a terrific film rich in biblical and medieval themes coinciding with contemporary socio-political and industrial themes. Brigitte Helm gives a phenomenal performance as the prophetic Maria and her sinister robotic doppelganger. a milestone in science fiction, as well as a cinem...( read more)atic trailblazer in set design, art direction, cinematography, and plot design.
  • cb02fs
    July 20, 2008
    cb02fs
    And now they say an original release print has been found that is the 3 1/2 hour version that was first released in theatres. Hopefully, it will be restored and preserved and a DVD release of the original cut comes sooner than later.
  • bluedrago88545
    July 17, 2008
    bluedrago88545
    I have it with a classic horror 50 pack, a bit suspensful back in the day maybe, but the SFX was WAY BEYOND IT'S TIME! thing is that its not the original score!!!
  • MorpheusOne
    July 17, 2008
    MorpheusOne
    I have this movie on vhs and I've tried to watch it, BUT IT LOOKS LIKE SHIT....

    I could barely get thru the first 5 minutes without wincing from the pain of not knowing WTF was going on... If there was something, like subtitles & maybe music to follow, then that might make it be...( read more)arable. They need to re-release it appropriately, with music from Pink Floyd & Led Zeppelin, since it was first released as a silent movie, in nineteen twenty freaking seven!!!
  • pONTERsELDON
    July 8, 2008
    pONTERsELDON
    A classic, one of the best science fiction movies ever made
  • damnhippie88
    July 7, 2008
    damnhippie88
    Every aspect of this movie is beautiful--there's a reason this movie is considered to be a classic.
  • g1pp4l
    July 7, 2008
    g1pp4l
    Technically wonderful, specially if we have in mind that it was made in 1927, but it has a very naive message. Can't wait to see the "new" scenes.
  • kenstachnik
    July 2, 2008
    kenstachnik
    Really impressive...ly boring

    I know I'm going to catch endless shit for this, but this movie bored me to tears. It's a landmark cinematic and visual achievement to say the least...but a tedious one at that.

    The missing scenes from Metropolis have been found!!!!
    htt...( read more)p://www.thelocal.de/12847/20080702/
  • Lemure
    July 1, 2008
    Lemure
    Fritz Lang wasn't just a genius, he was a visionary. In every single frame of this film you can sense his frustration as he pushes the available technology to its limit in order to realise the idea. This film has a great plot - with some wonderful poetic undertones and some quali...( read more)ty acting even if it is all silent. But where this film soars is in its visuals. Some of the sets used are truly mindblowing with hundreds of actors swarming across them, managing to put movies like Blade Runner and Brazil to shame. It's very hard to do this film justice in writing as it needs to be witnessed. At the end you're left wondering that if Fritz Lang was around today and had access to the technology we do, what the hell could he accomplish. A stunning masterpiece, light years ahead of its time.
  • nayita23
    June 8, 2008
    nayita23
    earlier movie, good for that time XD
  • spacemaster83
    June 8, 2008
    spacemaster83
    It has been called the film that launched Science Fiction films as a genre, well if you do not count such films as a Trip to the Moon by George Milies. However, it can be said that it helped develop a sense of panic the shape and position modern man in technological times. Perha...( read more)ps more a keen to Blade Runner or The Matrix in a even more technological turmoiled world shows us that Metropolis still holds as much weight in 2008 as it did in 1927.
  • xboredxasxhellx
    June 8, 2008
    xboredxasxhellx
    The only silent movie I've ever seen and I think it's brilliant. The cinematography is amazing.
  • EarthlyAlien
    June 4, 2008
    EarthlyAlien
    "We shall build a tower that will reach to the stars!" Having conceived Babel, yet unable to build it themselves, they had thousands to build it for them. But those who toiled knew nothing of the dreams of those who planned. And the minds that planned the Tower of Babel cared ...( read more)nothing for the workers who built it. The hymns of praise of the few became the curses of the many - Babel! Babel! Babel! - Between the mind that plans and the hands that build there must be a Mediator, and this must be the heart."

    Photobucket

    The city of Metropolis is divided into the brain and the hands. While the city's elite sit in the lap of luxury, the workers tend to the machinery for ten hours before retreating to their underground city "where they belong". The one thing that keeps them from revolting is the promise of a coming "mediator", a Messianic figure who will bring the hands and the brain together. The prophetic woman (Brigitte Helm) behind the legend believes the mediator to be Freder Frederson (Gustav Fröhlich), the son of the city's leader, who thanks to a deft switch with one of the workers, stumbles upon the meeting in the catacombs. Meanwhile, his father (Alfred Abel) is in cahoots with a mad scientist (Rudolf Klein-Rogge) to create a life-like Machine Man to undermine the woman's message. The Machine manages to incite a riot, which endangers the worker's children. And who is there to save the day? Freder Frederson.

