Film

Akira (1988)

Director: Katsuhiro Otomo

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

In 2019, some 31 years after the destruction of Tokyo in WWIII, the rebuilt city is in chaos. Pill-popping biker gangs wage deadly warfare; terrorism and riots by the unemployed are common; martial law holds sway; and the masses, duped by the leaders of fanatical religious cults, await a second coming by the legendary Akira. But would this eponymous hero be sufficiently powerful to overcome Tetsuo, a young biker with telekinetic powers who threatens to lead the world towards apocalypse? Reworked from his own hugely successful comic strip, Otomo's first excursion into movies features some of the most mind-blowing animation ever seen. Even if the human characters are flatly two-dimensional, the metropolis itself is a wondrous jumble of highways, slums, skyscrapers and labyrinthine passages, while the drawings imitate (exaggerate?) the pyrotechnical zooms, dollies and close-ups of live action camerawork to exhilarating effect. Artwork apart, the admirably complex plot is imaginative and serious. An impressive achievement, often suggesting a weird expressionist blend of 2001, The Warriors, Blade Runner and Forbidden Planet.

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