Appleseed Saga Ex Machina

There is one thing I can say against Ex Machina; it's not the motion capture style bluescreen recording that it's predecessor was. It's purely CG and character movement can be a little quick and jerky. That's about it. Well that and we didn't get a soundtrack here in the states.

Otherwise we have a well executed Shirow Masamune mecha film with the best duo in the genre: Deunan and Briareos. Like most of the franchise it's not directly attached to any other title except through source material, so it's meant to stand on its own. This also continued the trend for ... a less humorous and more action oriented Appleseed story, and I ate it up.

Story wise we have a plot to turn the latest tech product against it's customers, for a unique method of zombifying people. But Briareos is a target as well, and Deunan is given a new partner wearing his old face. Ghosts of the past in a scifi future, fast paced landmate combat. Old school Shirow.

Prada to the Rescue!

Minor Spoilers!

The story was waaay below par, as were the flat acting of the CGI characters themselves and their expressions. Geez it was like watching a high school play at times! Sorry to say, but it was bad directing I think?

There were some cool "Woo" action scenes that raised my scoring up - but not enough, not enough to bring it past an overall 6/10! They were too short, too choppy and too formulaic. We've come too far, to take steps backwards!

Look, I love a good gun fight - well-executed mass carnage. We didn't get it here. And ... while much of the movie sucked on so many levels, the clever and sexy use of Prada saved this movie from oblivion, for me. I mean, c'mon! The camera loved those heels! (the dress wasn't too shabby either, am I right?). Prada pulled this movie out of several levels of Dante's HELL!

It's basically anime fansl meet gamers in 2007... All of the CGI is very dated and i'm was pretty satisfactory at its time of release, but simply doesn't hold up. What makes up for the lack of interesting character design and quality of the CGI is the background the background atmospheres *are* satisfactory. The story really doesn't do anything for me either, its just feels like another sci-fi save the world robots and viral disease etc plots. It's kind of like if you jammed together a few ideas that would draw interest in gamers and anime fans alike and then just put them there and ... them just being cool is supposed to be the meat and potatoes of the film; and then make it from 2007... yeah the CGI just looks so terrible, i really cant get over it. Unless you have nostalgia for watching this movie because you watched it with your dad or something 10 years ago or are just REALLY into this kind of thing or CGI... then this movie is not worth bothering with.