Aline Ruby and her partner Carlos are hired to find a missing daughter, a student studying cybernetics. This investigation leads to a revelation of a bigger plan that will eventually change everything.
Awesome animation, very non-mainstream story (loved it), simple and meaningful story set in a well-thought-through world of Mars and any other place occupied by humans of future.
While watching even from the very first scene I was surprised, but was still apprehensive, since I know how such scenes are often used to make the viewer become interested, but later the same type of tension never comes again.
Doesn't happen here.
I can understand why some might find it dissatisfying, but I thought it was pretty logical and actually more striking rather this movie taking the basic Hollywood approach to cater to the public. Instead I find the story took some brutal turns to wake up the viewer from the fever dream that is "one against the many" can win. French are not fucking around.
Movie raises many questions, including but not limited to the future of robotics, Artificial Intelligence, ethics of duplicating people's consciousness after their death when the above-mentioned robot bodies have limited freedom. Is a person still a person in a body of a robot?
I liked that main characters were made more human, like just ordinary people and not into some super humans who are smart and can deal with anything and then laugh it off among ruins of some villain's mansion with all guys buried under.
RATE: 9/10.
thoughts on SPOILERS
I think that the movie managed not only to raise the questions, but also leave room to imagination and interpretation.
Nowadays it became too common to overexplain things as if leaving anything unsaid will make people regret watching, but on the contrary it feels like creators find viewers incapable of thinking. Instead in this movie a lot of information is left out, but is it important information? Not really. Everything you need to know about the story and reasoning will be present (like the big plan behind machine revolt etc.), but some of the backstories and details will be left out.
Just to give an example, main two characters, Aline and Carlos, they were comrades-in-arms along with a third person who now is a head of a big corporation and has his face plastered all over the place (like on Erath and Mars too). But we don't know what made them have such a different life, most likely Aline bought out Carlos and loaded him into the old robot model (the reason why Carlos stayed clear-headed among all other hacked robots). We know he died during disturbances, but we don't know the details. Now he exists as a robot and works with Aline. He has a family, but his wife moved on and lives with a new husband. From details we know he had violent tendencies (anger issues is pretty common). On the other hand Aline has a drinking problem (also quite common) and she had only few months of sobriety before she started drinking again after failing to save the student girl Jun Chaw they tried to find. Trying to drown the guilt that she obliviously led the bad guys to find Jun through her investigation. It's just guesses. Many things are not expressed and I liked it.
Another big surprise to me was three deaths. As mentioned the opening scene was something that could have been used as means to make the viewer interested, but consequently our characters could have saved the day.. we're too used to such turn of events. I'm too used myself. This is why Jun's death came a surprise, but if I think about it, they sent pros after her. Aline is not some super ex-swat that is so good at her job that she can deal with 20 men alone. They sent only few and they knew their job well, this is why they succeeded. It was very human, though disheartening. The third death is big spoiler but the death of Aline herself. I was really surprised, but in that situation no one acted as if they lost IQ just to serve the convenience of main character suddenly winning for some reason. Again it was eye-opening and impactful that the scheme one against many failed and the two of them, Aline and Carlos, they were warned to back off, but they did not do that and proceeded the confrontation knowing fully well the risk of doing so, this is why unfortunately Aline was shot, even if Carlos tried to save her.
I found such ending pretty meaningful, because not only Aline, but Carlos is a main character as well. With Aline gone he lost the last connection in this life, even if he tried to stay he would not be treated as a human, like he wasn't treated as one before and when he marched with the rest of hacked robots and tried to make sense, but nobody listened to him among robots too, robots all thought that it's them who leave humans, it's them who are now on a journey to new beginning not realizing that this is the end. He stayed sane only because he resides in an old model, but isn't that the ultimate loneliness, but can you imagine how many who are like him, copies of real people that were sent to their end because the era of the machines was judged by people and was destined to end.
All in all I was impressed by it.
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