Review of Natural City (2003) by Pete L — 04 Jul 2011

"Ria, let's get away to Muyoga.".

A visually stunning film that was clearly inspired by Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, that would have been better if the plot hadn't been so choppy.

Plot: The year is 2080. The planet is connected by a massive high tech computer network. Robots and cyborgs have been integrated into the population. The cyborgs have many uses ranging from companion "dolls" to soldiers. They have a three year lifespan, after which they malfunction, but some with the help of black market technology, can download their artificial intelligence into a human host. Two cops named R and Noma hunt down these renegade cyborgs. R has a doll named Ria who's lifespan is nearly up. The problem is that he's fallen in love with her and doesn't want to see her expire. Now with the expiration date only days away, he must make the decision of finding her a human body and running away with her to the paradise planet called Muyoga, or help Noma stop a renegade cyborg from starting a robot uprising.

If you can keep up with the story, this is actually pretty good. As well as being inspired by Blade Runner, I noticed some references to Ridley Scott's other Sci-fi film, Alien. There are a few scenes that seem to be directly copied from those movies. The effects are top notch. The fast paced action sequences sprinkled throughout the movie are very well done. I loved them and this is coming from a guy who's not that big on action movies. It was interesting to see the slow malfunction of Ria over the course of the film, but I feel that they could elaborated on that a little more. My only real complaint about this was the story and that really brought the film down for me. It was neither complicated nor stupid. It just wasn't that coherent and it never really made clear what it was trying to convey. But other than that, I really enjoyed it and would watch it again. Total score: 6.5/10.