Not only is this a French animated science-fiction film, it’s a very serious one to boot and relies on the audience being reasonably intelligent and attentive. Most science-fiction stories are built around just one or two cool ideas, but this one just keeps throwing new things at you and expects you to keep. Unfortunately it flubs the ending as the buildup is way better than the payoff but it’s so good as a cyberpunk noir while it lasts.

Aline Ruby is a private detective and her partner is Carlos Rivera, an android replica of her friend whose biological body died some years ago. On Earth, they apprehend Roberta Williams, a hacker who specializes in jailbreaking androids to remove their safety protocols, and transport them back to Mars. But they are forced to release her when her warrant disappears from the system and their employer, the powerful industrialist Chris Royjacker, tells them not to worry about it. Next Aline is approached by a father to locate his daughter Jun Chow, a cybernetics students. Chow has been missing since she used the university’s computer to jailbreak a robot, causing it to run amok. Searching through her dorm room, they discover the severed head of her roommate who has also gone missing in the ventilation shaft. The police eventually find the destroyed remains of the robot in Noctis, the now disused underground city where the colonists first established themselves on Mars. They are shocked to see that the robot has been drawing strange designs on the walls and has been building a rocket out of stolen parts. They eventually trace Chow to a nightclub cum brothel that is entirely staffed by androids. She has illegally created an android duplicate of herself while still alive in order to make extra money while also serving as an engineer. Soon after Aline and Carlos find her, they are attacked by cybernetically augmented hitmen who quickly kill Chow and then escape.

So there’s a fair amount of violence and death in this film, which one might say is somewhat like Japanese anime. But unlike anime, it takes both its world and its characters seriously so there are no cutesy elements. Aline is a recovering alcoholic and needs to drink to get her nerves under control. In the heat of combat, characters are killed off with no dramatic grandstanding. The action scenes look awesome even though Carlos’ feats seem a little improbable towards the end just because he has a robot body. I also love that this is still a noir detective story first and foremost so we get to see Aline and Carlos doing the legwork and connecting all the clues. Both the art style and the animation are excellent in depicting a fully realized original science-fiction setting that is reasonably plausible.

This seems to be the directorial debut of Jérémie Périn who also wrote the story and I’m impressed by his chutzpah in sketching out the details of his world step by step with no narration and no handholding. We have robots with the personalities of real humans, jailbreaking to remove the safety protocols on robot bodies, there’s a Mars colony, there are also organic artificial intelligences, brain farming and on and on. We expects us to be smart enough to pick up details on our own too, such as Carlos shutting his sensory input off so he doesn’t have to obey safety protocols when apprehending criminals. Characters are generally smart and act rationally. It’s so refreshing to get a story which treats both the audience and the characters as being intelligent enough to connect the dots. Unfortunately it does fail towards the end. Once Aline and Carlos uncover the truth of the vast conspiracy that links everything together, the secret is underwhelming. It doesn’t even make sense why Royjacker’s shareholders support what is going on as it doesn’t seem that there’s any benefit to them. I suspect that Périn simply didn’t have any good ideas on how it should end.

Despite the flubbed climax, I’d say that this is still well worth watching. It’s one of the best, most serious cyberpunk films I’ve ever seen, and there really isn’t many of those around. I’ve never really been a fan of anime because I hate so much their dramatic exaggerations combined with cutesy fanservice, all featuring children or young adults. This on the other hand is exactly the kind of animated feature I’ve love to see more of: adult characters, a serious setting and a story that isn’t written for children. It’s such a pity that this isn’t better known because it deserves way more of an audience.