Rating: 
Summary: Superbly Restored Classic By This Visionary Director
Review: Hard to imagine that Fritz Lang's extraordinary silent epic was a box-office flop when first released - and almost bankrupted its financiers, UFA (Germany's largest film production company). Set around the year 2000 (though still remaining visionary), the sci-fi film employed a staggering cast of 37,383 and used creative, cutting-edge effects to tell the story of the city of Metropolis (originally inspired by the Manhattan skyline). Here, Utopia (filled with 'thinkers') is supported by the underground (filled with 'workers'). All is running smoothly until the workers - spurred on by an evil robot replica of their leader Maria - decide to revolt... Approximately two hours long, the film is set to its original score (composed by Gottfried Huppertz), and this DVD edition has been painstakingly restored and digitally remastered to make it the closest version yet to the director's original cut. Bonus features include a nine-minute piece The Restoration on how various copies of the original film were gathered from around the world and restored to create this edition. It also includes The Metropolis Case, a fascinating 44-minute documentary on its making, that also puts it into a historical context. Included is how Lang's overtly anti-Nazi film The Testament of Dr Mabuse (1933) had been banned by Joseph Goebbels yet he was later asked to direct propaganda films for Adolf Hitler. Lang explains in an interview how, when he was approached, left Germany the same day...
Rating:
Summary: Excellent quality- but I still prefer the "Moroder" version.
Review: The print quality of this DVD truly is astonishing for a film made in 1927. However, I still prefer the Giorgio Moroder version which I saw for the first time in a NY movie theater in the 1980's. The soundtrack touched me on a emotional level, and since it was the first time I'd seen the film in any form, I'll never be able to shake that first-time feeling I got from that version. To this day, I can't see another version of this film without remembering the "here's my heart" song played during that first touching scene with Maria and Freder. Also, the Moroder version used still photos AND sub-titles to fill in for missing scenes, which is preferable to just using title cards. Why does the KINO version not integrate the still photos into the movie?? I also prefer the tinting in the Moroder version. It helped define the "feel" for each of the different envirionments/scenes in the film. Also, this version didn't seem to contain any scenes that weren't in the Moroder version (which contains many scenes not found in other releases), if it did, they were very brief. However, this is still an excellent version of the film to own.
Rating:
Summary: The Best Restored Version Ever!
Review: I have seen many of the versions of this movie. This current restoration work is by far the best. Included are scenes that I have never seen before, as well as the insertion of story lines of parts of the movie were irretrievably lost. This aided in making the storyline more complete. I especially enjoyed the commentary version included on the disc. The description of how the fastastic special effects used in turning the robot into Maria were phenominal for its day. The quality of film restoration for this movie is superlative. This DVD version is the best out so far. I cannot imagine anyone surpassing this edition.
Rating:
Summary: BUY THIS DVD!
Review: I've been a fan of this movie for years. I've always felt this movie was a classic and that it was way ahead of it's time. I already owned this title on DVD prior to this version coming out, but I pre-ordered it in the hopes that it would live up to it's expectations of being the most complete version ever released. Well, it wasn't just more complete, it was almost completely different! My eyes popped out and my jaw droppped as I saw this release for the first time. I immediately removed the DVD and ran to my collection to play my older version and refresh my memory as to the quality of the original release. The differences were incredible! I always assumed that the older version was just an indication of the overall production quality of the theatrical release, compounded with the problems with long term storage and that there wouldn't be much of an improvement in quality. All I expected were a few additional scenes and perhaps a slighly cleaner picture. How wrong could I be! The picture is extremely sharp. It's hard to believe the earlier releases were from the same film. For those of you who still own an older release, and are wondering if it's worth the expense of buying another release (and a more expensive one at that), BUY THIS DVD. You will not believe it until you see it with your own eyes. This is truly a top notch restoration.
Rating: 
Summary: zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Review: Soporific beyond belief."Overrated" in the dictionary has a new sense: (1) Metropolis.HUMAN DESIRE (another Lang film) looks like CITIZEN KANE by comparison.
Rating:
Summary: ausgezeichtnet
Review: EXCELLENT! The BEST movie EVER made.
