Rating: 
Summary: There is no other version of "Metropolis"
Review: Two points: first, while there are several previous cheap DVD releases of this title, they are all taken from widely inferior sources. They are all rendered moot by what will probably stand as the definitive version of this title. It's as close as we'll ever get to seeing this film as it was intended.Second, this is NOT the Giorgio Moroder 80's rock soundtrack version. Some might find this disappointing, but this version is more complete and better looking than Moroder's attempt. If that's the only version of "Metropolis" that you know, still give this one a chance. You may wind up liking it even better.
Rating:
Summary: better than moroder's version
Review: I never thought it possible....but this restored edition has me spellbound...glorious 5:1 continuous symphonic music, crisp clear images, and enough fill in the blanks to make krispy kreme search for doughnut hole cutters...after you see this version, you'll know all over again why you loved this film from the start..
Rating:
Summary: A model of digital presentation
Review: This disk can serve as a model of how to do it right. The restoration is virtually flawless. I can't imagine the picture looking any better at its Berlin premiere so many decades ago. Missing passages (about 30 mins.) are filled in with narrative cards so that now the plot makes sense. (It never did in earlier versions that I'd seen.) The symphonic score, which survives, has been orchestrated and joined to the film, a most moving impression. With excellent features on the making of the film and its restoration, plus a splendid commentary by a leading Lang scholar, this DVD will long hold a high place in my library. If you love "Metropolis" as much as I do, you owe yourself the pleasure of owning and viewing (repeatedly, as I already have) this splendid disk.
Rating:
Summary: Incredible restoration
Review: I saw Metropolis for the first time in an architectural history class. The film was about an hour long, and it was so badly deteriorated that it was hard to watch. I could tell that it was an incredible film when it was made, but time had taken it's toll. All I can say about the restoration is WOW! The visuals are incredible, and there is now enough original footage that the story makes sense. For it's history and pioneering visual effects, this is an absolute must-have for any film buff.
Rating: 
Summary: The best version yet
Review: This DVD restored version is the best version of this classic movie that this reviewer has seen. It does has its good and not so good points, but what doesn't? Firstly the picture transfer and restoration can be considered a success. I compared this version to the Laserdisc Moroder(spelling?) version. My conclusions are that the reduction in the frame rate speed and the inclusion of additional footage make this DVD preferrable. Whether or not the film was shown with color tints, I definitely think that this film works better with the tinting, which adds to the the effect of having two separate worlds - that of the workers and that of the elite who inhabit the surface. The frame speed as played back here has been controversal. I tried several experiments using the variable playback speed. At 20 frames per second the action is still not true to life. One has to get to .65X to make it so. This speed would be the most preferrable. The audio, however, does suffer at these reduced speeds. The audio is a disappointment. The score adds little value to this film. I felt myself not being drawn in emotionally as much as with the Moroder version. In this case - and I may be in the minority here - I think that a modern (read pop or rock)score, in particular the Moroder score works much better than the classical score, after all it is a futuristic vision we are being shown. Also, Moroder's use of silence and sound effects are much more effective and at times stunning. The most useless part of this new release is the commentary. Granted I did not hear it all but what I heard was someone describing what they thought the religious symbolism was during a scene. This was, in my opinion, not appropriate. This is only someone's impression or opinion. Commentary on *how* the film was made or what happened during the shot is what should be the commentary subject. I'm glad I bought this for the study but I'm keeping my Moroder version for the impact.
