So I was sent a copy of Appleseed Ex Machina to review. To start this review as they typically go, my one line summary – “A mindless, simple film that tries to impress with interspersed action scenes that feel stilted and stick-like. If you liked the first Appleseed film, check it out, otherwise avoid it.” Now, the story:
“In the year 2133, a war killed off half the population of Earth, plunging the world into chaos and despair. In OLYMPUS, a utopian city-state and the last true bastion of culture and civilization, the ESWAT police force holds the peace. The two star members of this Special Ops team are Deunan Knute and her cyborg partner Briareos. Their relationship is threatened when the government reveals a prototype combat clone, named Tereus, who is a clone of Briareos. However, a strange electronic virus begins turning citizens into violent zombies and the trio must team up to track down the terrorists behind this brutal attack before it tears the peaceful utopia apart. “
The animation is impressive within the Applseed series; in other words, compared to the 2003 film, yes, it looks good. However, it’s still that ugly anime-like CG that only the Appleseed creators see value in continuing. I may have a chip on my shoulder because I was a huge fan of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, but that film did show that we have amazing CG technology. Why not use it?? Why create something that looks like an ugly video game FMV from 1998 and on top of that tout that it has “mind-blowing, cutting edge CGI”?
So the “amazing” visuals and the action scenes are supposed to make up for a vague, lame anime plot from 1998 (if you see a trend that the creators are stuck in that time period, you’re right). You know how this goes: vaguely defined love story, characters say things that are supposed to be important just because, someone’s trying to take over the world who’s an upstanding member of society that would of course never be suspected, no one really gets killed, crazy-god-like evil thing the real bad guy behind it all. It’s utter tripe.
On top of that the action scenes are stiff and robot-like, no fluid action to speak of. They’re not even really impressive to begin with. That cathedral shoot-out you see cut up in the trailer? It’s just Deunan and Briareus standing back to back and shooting in a circle for a minute, then one of the enemies blows himself up and they jump out a window. That’s pretty much it, and that’s about as good as it gets. The other action scenes are even more sleepy and boring, and again, look as though they’re being fought by stick figures.
All in all, this film really represents a creator and production team that is not paying any attention to what’s going on in anime today. The entire film feels like it’s something that would have been mediocre ten years ago, but coming out now it’s just crap. Obviously this was made because someone had a bunch of money and wanted to see their mundane idea come to life, but no one on the production team had the good sense to tell them no.
Definitely agree with the review, I liked the previous movie better. I have a feeling that the movie was modified ‘heavily’ given John Woo’s involvement.
Every one of John Woo’s movies has this ‘big shootout @ church’ scene, and ‘bullets falling on floor like rain’ scene. And now, he has incorporated matrix style slo-mo scenes as well.