In a near-future Japan robotics technology has progressed to the stage where huge, piloted humanoid robots called labors are used in the construction industry for both heavy lifting and demolition, mostly as part of a grandscale land reclamation project in Tokyo Bay. The police also have a division that uses these labors and as Patlabor opens they are having to deal with increasing reports of rogue labors ignoring their human pilots and running wild, causing mass destruction.There is worse to come when the officers realise that it is the all new Hyper Operating System causing these malfunctions which is installed in their own labors and whose creator recently committed suicide.
Considering the plot revolves entirely around these labors, they actually appear relatively infrequently, pretty mush restricted to the very end and beginning of the film. This isn't necessarily a bad thing because it means Patlabor isn't merely a no-brainer of big robots scrapping and instead it allows the storyline, although slightly implausible, to get quite complex and intricate. Unfortunately there are also the usual stylised facial expressions and appalling voice acting that blight the genre. There are only about three action scenes and these are fairly run of the mill anime affairs with disappointingly unimpressive robots and woeful eighties-style music. A clever plot, but nor really enough to stand out from the rest of the anime crowd. |
