Armitage: Dual Matrix

Plot synopsis:
=== Armitage III: Poly-Matrix ===
In 2046, the overpopulation of Earth has led to the colonization of Mars—with the aid of the "first type" androids, men were able to begin terraforming the unfriendly environment of Mars and build the city Saint Lowell. Seventy years after the start of colonization, the city is completed and inhabited by great numbers of people and "Second type" robots, much improved versions of the "First types". Ross Syllibus, a middle-aged policeman from Chicago, flies to Saint Lowell using a space shuttle. Syllibus asked to be transferred to the Martian Police Department to escape from his past and haunting memories of his previous partner being killed by a robot. At the Saint Lowell's space port he is to meet his new partner—a young woman named Naomi Armitage.
On the same shuttle as Syllibus travels Kelly McCannon—"the last country singer in the Universe". As the shuttle nears the terminal, a mysterious man is seen entering the cargo section; soon after this, the intruder is noticed and the alarms go off.
Later, as Ross gets off the shuttle, he witnesses a disturbing scene at the airport. He bumps into the mysterious man with a big suitcase and two guards. Soon after that, Armitage orders the men to stop and get their hands up. Puzzled, Ross notices a few drops of blood spilling from the mysterious man's suitcase. The two robot guards are killed by Armitage and the mysterious man is wounded, but flees. However, he leaves his suitcase behind—inside of which is the dead body of Kelly McCannon. To everybody's surprise and horror, McCannon turns out to be a robot: a new, never-seen-before "Third type" android that is superficially identical to humans.
Later, the mysterious man hacks into the public television system and replays the security camera footage. The tape shows the man killing Kelly McCannon and reveals the fact of her being a robot to the entire city. The mysterious man, René D'anclaude, reveals that the Third types have been among the regular people for a long time and nobody can tell them apart from humans. He also reveals a list of Thirds—and it turns out that a lot of well-known people are actually robots. Riots begin in the city as people start to capture and burn all the Thirds they can find. Meanwhile, René D'anclaude proceeds with his extermination of the Thirds. The two main characters start their investigation and eventually find out, that the victims are women.
One of the dying victims sends out a message with the list of Thirds to save them from being slaughtered. Armitage receives it and pursues D'anclaude. Armitage is eventually revealed to be a third and goes into hiding as the police hunt for her. Ross seeks her out as she enlists the help of a male third named Julian Moore. D'anclaude then attacks them and is revealed to be a second.
While the police drop the case with D'anclaude's supposed capture, Armitage and Julian search a databank for information on her origins. Armitage eventually defeats D'anclaude, but is too late to stop Julian from being killed. She and Ross break into the hospital D'anclaude was recovering in, branding themselves as criminals after the rescue.
Armitage and Ross later go off in search of her "father", Dr. Asakura, only to learn he had lost his mind, as explained by a gentler, reprogrammed version of D'anclaude, living with delusions of creating "Fourths". They learn that the Thirds were originally "assassinroids" - deadly robots with organic components, capable of infiltrating secure facilities by masquerading as humans. This project was re-purposed to bolster the low Martian birth rate, itself a result of Earth's strongly feminist society encouraging the immigration of males and discouraging the immigration of females. However, Earth's discovery of the Thirds incensed its leadership, forcing Mars to reverse its plans; Earth demanded that the Thirds be annihilated, offering female immigrants as a reward - and threatening war if not obeyed. The assassinroid program was thus re-activated to hunt and destroy the Thirds, which had vanished into the Martian population after their creation.
These revelations shock and dismay Armitage, leading her to seek comfort in Ross, who affirms her value as a living being before consummating their relationship. The next day, after Asakura deactivates Armitage so he can install angelical wings and particle cannons on her chassis, the military kills Asakura and Armitage and Ross eventually finish off the military. Months later, Ross returns to Mars, using false IDs, however Armitage throws hers away after Ross Sylibus' arrival. Armitage tells Ross that she is pregnant with their child.
=== Armitage: Dual-Matrix ===
It had been several years since the events of the previous OVA. Naomi Armitage and Ross Sylibus, now living under assumed identities, are living in St. Lowell on Mars, along with their daughter Yoko. Ross now works for a company seeking to restore oceans to Mars by using ice asteroids. However, a new effort to restore the Third project prompts Naomi to travel to Earth to figure out what is happening. Meanwhile, Ross saves a facility from a group of terrorists and is declared a Martian hero.
