Synopsis
The year is 1999 and Tokyo's Mobile Police have a new weapon in the war on crime—advanced robots called Labors are used to combat criminals who would use the new technology for illegal means. The suicide of a mysterious man on the massive Babylon Project construction site sets off a cascade of events that may signal the destruction of Tokyo.
Just finish watching the 1st movie from this franchise and have to say it's actually a well done movie with a very good story to back it up. Some of this is the OVA have already release before the movie came out in the market which flesh out all the characters in the show and the movie just continue where it left off. Even so, the Patlabor movie is well scripted and you notice this a lot in the storyline it's telling you as you're watching the movie. You got to thank this a bit toward the work of Oshii Mamoru and Headgear as they generally well known to written and directed extremely well from their work.
As for the storyline, You saw someone commit suicide from a location. After this incident, a notice spike of mysterious malfunction labor just go out of control, and it's up to the members of the Special Vehicle Division 2 to try to found out what is causing the problems. At first you found out it might be something wrong with the new operating system upgrade but it actually go deeper and they is quite a bit of a connection between the suicide victim and the labor and how it was trigger from the operating system he produce. All of this are told gradually between the dialogue with the characters in and incident happen in the movie. It's very well done and you don't feel like the director is trying to pump this into you right upfront but in a pace when you start to understand the situation naturally as you follow the characters in the movie. Think like a slow burning fuse, with many twists and turns throwing events in a new direction as you follow the story.
As this movie tone is more serious, you don't tend to see the light humor from the OVA where you start to know the characters. It's more dialogue and plot heavy. I didn't feel this as a negative as it actually keep me interested of the situation the Special Vehicle Division 2 of trying to found of the issue. They is battle scene of labor fighting but it's far few and it's only there to push the story forward and for the big climax at the end which is expected.
As for the animation side, it still look amazing for an almost 30 years old movie. The hand animation design sill look amazing and if you own the Blu Ray set, it look much nicer to watch in HD. As for the music soundtrack, it work quite well to push the tone of the scene quite well. The big one is the final battle climax which push the tension quite a bit.
They're many more I can discuss of this movie which I think you have already heard about. All I can say this movie give me a very positive impression of Patlabor and if you want more of the serious tone like you see in the 2nd half of the OVA, you will love this quite a bit.
Xeogred wrote:Love Patlabor and love Kanuka! The OVA and TV series are definitely different and unique, I'd compare them to Planetes. It's kind of fun and fascinating to watch a show based around mundane job work though haha, I dig them. The Patlabor movies are much more serious and different. The third one wasn't directed by Oshii and is pretty bad...
I'm not sure which portion I like most, but the TV series is in the same vein as the OVA with its fun charm and tone. And yeah the art/animation is excellent.
I am actually going though the movie timeline right now and heard positive and negative from the movie as you say. I will try to keep an open mind when watching the other two movie which I am watching the 3rd movie next later this week and then the 2nd. After I finish the movie timeline then I will go to the TV series timeline. Now, I need to go back and watch Phantom Memory Kurau which I put on hold for a while now.