Patlabor Movie 3: WXIII

[DB]

And to bring in the new month...

Let's do one that was released a while back without much fanfare. We'll look at Patlabor Movie 3 WXIII (W 13, for those at home). I won't bother rehashing what the Patlabor series was about, that'll be for some future review. Actually, as it turns out, you don't need to know a damn thing about Patlabor when it comes to the third movie and you can watch it at any time. I'll explain later.

WXIII stands for 'Waste 13', a codename given to a secret project, which it turns out the movie centers around. Our heroes are two totally new characters that, unlike the first two movies, have nothing to do with the previous series. They're a pair of detectives trying to solve a curious case. It appears something is attacking and destroying labors (giant robot-like machines) along the waterways of Tokyo. No one knows what it is, since all the attacks happen in isolated areas at night, only that it's ripping the giant vehicles to shreds. As the movie unfolds, they try to solve the mystery and stop the attacks at the same time.

Our two heroes are both male, one the jaded old hand and the other the younger more optimistic of the duo. A common theme in such 'cop shows' as they contrast one another. As they delve into the mystery, the attacks increase, eventually killing people as well. Their footwork eventually leads them to what's really going on, both on the surface and beneath it, and the question becomes can they stop the menace before they and others fall.

Let's get to some of the bad points. At the top of the list is this: This is not a Patlabor movie. It has nothing to do with Patlabor. This is easily the biggest case of cashing in on the popularity of a previous series while not really using it. Oh, technically it is. It takes place in the PL universe, and the characters from the original series pop up in a handful of forced cameos, but that's it. The roles they are in could have been filled by any generic background character. The writers had to go way out of their way to include them and validate the 'Patlabor' in the title. The movie centers on new characters and situations that occur only in the movie. It could have taken place in any near-futuristic Japan. But they wanted to tie the popular Patlabor name to it and see if they could make more bucks.

Second bad point: The plot is, well, predicitible. One of the limitations about mystery movies is that all the clues have to be there in order for the watcher to figure things out, and there's only one person that has motive and opportunity to do things in this. Before everything is revealed, you know how things are going to end and why.

Good points: Despite the characters being new, they are enjoyable. They are realistic for the most part, and not called upon to do anything superhuman or out of the ordinary. They aren't great, but they intruiging enough to keep your interest until the end. Ditto with the bad guy that's behind things. You can see the self-destruction behind their eyes and the reason for what they do.

Music was top notch. Not up to par with the second movie's music (whose themes I still listen to frequently) but still enjoyable. Animation was also top grade. Visually it was fun to watch. (As a side note: I really liked the trailer they had for this things. It was very moody, probably moreso than the movie itself. Even the dialogue at the very beginning when they run down the various codenames for WXIII.)

All in all, it's enjoyable to watch once, though I doubt you'd want to see it a second time. It obviously pales in comparison to the first two Patlabor movies, which were both superior to the enjoyable series they were based on. If only other series could take their cues from that.

Final Rating: 5 out of 10.

[Edward]

I wonder why they didn't use Detective Matsui and his partner Kataoka, who were at least tertiary characters in the TV series and had important roles in the first movie.