Directed by: Jérémie Périn
Distributed by: GKIDS
Written by Michael Clawson
70/100
Stylish but derivative, this animated cyberpunk thriller is shackled to its influences, the most obvious of which is “Blade Runner.” Like that neo-noir classic, “Mars Express” is a detective mystery that spirals into the seedy underside of a futuristic society. The setting is a human-colonized Mars, and the narrative trappings are familiar: humans and androids co-exist, tech corporations dominate, and there are whisperings of conspiracy and robot rebellion. Our hard-boiled gumshoe is the platinum blonde Aline Ruby, whose latest case involves tracking down a missing cybernetics student named Jun Chow. With a synthetic model of her late partner Carlos in tow (his body is robotic, his head a hologram), Aline winds her way through a sleekly visualized world of high-tech criminal scheming. The film looks terrific and is diverting enough, but it’s held back by its close resemblance to movies we’ve seen before.
In plot beats that rhyme with any number of film noirs, Aline discovers that Jun was mixed up in shady activity, from drugs and prostitution to computer hacking. Jun’s cyber-crime was geared towards the “jailbreaking” of robots, a process by which androids are liberated from having to obey the commands of their human counterparts. It’s also what made Jun a target, and what eventually connects her story to tech businessman Chris Royjacker, whose face and corporate logo scroll on digital billboards throughout the film’s Martian metropolis. Punctuated by visceral action sequences as Aline is tailed by shadowy antagonists, the mystery unfolds at a rapid clip, and moves between a variety of striking locations. To name just two, there’s the neon-lit sex club where Aline learns yet another critical secret about Jun, and the strip mall “brain farm” Jun visited, where humans can plug their heads into tubes and download their memories to be sold for cash.
The film’s fast pace can be enlivening, but part of why “Mars Express” feels like no more than the sum of its influences is because of its hurried storytelling. With its plot-heavy script, the film briskly progresses from one note to the next as if checking off the boxes required for a sci-fi noir. It’s for this reason that Aline feels less like an actual character than a cliché – the script doesn’t have the time to give her a personality, so it instead simply gives her a drinking problem and calls it a day. What’s most rewarding is the animation style, which is crisp, simple, and unfussy. The image of an ultra-modern cityscape on Mars, with its sleazy underground and glossy, high-tech surface, is compellingly rendered.
“Mars Express” Trailer
Michael Clawson is a member of the Seattle Film Critic Society you can follow his passion for film on Letterboxd.