Been a Fritz Lang fan since was old enough to watch T.V.,and now own almost every movie made by him: but this is a classic that has stood the test of time.....the likes of "Bladerunner" are testiment to that!
Along with Sergei M. Einsteins` "Battleship Potemkin", and Robert Wienes` "Das Kabinett des Dr. Caligari"- this movie is an outstanding piece of cinema that will continue to be the influence on modern moviemakers that it has been to date. If you appreciate classic cinema, watch this movie!-(and read Thea von Harbous` book!)
Rating: 
Summary: Intertitles in English
Review: While I very much appreciate the overall quality of the restoration, I am appalled by the decision to translate the intertitles into English. What a missed opportunity; what disrespect for the historicity of the work. I venture to say that many of my colleagues in academia will continue to put up with the bad sound and the poor video quality of their old VHS edition.
Rating:
Summary: Best of the Best!
Review: This is the definitive version of Metropolis. Every scrap, fragment, and sliver of extant film was used in restoring this film-as best as humanly possible-back to Fritz Lang's original vision. Due to the age and "silent artillery of time," I imagine that this will be as bet as we will ever get. As it stands, film rounds out the st5roy that was sonly seen in sketch and shadow with previous versions,. including Giorgio Moroder's "colorful" 1984 adaptation. This version expands upon the rivalry between Rotwang and Joh Fredersen, which was obliterated during the American Editing phase of the film. "Slim" is given a bigger role. We are also introduced to a previously unknown (and still unseen) Cathedral monk who warned Freder about the coming Apocalypse. In fact, the entire movie takes on a greater religious and biblical tone, especially as we see Futura sit upon the beast with seven heads during her Yoshiwara's dance scene. The greatest surprises were with Worker #11811 and Josaphat. These men get more screen time and they actually become people and are not longer part of the scenery. But this is the point of the film-to see it as Lang envisioned it. This has a good transfer, especially if all you have seen were the "Bargain Barrel" versions that look like they were done by monkeys. The picture is mostly clean, but there are scratches, hairs, and blurs here and there. I have seen better restorations, such as Disney's Snow White, or Orson Welles's Othello. I realize that budgets are always limited, and so I would choose to see bad missing film over good film I already have seen. There is no reason why we cannot have anther version that is an improvement over this one, and if we buy A LOT of copies of this film, they studios would be more inclined to spend the money to perfect the transfer and quality. I was surprised to see how the dealt with the missing scenes. They had summaries written and flashed on the screen like inter-titles or address cards. I approve of this choice where there are no stills, but if there are stills or even sketches, I would have preferred seeing these, since you are looking at something. This is a movie, and we want to SEE things, not read about them. For example, in this film, we just read about Worker #11811 going to Yoshiwara's, but in Giorgio Moroder's version, we saw a still of the scene pan across the scnee, then another still of the entrance to Yoshiwara's Similarly, the sequence with the bust of Hel could have been improved The film is forever gone, so they used stills and cards to fill in the sequence. In Giorgio Moroder's version, they used a different picture which looked better than the one used in this restored version. Later in the film, when Rotwang recovers from fighting with Maria and wanders out in a trance, he makes a stop before the bust of Hel, then thinks Maria is Hel. They have this still of someone with outstretched arms in front of the bust (praying?), and this could have been integrated in the film. Once again, this film is visual, so I would prefer to look at something-even if it is not moving-rather than reading about something. Always use an image over words! By the way, why hasn't Moroder's "colorful" version been released to DVD? This is the version of Metropolis that I grew up on, and you cannot argue with the soundtrack. Hopefully, this new version of the film will spur the rights-holders to release Moroder's version to compete with this version. I'd own both. I love this film. I think is is the most important sci-fi film ever made. It was the first big-budget sci-fi film made. It had a mythic core that does not let you go. It has incredible story telling. Even the editorial butcher job could not destroy this film. After 75 years we are still watching this film, and it's no surprise why.
Rating:
Summary: Finally a worthwhile restoration...
Review: Fritz Lang's Metropolis has been one of the most abused films of all time. Immediately after its debut in 1927, about a quarter of the film's reels were removed (and lost). Since then, the film has been re-edited multiple times, to the point that some earlier editions were more or less incoherent.
