This French animated androids and detectives story gets almost everything right. It wears its influences on its sleeve without ever feeling like a cheap knock-off. There's a bit of everything from Asimov to Blade Runner to Robocop to, most overtly, Ghost in the Shell (there's even a Kusanagi vs the tank homage), but it's not just a greatest hits remix.
On the taut through line of its central plot about a PI investigating a potential murder by an android, the writers hang a lot of commentary and critique of modern technology, AI, and capitalism. That said, the AI in this movie is the classic version and not what we now know as AI— generative (you'll pry my em dashes from my cold dead hands).
The "robot uprising" trope and its cousin, the "loophole in the three laws" trope are clichés at this point but Mars Express puts an interesting spin on it, first by setting it in a time when everyone is acutely aware of the possibility (so there are counter measures in place) and secondly, well, that's one of the surprises.
The animation is fluid and the art style is beautiful, though it did feel a little like something out of Centurions or something at some points but with a better budget. The worldbuilding is great. Not a lot we haven't seen before but they still manage to add some character to worldbuilding in a genre that's been mined to near depletion.
Be warned that the ending is both dissatisfying and ambiguous on purpose (spoiler about the nature of the ending).
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