    When time-travel finally does become possible ('cause it will), one of the first orders of business should be to go to 1927 Germany and grab a completed print of Metropolis. Due to circumstances beyond anyone's control, over a quarter of the film is lost and gone forever. So instead of Fritz Lang's uncut 153-minute original version, what we're left with is most of it and title cards that explain what we're missing. It's a damn shame too, because we seem to be missing a lot of good stuff, including an entire trip to the entertainment district by the worker who's switched places with Freder.

    There aren't many films that could survive the loss of that much footage and still be a viable experience, it's just too much to overcome, but Metropolis manages somehow. As it now stands, the film is nothing short of amazing and we can only imagine how much better it was in its entirety. Really, with the amount of space here we can only scratch the surface. Lang's Metropolis is thrilling in every sense of the word. This is the standard on which all Science Fiction should be judged, and serves as the template for many a Sci-Fi world-view.

    Apparently, Adolf Hitler considered this his favourite film, and while we would normally discard such information, I think it's worth exploring for a minute. In the early scenes we see the workers shuffling to and from work en masse like comatose zombies. For a while I thought they actually had undergone some sort of lobotomy, but they've just been so marginalized by the city's leaders that this appears to be the most effective way to get through the day. There's a certain sense of fear about them. Only when the Machine starts to appeal to their sense of justice do they come alive, becoming a raving mob that has little regard for the consequences of their actions. Is that drastic effect on a large group of people what appealed to Hitler so much? Maybe, although the Machine does get hers in the end. Is it the themes of a drastic class structure? Or is it simply the erotic dancer? Hard to say, really.

    Throughout its duration, the film is so visually striking that it is always able to captivate the viewer. The city itself is amazingly well realized. Few visions of the future have been as original or as truly awesome as is that of Metropolis. In fact, the city is perhaps the film's most interesting character and is the most prominent element in each scene, overwhelming the actors, the narrative, and everything else with its incredible presence. Every corner of the city is a marvel, from its wild spires and sumptuous gardens to its dismal underground corridors, hellish machinery, and wretched tenements. Metropolis is a place like no other.

    Brigitte Helm has the difficult dual role of Maria, the prophetic woman, and her Machine double. Essentially, she has to play polar opposites, as Maria is a paradigm of virtue, almost a Mother Theresa character, and the Machine is a wild, wicked troublemaker who spends her spare time seducing the men of Metropolis as an erotic dancer. Helm was nearly killed several times while shooting, once by a fall and another by the fact that one particular scene - a bonfire - was real. She was so rattled by her experience working with Lang that she thereafter refused to make another film with him.

    Every element and image in Metropolis is brought to the film because of Lang's insistence on no less then absolute perfection. He was known as a sometimes cruel taskmaster, working his cast and crew like a dictator. He cast something like 37,000 extras (1500 of them for the Tower of Babel sequence alone) and worked them from morning till night. The water which covered the set for the climactic flood was ice cold. Many of the extras were soaked through from morning till night. Metropolis was made 79 years ago and it's one of the
    most expensive films ever made. By today's standards, adjusting for inflation, Metropolis' budget would be around $200 million - same as Titanic and Spider-Man 2 - which would put in the top 10. Again, it was made 79 years ago.

    I could go on and on... Metropolis - like all great films - invites lengthy discussions. It can be seen in at least a hundred different ways, as a foreshadowing of fascism or the tyranny of communism or just capitalism boiling over. But when you get down to it the best way to view Metropolis is not as a film to pick apart but simply as a film of its time. Lang created the story of a world gone mad while the world around him was going mad.
  • lebowski1190
    June 3, 2008
    lebowski1190
    Today's audience might find it to be boring which it is in some parts, but it's one of the best silent movies and probably the first sci fi movie.
  • Ghw12158
    May 29, 2008
    Ghw12158
    good but a little over rated
  • JxSxPx
    May 28, 2008
    JxSxPx
    Fritz Lang might have bitten off way more than he could chew, since many of the plot specifics get a little hazy, but the images and themes he conjures up are fantastic and timeless none-the-less. This is one of the most influential films to have ever graced the screens, and more...( read more) proof that maybe the Europeans should be paid more attention to when it comes to how we handle films in America. Robo-Maria and the destruction of the lower levels are iconographic by now, and rightfully so. It's fascinating, even when it's confusing, and deserves at least one look during your lifetime.
  • jplong39
    May 24, 2008
    jplong39
    One of the landmark films in cinema. As a movie however, it's just not that good. A simple story moralizing on the need for unions, and that's about all. But as a FILM, it's one of the crowning cinematic achievements ever made. Huge sets, innovative camera work and 80 tear old sp...( read more)ecial effects that are still stunning today make it one of the absolute great ones.

Summary

Metropolis Summary