The story of Metropolis is a bit simple and bit convoluted at the same time, but more or less it is about the battle of the individual against a monolithic, totalitarian technological future. I suspect the original plot was meant as a metaphor for industrial labor and social unrest in the 1920's. In this way, Metropolis is a battle of the individual against the excesses of the industrial revolution.
That said, the real reason the film has endured despite multiple mutilations is that incredibly innovative film making. The film was state of the art, and indeed has been a foundation for many modern science fiction films since. In this regard, it is perhaps the real triumph of 1920's German Expressionist cinema. The Kino release dvd is a real treat. The restoration is near perfect, much better than I expected. The film looks like a retored film from the 1950's, not from the 1920's. Germany's F.W. Murnau Foundation, the people responsible for the restoration, went frame by frame and restored the film to as close to its original as possible. Of course, many sequences are still missing, possibly forever. To solve this problem, intertitles were inserted to describe the missing plot sequences. Finally, the film is coherent. There is some dispute as to the running time of the film. Running time is listed as 124 minutes but is in fact 118. The German release of the film IS 124 minutes, and most of the material I have read states that this is the correct running time. The Kino disk has a frame rate slightly higher than it should be, and the result is that a few scenes do look like the motion is too fast. As I said, there is some debate about this... I have heard also that Kino has the correct frame rate. That being said, most of the material disputes this. In any case, the Kino editon is the best the film has looked in years, and certainly the most coherent edition any of us have probably seen. Great care has been taken to restore both the physical condition of the picture and the plot line, and the result is spectacular. Metropolis was state of the art film making at its best, and it still impresses.
Rating:
Summary: A neophyte's perspective
Review: This is the only version of this movie I have seen, so I can't compare it to previous releases or discuss the comparative quality of the DVD, etc. I can, however, share my impressions of the movie itself. In fact, to even call this extraordinary work of art a movie is like calling the Mona Lisa a picture. This was the first silent movie I had ever watched (certainly won't be the last), and I watched it after reading some very interesting reviews of the film's artistry and importance. To say I was not disappointed is an understatement. The "feel" of the movie is somewhat similar to that of Blade Runner, a dark, futuristic world. However, I have seen Blade Runner twice, many years ago, and I can only remember a few vague things about it (unfortunately the plot is not one of them). But there is no doubt in my mind that the story and the images of Metropolis are burned into my memory with almost eerie permanence. It was very, very far ahead of its time, in both story and scope. In fact, if someone had told me that it was a modern movie purporting to be a 1927 silent movie I would have believed it hook, line, and sinker. But my response would have been - 1927? Impossible! It is no wonder that Metropolis is required viewing for film students. There is no doubt in my mind that it has influenced or directly inspired every science fiction film ever made. Plot: Fascinating, easy enough to follow even when it doesn't always make complete sense. (But then with one quarter of the movie tragically lost forever, it's a wonder it makes sense at all.) Acting: Truly a joy - the actors, since they had no dialogue to fall back on, had to convey the story and move along the plot through facial expressions and gestures, and they succeeded magnificently. Acting has come a long way, but the over-the-top acting style of the era adds to the movie's incredible charm. Score: Magnificent. I have not seen the 80's version with the heavy metal score, so I apologize if I offend its fans, but I absolutely can't imagine this film with any other but the original score. It is perfect. To replace the score with anything else would be giving the viewers only half the experience. Artistry: Simply unbelievable. The details are immaculate. Watching the workers on the M machine move in rhythm to the music like a choreographed dance was an impression I will never forget, and how the mob that approached the gothic church at the end was arranged in a perfectly symmetrical pyramid. The extraordinary art deco beauty of the Machine Man, the towering city, the intricate machines, all of it was simply fantastic (in the literal sense). I have never seen anything so utterly captivating to watch. The DVD quality does seem extraordinary, but again I have nothing to compare it to. The picture was as clear as if it had been filmed yesterday. The only disappointment - and it is a grave and tragic one - is not being able to see the fourth that was lost. Very, very highly recommended, especially for fans of science fiction, the arts, architecture, the art deco period, silent films, classic films, special effects, film history ... well, you get the idea.
| 
