‘Mars Express’ Review – France’s Anime Film Is A Cyberpunk Standout

What exactly do you call French anime? Franime? Whatever the case, when it comes to the market of animated films marketed to an adult audience, Japan is by and large the front runner when it comes to creating crisp entertainment. However, a little film from France has gotten a lot of buzz over the last year attempting to bring favor back to the French market: Mars Express.

Mars Express is a movie that draws many parallels to a multitude of sci-fi movies audiences are familiar with. If you’re a fan of films such as Blade Runner, The Matrix, The Fifth Element, Interstellar, and other neo-noir projects, just to name a few, Mars Express should be a film to add to your watch list.

Set in the futuristic 23rd century, alcoholic private investigator Aline Ruby and her android companion Carlos Rivera are hunting down hackers who are attempting to illegally jailbreak other androids, in an effort to set them free from their animatronic oppression.

One day, Aline is dragged into the middle of an investigation about a young college-age girl who goes missing after being tied to the murder of her roommate. While at first it seems like a standard investigation, the case takes a dark turn very quickly. The closer Aline gets into the investigation, the more she realizes that her own department is trying to close doors to prevent her from figuring out what is happening.

What they discover is that the missing girl has stumbled upon the ability to go a step beyond jailbreaking — freeing androids from original programming and giving them complete control. Aline figures that the entity behind this program has a lot of power to silence anyone who tries to stop their plan from being realized and that’s when she discovers that there’s no one that she can trust; even her superiors.

It is easy to forget just how good animation has gotten over the last 20 years. Mars Express is an example of how stellar an animated series can be in modern times. On one hand, the art direction can look flat but understanding the story is much more of a character study within a sci-fi tale, the film keeps its focus the frame of a bigger story.

The film touches on the timely topic of artificial intelligence and what could happen to the world if AI is allowed to roam without bounds. There are two big knocks against the film, the first one being its lack of world-building for a film set in a futuristic universe.

The movie switches focus between Earth and Mars, and creates a world where humanity and robots live in technical harmony. However there’s a much deeper subplot of a rebellion against robots that is left in the back burner.

Outside of that, Mars Express shows us that despite technological advances, the more things change the more they remain the same as far as human desires go.

While Mars Express is largely a solid film that does a lot more good than bad, the ending will certainly leave a lot to be desired as its final five minutes end on a flat note of what it was building up to. The film shows us that there is a conflict between the two sides but doesn’t go deep enough into what has caused it in this universe.

Mars Express is a film that is certainly a standout versus what audiences are used to. However, you cannot shake the fact you will be left hungry for more when the film is all said and done. The movie creates a fully realized world that falls a bit short in its practicality.

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