Rating:
Summary: Review of the Kino DVD
Review: Released in 1927, amid the golden age of the silent film era, Fritz Lang's METROPOLIS is a stylistic tour-de-force that has remained influential for the rest of the century, inspiring films like 1931's FRANKENSTEIN as well as 1997's DARK CITY. With its imaginative set design, elaborate photography, bold editing, and its then groundbreaking special effects, this German silent classic exemplifies the highly inventive period of German Expressionism, which also include such film masterworks as THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI, NOSFERATU, THE LAST LAUGH, and DIE NIBELUNGEN (which Lang made prior to METROPOLIS). This Kino Region 1-only DVD offers an almost pristine-looking video transfer of the film. The untinted, black-and-white image is clean and sharp throughout, the result of a mostly manual frame-by-frame restoration started in 1998 by Germany's F.W. Murnau Foundation. The included jacket essay gives a brief account of its efforts, as well as the work of other restorationists in the past, notably Munich Filmmuseum and film historian Enno Patalas. The DVD supplements also include an excellent mini-documentary that explains some of the technical details in the restoration. The film's running time on this DVD is 118 minutes (not 124 as printed on the case). It is shown at the speed of 24 frames per second, an unusual frame rate for a silent film. But according to F.W. Murnau Foundation, this was the projection speed used at the film's premiere in 1927. Some viewers may find the motion a bit too fast at times due to the high frame rate. But some believe this was director Fritz Lang's way to intensify some of the action. (For those who want to watch METROPOLIS at a slower speed, there is a PC DVD player called WinDVD 4.0, which lets you extend or shorten a DVD's running time without affecting the pitch of the audio.) This DVD only has English intertitles (supported by French and Spanish subtitles). The style, typeface, and the occasional animation in the intertitles were all re-created according to the original film. The original score by Gottfried Huppertz was also "adapted" from its 153-minute original length to the current, shorter length. This is the first time I have a chance to listen to Huppertz's elaborately orchestrated score, and it sounds terrific. This latest restoration, unfortunately, did not recover a lot of film footage that had been missing over the years. Major sequences that were lost, such as Maria's escape from Rotwang, are still lost. To make up for this, and to make the film's plot more coherent, new intertitles were inserted to summarize the story lines of the missing footage. These intertitles are frequently seen in this restored version, a constant reminder of the large amount (a quarter of the film) of lost footage. I did a brief side-by-side comparison between the Kino DVD and a few old video versions, and discovered the DVD actually has "alternate scenes" that were utilized for this restoration. In other words, Lang apparently shot some of the scenes *twice* (probably for domestic theaters and abroad), resulting in two versions of a scene looking slightly different. For instance, in the running competition early in the film, the winner wins by a big margin in all older video versions that I had seen. But on the Kino DVD, the winner only wins by a hair. The DVD's audio commentary by Enno Patalas is mild disappointment. As in the Kino DVD of THE BLUE ANGEL, the comments are too sparse and not too in-depth. And long stretches of silence are frequent. The commentary is largely analytical, and it points out some of the key themes and visual motifs of the film. The other DVD supplements include an involving 45-minute documentary that covers the making of the film, the German Expressionist period, the "unmaking" of METROPOLIS by censors and Hollywood, and a few interview segments of Lang. The still gallery contains about 90 production photos and design sketches, including about 27 photos taken from missing scenes.
Rating:
Summary: Flawed Masterwork
Review: The cover says "Restored", while the inside liner notes explain how hard the current producers worked to salvage what's left of the film. The second paragraph of the notes breaks your heart by mentioning what scenes were cut from the original release and are now probably lost forever.
Coming on the heels of the DVD release of the recently discovered complete version of Die Nibelungen, the irony that Lang's best known work is the one that we'll never get to see all of is sad irony. Oddly enough, the original cuts were made by Paramount, which was interested in the German market and decided that it's initial stateside release would be this ... epic, prior to it's completion. Ufa withdrew the film after a short run in Berlin, and then agreed that the shorter version would be better received (despite the popularity of the lengthy Mabuse and Nibelungen). The film, of course, flopped, pretty much putting Ufa out of business.
So there's a half hour of material that is gone, and there's no way of getting around it. Kino has done a fine job here pulling together the best of what's available, while inserting cards to at least bring back the original plot lines. You finally get the full, rich story, and some chance to imagine how everything might have looked. The extra material is generous and quite interesting.