When Armitage arrives on Earth, she confronts Colonel Strings, hero of the First Error, which was a suppression of a robot uprising, which in reality, was to cover up the existence of the Thirds. But then he is shot by agents of an Earth Robotronics Corporation. Its vice president, Demetrio Mardini, asks Armitage to give the data on how Thirds can conceive so humanity can create a race of beings who exist to serve. She refuses so he resorts to force and unleashes a robot that scrambles her eyes. She manages to use her telepresence abilities to hack into its system and overload it. She then escapes but is damaged and is found by a repairer third named Mouse, who prides himself on his skill and frequently brags that he's a "genius". However, Mouse is also an informant to Demetrio and presents the data he found on Armitage; but he only got the recent data and Demetrio wants the conception data. Mouse claims that he did not know about the conception data, and also that if it existed it would be with what he gave him; but Demetrio refuses to believe either of these and tries to brutally force it with two clones of Armitage, who severely injure Mouse. He does not get anything and throws Mouse in the trash. Mouse swears revenge.
Back on Mars, prime minister Fredrick O'Hara sends Ross to Earth to represent the planet in the support of robot rights, promising amnesty from the charges against them. However, Demetrio's agents captured Yoko while Ross was away from the hotel, and is threatened that he will not see Yoko again if he votes for the Rights Bill. With a little reluctance, Ross remains neutral on the bill. Demetrio's agents, however, reveal that they were planning on killing Ross from the start, contrary to their deal. After a car chase, Armitage is able to save him at the very last moment. Together, they vow to rescue their daughter.
They storm Demetrio's compound; Armitage deals with Demetrio while Ross saves Yoko. The same robot Armitage encountered earlier had been upgraded to withstand her telepresence attack. Meanwhile, Ross manages to locate Yoko in a freezer. Elsewhere, Demetrio demands the secret in exchange for forgetting the damages they committed against him and his company. Armitage lures him closer, presumably to tell him what he wants to know; but she ends up kicking him in the crotch and telling him that Third conception is not simply data, it is about true love. With that she escapes again, forcing Demetrio to unleash the clones on her. She manages to evade the two and meets up with Ross and Yoko. Yoko is overjoyed to see her mother but recoils when she sees Armitage's metal shoulder that was scraped off by the clones. Just then, they attack. While Armitage holds them off, Ross and Yoko make their way to an unused space elevator. It is here that Yoko shows that she has a photographic memory, leading them to the space elevator whose location she determined from a map she saw minutes beforehand (Ross comments that she is "quite the little genius"). Soon, Armitage flees to Mouse, who repairs the damage and gives her a program that will allow her to go beyond her limited fighting abilities. He tells her that the password is "Heaven's Door"; but that if she exceeds more than her internal battery can handle, she will "be knocking at the Pearly Gates for real". She also has him do her one more favor: broadcast the footage of the Third massacre attempts all over Earth and Mars (upon seeing it himself, Mouse comments, "I think it's inhuman, and I'm a robot!"). This compels Demetrio to command the clones to prevent the family from leaving. After both clones are beaten, Demetrio tries having the elevator's defenses fired on their shuttle only to be killed by the last remaining clone, who is at the time controlled by what was left of Poly-Matrix's Julian Moore. Without Demetrio's authorization, the turrets do nothing. A hologram of Julian Moore then appears, wishing the family goodbye. The movie ends with the family enjoying a day at the beach on Mars, on Naomi's birthday.
In a post-credits scene, Mouse salvages one of the Armitage clones for himself.

Tags: violence

Review:
Digitally animated action-packed sequel to ARMITAGE III.
ARMITAGE: DUAL MATRIX (2001) is a sequel to ARMITAGE III (1994), a four-part made-for-video Japanese animated series that was also re-edited as a two-hour feature (ARMITAGE: POLY-MATRIX) and shown in the U.S. on the Sci-Fi Channel.
(The III in the earlier title is not the mark of a sequel but a reference to "Thirds," a special class of cyborg.) It helps to have seen the earlier production in order to better grasp what's going on in this one, which doesn't stop to fill in the background.
Instead it plunges us right into the continuing tensions between humans and robots in this far-off future society in which a growing Mars colony seeks independence from Earth and greater rights for robots.
It picks up the characters of Naomi Armitage, a Third, and her human mate, Ross Sylibus, as they lead a quiet life together incognito on Mars with a young daughter, Yoko, after having been fugitives at the end of ARMITAGE III, in which they'd been cops investigating murders of Thirds by anti-robot factions.
