Malice@Doll Movie Review

What's that @ symbol doing in the middle of a title that would otherwise make a minimum of sense at best, anyway? Hell if I know. But after 70-some minutes of watching the anime feature Malice@Doll, that'll be the least of your baffled worries.

Malice@Doll is the story of a robot prostitute who finds herself lost in a post-human world and in need of repairs. After being groped by security robots and repaired, Malice inexplicably becomes a human (or approximately so) through a force of will as she tangles with the usual tentacle-beasts and renegade androids. Or is it all a dream of an old and busted robo-whore?

You let me know if you figure it out. Anime flicks have never been known for their general audience accessibility, but Malice@Doll will have just about everyone stumped. Meant to reference such "can robots really feel?" stories like Blade Runner, Malice@Doll tries to get deep but gets lost in its own psychobabble. That it's riddled with faux sexuality only muddles the issue further -- the movie wants to believe it's risque; in reality it's barely titillating at all. The CGI animation is interesting and unusual in the anime genre, but it's probably only of real concern to die-hard fans of the anime world.

Aka Malice Doll.