Review: Armitage 3: Polymatrix

His new partner, Armitage, is a little strange, and oddly sympathetic to the robots that some madman is killing around Mars. The Thirds, highly sophisticated robots living as humans, are being targeted by a strange madman who isn't always concerned about collateral casualties. It transpires that Armitage, too, is a Third...

As Ross and Armitage try to penetrate the twin mysteries of the murders and of the murders of the Thirds, Ross is forced to struggle with the question of what truly makes a human being human... and whether, perhaps, those not of flesh and blood can be as worthy of compassion as those born of Adam and Eve.

Pacing is pretty good - action sequences interleaved with quieter sections, with neither the too-hectic pace of action without a break (Sin, do you hear me?) nor the slow dribble of boredom followed by a huge conclusion that some shows prefer.

The plot itself is also reasonably involved and interesting, with the odd surprise or shock to keep you guessing. The only real weakness in the plot is that there are distinct break points where you can almost see the credits rolling, essentially, some sections feel like episodes of a series rather than part of a coherent whole. Fortunately such momnts are rare.

Similarly, the characterisation is tight, but the tight focuse on Armitage and Ross deprives the movie of the chance to explore the whole human/inhuman question with any thoroughness. Essentially we see Ross's evolving views and a bunch of extremists shouting slogans, but otherwise see very little of what the other characters thing about the issues raised.

Animation is cinematic quality; not as intricate as that of Spriggan, for example, and not as sheerly beautiful as Ah! My Goddess: The Movie, but still very good - certainly far better than in the average TV series. Both action and the more emotional moments are expressed with the appropriate boldness or subtlety, as required.

The DVD has no Japanese track. It does have stereo and 5+1 English tracks. The voice acting itself is excellent, although the voice actor for Armitage doesn't quite seem to fit the part, at least at the beginning of the movie. A younger, chirpier voice would have better fit the role. However, as the film progresses the oddity of Armitage's voice becomes less prominent.

Basically this is one of those films where I wish I could have heard the Japanese voice actors for comparison.

Other audio is very good, although quiet Mars has little background sound outside of the urban scenes. The music fits in well and is rarely obtrusive; on the other hand, neither is it particularly remarkable.

Packaging is a fairly standard DVD case with a butterfly hub clip, as Madman use on most of their recent releases. The cover design is grimly stark.