(The big secret of female Thirds was that they had the power to procreate, which made them such hated targets.)The couple's familial bliss is disrupted when a zealous army colonel leads a raid on a secret Earth plant doing illegal robot research and kills the robots and humans working there.
Naomi has a connection to the plant and heads to Earth to seek out the perpetrator, Colonel Strings, who turns out to actually work for the Earth Robotronics Corporation, which wants to redirect research away from robots to human cloning.
Ross is sent to Earth also, as a Mars delegate to the Chicago Summit to vote on the Robot Rights bill, and he and Naomi soon find they have a common enemy in Demetrio Mardini, an executive with Earth Robotronics.
Odds against the couple increase when Mardini sends two powerful new clones of Naomi to stop them.On the surface, DUAL MATRIX is an exciting, action-packed thriller bursting with extraordinary high-tech touches dotting this exquisitely rendered futuristic landscape.
The digital animation used to render this vision is often quite spectacular, particularly in the plentiful action scenes which range from car chases and shootouts involving high-powered automatic weapons fire to copter attacks and hand-to-hand battles with robot fighting machines.
The final stage of the film is particularly riveting as Ross, accompanied by the child, Yoko, tries to make it to the landing platform at the top of a huge spaceport where a shuttle waits to take them all back to Mars while Naomi fights off the two clones.The problem for fans of the original is that the science fiction themes that once predominated--questions of identity, status of androids, and ability of human society to coexist with them--are overshadowed here by an emphasis on action elements.
Naomi Armitage was originally a much spunkier character who played on the ambiguity of her origins and made viewers care because she seemed human and triggered deep emotions in Ross as they bonded in their efforts to carry out their mission.
She joked, laughed, cried, loved and searched desperately for answers.
Here Naomi is much less emotional and more of a traditional anime fighting cyborg.
She's still a colorful heroine, but most of her screen time is devoted to demonstrating her considerable powers.
Ross seems subdued and more in need of protection than he did in the original.
Furthermore, the motivations for most of the main characters are not always clear.The new one also looks quite different from the original which was still done in the now long ago era of hand-drawn animation.
While digital animation (which replicates the two-dimensional look of traditional cel animation) can create all sorts of elaborate effects and details that are most helpful in crafting the suitably dazzling future society on display here, it still lacks some of the vigor and artistry of traditional animation.
All anime is done digitally now and I miss the occasional imperfections--the jerky movements and shifts in color that reflected hand-painted work--as well as the bold lines and bright comic book colors that used to burst off the screen.
Everything looks so slick and polished now that I tend to get the greatest anime pleasure these days from such older series as "Kimba, the White Lion," "Star Blazers" and the original "Mobile Suit Gundam."DUAL MATRIX is still quite an entertaining 90-minute thriller and will no doubt please many young anime fans, but for those with a special interest in more challenging Japanese sci-fi anime, such as PATLABOR 1 & 2, GHOST IN THE SHELL and SERIAL EXPERIMENTS LAIN, it will be less satisfying, although the impressive visual design may provide some compensation.
The English voice cast features one name actress, Juliette Lewis, in the role of Naomi Armitage.
(ARMITAGE: POLY-MATRIX had two name actors, Elizabeth Berkley and Kiefer Sutherland, in the roles of Naomi and Ross.) Serious fans of anime are advised to pick up the DVD and opt for the Japanese-language soundtrack..
Put simply.
Good anime.
Better voice acting.
Great surround sound..
When I first read that Juliette Lewis was going to be a seiyuu (voice actor) for Armitage I wasn't sure if she would be able to pull it off.
Even though I think she is a great actress some actors don't seem to make a good transition to voice acting.
I am happy to say that she did a great job.
Elizabeth Berkley did a good job with the first movie along with Kiefer Sutherland but Juliette really shines in some scenes when Armitage is blowing her top (no pun intended).
It would have been great if they would have gotten Kiefer Sutherland to play the role of Ross with Juliette for the sequel but Skip Stellrecht does a fine job as the ex-cop.
The picture quality is great although it would have been better in letterbox.
Now, the real jem of this DVD is the surround sound.
It seems Pioneer went all out and purposely made the movie's soundtrack for 5.1 systems.
The sound engineers balanced the music very well with the voices and sound effects.
