Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This is the 139 minute, tinted version, with the disjointed music, distributed by "JEF films" and labeled "Aikman Archive" in yellow on the box. The sound is bad and the video quality is poor. For superior video quality, get the version produced by Kino Video instead. although the Kino version has a bad sound track, at least the video quality is very good. For superior sound, get the Moroder version of Metropolis. This review assumes that you have already seen Metropolis. For those unfamiliar with Metropolis, it is considered "the" first SciFi movie -- the robot, the cool visual effects of future cities, and a few mad scientist lab scenes. But it is only a great movie IF you see the right version. Sadly, there are more then 6 versions of the film floating around -- Black/white, bad music, slow playback B/W, bad music, fast playback tinted, bad music, slow playback tinted, good music, fast playback plus a few versions with terrible video quality (the DVD version is such a case) and other versions with missing scenes, a non-logical flow to the story line due to bad editing, etc. Unfortunately, the situation with prints of Metropolis is a bit of a mess. Those looking for the tinted Girogio Moroder sound track should NOT get this tape. Although the run time of this version of the movie is 139 minutes, it is actually missing scenes that are in the 90 minute Kino Video and Moroder versions of the tape. The reason is that this 139 minute tape is run at a SLOWER speed than the Kino tape is. Also, the music is totally out of sync and unrelated to the action. Unfortunately, Moroder's copy is not available from anywhere. At $24.95, I'd hoped that the folks at Amazon.com had found a copy but this is not the case. Someone should find a good copy of the Moroder tape, sell that, and burn all of the other versions. Although some people object to Moroder's rock soundtrack, at least it follows the story line and is an excellent sound track on its own. I was fortunate enough to have seen Moroder's copy the first time I saw Metropolis and I am very glad that I did. To add further insult to injury, the CD of Moroder's soundtrack is not the same as the music that appearred in the movie. The CD has some additional songs and is missing some others. So you can't redub a video from the CD. So don't get the "Moroder CD" and expect to remix your own copy of the video. OK, having provided all of the background info, there is the review: 139-minute B&W version published by JEF films. The cover says it is a "newly restored version", but image quality is so bad that I would rather call it "newly destroyed version". It has actually more missing scenes than both Kino's and Moroder's versions, but runs longer because of slower frame speed.