Let's hope a copy of the full version exists somewhere to be unearthed someday, though the odds don't look very good. Meanwhile, this is the best version that exists of one of the greatest of all films. Not a bad investment.
Rating:
Summary: Dazzling!!
Review: What can I say? Simply that this film, this version in particular is smashing, dazzling, and beautifully transferred! Not to mention, a scintillating score to boot...
Rating:
Summary: A labor of love!
Review: At last, the "Metropolis" film restoration project is complete, and the results are brilliant. One of the greatest and most influential science fiction films in history has been rescued from oblivion, and now it can survive in digital glory to amaze and capture the imaginations of future generations. The first time I purchased a DVD of this film, it was the "Hollywood Classics" version, and I was so terribly disappointed by the scratchy print that I could hardly get past the first 20 minutes, and ultimately I donated the disc to my local public library. Sure, I knew that surviving prints of "Metropolis" had deteriorated badly, but I had assumed in the age of the DVD that something watchable would be available. The "Hollywood Classics" version is NOT watchable. But now the definitive version is out, and it's FANTASTIC. I suspect most people who purchase this disc are already familiar with the film and venerate it like I do. But there's much more to recommend this DVD than just the fact that the film has been digitally restored as closely to the version that originally premiered in Berlin in 1927. The extras on this disc are amazing. You'll want to pore over the extensive photo galleries. You'll also enjoy the "Metropolis Case" documentary about Fritz Lang and the place of the film in German Expressionist film history. The short feature about how the film was digitally cleaned up is also interesting, though a bit academic. But when you finally decide to settle in and watch the film itself, I would highly suggest watching it with the excellent commentary by Enno Patalas ON. It's very well-scripted and provides the film with a great deal of extra meaning and resonance. You've already seen the film a number of times, right? You'll enjoy the commentary, trust me. It doesn't distract from the viewing experience, nor is it like commentary tracks today in which cast and crew watch the film and just throw in offhand observations and an occasional chuckle. Enno Patalas' commentary in contrast is well-paced and highly respectful of both the film and the viewer.
Rating:
Summary: This version had to be a labor of love.
Review: There are many things that make this version great, but I will mention only 3. 1. The film is painstakingly restored to (probably) the cleanest graphics since 1927 in Berlin (if even then). Gone is the graininess, dirt, smudges, water spots, and scenes that are too light, or too dark. According to the restoration documentary, many of the scenes were restored frame by frame. WOW. What a labor of love. Keep in mind that 1/4 of the film is gone forever, so...
2. The original script is used. This film has probably been the most butchered, massacred, botched, and misrepresented script ever. The 45 minute documentary that comes with the DVD explains why. What Keno did is use the original script, scenes that were gone forever were told via a storyboard (which makes this version probably the most coherant Metropolis ever). Example: If you watch the cheap PD production of Metropolis, it makes Rotwang look like a faithful servant of Joh Fredersen, whereas the Kino version not only shows that Rotwang dispises Fredersen, but why (It seems that they shared the same woman, named Hel (another fact not mentioned in all other versions). She was originally Rotwang's girl, but was lured away by Fredersen. She dies giving birth to Freder). There are many other small scenes that make the film look like a different, better & more complete movie.
3. It has the original 1927 Orchestral Score. All the other versions of this film have background music (lets see... The Media version is the same music over and over again. The Platnum version is mood music from standard classical music which abruptly changes when the scene changes. The Georgio Moroder one (which would probably be the lowest rated for tackiness alone) plays Dat Ol' Time Rock 'n' Roll). It is so refreshing not only to hear the original score (of course, newly recorded), but to be able to hear it in dolby 5.1 surround.
The only thing left to ask yourself is this. What do I do with my old cheap version? The only answer I can come up with is that fortunately, the cheap disk is still round and therefore has the perfect shape for skeet shooting.
If you've never purchased Metropolis, this is the one to get. This one may cost more, but is proof (just like many Criterion releases) that you get what you pay for.
Kudos to Kino, and Transit Films.
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