Even during an action scene you can still here the voices very well along with the music and everything else without having to play with the volume buttons.
Of course, you can only appreciate this if you have a surround sound system.
I give this anime 7 out of 10 stars for it's excellent sound engineering..
Almost as much fun as the original.
Be warned, this will spoil some of the story to the original movie, Poly-Matrix.
If you haven't seen that movie, I recommend you watch it first.
Now, moving on the sequel we have Dual Matrix.
Dual Matrix is set many years after the events of Poly-Matrix.
Ross and Naomi did indeed have a child and named her Yoko.
She's about 7 years old by now and completely unaware of her parent's past.
They've changed their names and identities and are living on Mars trying to keep peaceful lives.However, a horrible attack occurs killing several humans and robots.
One of them contact Armitage before death, sending her its memories.
She then quietly goes on a mission to find out just what's going on and take care of those responsible.Ross in the mean time is dealing with his own issues on Earth with Yoko.
Suffice to say when the action gets started it's just as good as old times.
There are twists and turns that keep it interesting throughout, as well as a few new characters.
Almost all the old favorites return and keep things interesting.Naomi has changed a bit and isn't as hyper as she was the first time around.
However, what she's lost in nubile cuteness over the years is more than made up for in experience.
She's more of a hardcore fighter than ever before.
Dual Matrix starts off somewhat slow, but quickly picks up into a very worthy sequel to the original movie.The highlight of the movie is the ending and I assume its namesake.
Naomi and Ross must survive a brutal fight against two enhanced Terminator style Armitage replicas while protecting Yoko.
It's a dramatic and power set of scenes that will have Naomi fans beside themselves.
If you liked Poly-Matrix, give this one a shot as well.
You may enjoy it just as much or even more.Rirath_com.
Great movie with bad English voiceovers.
Great flick -- provided you watch it in Japanese with the English subtitles.Having a celebrity do a voice-over for Japanese anime is nothing new.
Kiefer Sutherland voiced Ross in Armitage III: Polymatrix and did a terrific job.However, Juliette Lewis (who is given star billing for the film) delivers her lines terribly.
Her emotional delivery is flat when it needs to be expressive, and expressive when needed to be flat.
She mumbles and is difficult to understand through portions of the film.Ahmed Best is even worse as Mouse.
He plays Mouse as a Jar Jar Binksesque character with even more annoying voiceovers than Lewis delivers.Having said all that, don't miss the opportunity to catch this DVD.
The animation is first rate, and the action scenes are well thought out and delivered..
Great Show.
This would make a great cinema movie.
I re-watch it sometimes when I just want to relax.
The animation is great (esp.
for the era), the story is interesting, and the fight scenes are long and involved.
After a while of watching the same sword-wielding stuff, it's good to see action which is ...
hard to describe.
It's hand to hand, but when those hands are android hands, the action tends to be more intense.Set in a "cyberpunk" world, a sci-fi future where androids are almost accepted as equal to humans, this film has some serious themes, if you are interested in that sort of thing (most people aren't and just want raw action...
adrenaline junkies or something).I only took off one point because a key plot question is not, to my satisfaction, explained.
You'll know it when you see it since it perplexes the main villain, as well.My description doesn't really do this movie justice...
I haven't watched the others in the series yet but I must say, I love this movie, am glad I own it, and the English dub is great (my copy doesn't have subtitles or the Japanese soundtrack, but I don't miss them), not too high-key as some dubs are, and brings more "realism" to the characters (I mean, how real can androids and whatnot be?).To draw a comparison, this I think is overall a better movie than "I, Robot".
Yes, I, Robot has cg, and has Will Smith, and is newer, and has more special effects, and a bigger budget; but the story here is bigger and somehow the fact that the main android in this story can (and did) bear a child adds something.Moreover, the political intrigue involving the androids striving for true equality with humans, while more explicit in Animatrix, adds a level of depth to the story, framing the individual conflicts which the main characters find themselves in against the larger social framework which ultimately drives the creation of said conflicts.Plus, I have a thing for hot cybernetic/android chicks...
this reminds me a bit of Ghost in the Shell, but the two are very different.
It is like comparing Star Trek: The Next Generation to Farscape: Peacekeeper Wars.
Yes, they have superficial similarities, but just as GITS is more general, serial, and focused on teams...
so was ST:TNG.
Armitage is a lot more personal, focusing on a closed nuclear family of three (man, woman/android, and child).Well, go watch it, if you haven't already.