What exactly do you call French anime? Franime?

When it comes to the market of animated films marketed to an adult audience Japan is by and large the front-runner in creating crisp entertainment.  However, a little film from France has gotten a lot of buzz over the last year attempting to bring favor back to the French market.

The film ‘Mars Express’ is a movie that draws many parallels to a multitude of sci-fi movies Audiences are familiar with.  If you’re a fan of Blade Runner, the Matrix, The Fifth Element, Interstellar, and other neo-noir films just to name a few, Mars Express should be a film to add to your watch list.

Set in the futuristic period of the 23rd century,  an alcoholic Private investigator Aline Ruby, and her android companion Carlos Rivera are hunting down hackers who are attempting to jailbreak androids to free them from their animatronic oppression illegally. 

One day, Aline is dragged into the middle of an investigation about a young college-age girl who goes missing after being tied to the murder of her roommate.  At first, it seems like a standard investigation turns dark very quickly. The closer she gets into the investigation, the more her department is trying to close doors preventing her from figuring out what is happening.

They discover that the girl has stumbled upon the ability to go a step beyond jailbreaking and freeing Androids from original programming giving them complete control. Aline figures that the entity behind this program has a lot of power to silence anyone who tries to stop their plan from being realized and that’s when she discovers that there’s no one that she can trust, even her bosses.

It is easy to forget just how good animation has gotten over the last 20 years. Mars Attacks is an example of how stellar an animated series can be. On one hand, the art direction can look flat but understanding the story is much more of a character study within a Sci-Fi Tale,  the film keeps its focus on the frame of a bigger story. The film touches on the timely topic of artificial intelligence and what could happen to the world if AI is allowed to roam without bounds.

There are two big knocks against the film, the first one being its lack of world-building for a film set in a futuristic universe. The movie switches focus between Earth and Mars in a setting and creates a world where Humanity and robots live in technical Harmony. However, there’s a much deeper subplot of a rebellion against robots that is left in the back burner. Outside of that, the movie shows us that despite technological advances the more things change the more they remain the same as far as human desires go in the future. 

The film shows us that there is a conflict between the two sides but doesn’t go deep enough into what has caused it in this universe. While Mars Express is largely a solid film that does a lot more good than bad,  the ending will certainly leave a lot to be desired as the film’s final five minutes end on a flat note to what was built up.

Mars Express is a film that is certainly a standout versus what audiences are used to. However, you cannot shake the fact you will be left hungry for more when the film is all said and done. The movie creates a fully realized world that falls a bit short and its practicality.

3/5

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