Rakuen Tsuihou

--No spoilers here!---
Expelled from Paradise is the hit new movie everyone's been talking about, except that I had no idea that it even existed until yesterday. That being said, I went to go see it, and emerged pretty disappointed, especially since a video right before the movie had some dude promising me that this movie is at the apex of 3DCG animation and he thought it was pretty good. Unfortunately, this isn't the case.

Story - 6/10
The story was really lacking in any emotional impact or direction. It starts off with a young girl living in a digital utopia being sent down to a post-cataclysmic ... desert Earth to chase down a hacker with the help of her assistant dude. Around halfway through, the story has an identity crisis and halfheartedly tries to delve into the ideas of humanity and what defines it. Sound familiar? If you're getting Ghost in the Shell vibes, you're not alone, the only difference here is that GitS deeply explores those ideas, while Expelled from Paradise introduces them but never goes anywhere. In addition, a lot of the story is quite predictable, and I was able to call quite a few events before they occurred.

Art - 4/10
Hoooooo boy. This is where I start to have some serious problems. The movie is produced entirely with 3D animation, a design choice that I deeply resented. I'm not one of those luddites who believes that 3DCG is terrible and ruins shows, but there's a clear oversaturation of it here. As a result, characters, which are hand-drawn in pretty much every other anime, suffer in appearance. Angela Balzac, the main character, looks straight out of an MMD video or an episode of RWBY, and her animations appear slow and choppy. She's also inconsistent with the other characters; Zarik, her assistant, looks like he belongs in Cowboy Bebop or some 90's anime. Fight scenes were incredibly fast paced and disorienting to the point that I had no idea what was going on sometimes, almost like they didn't want to animate the fight scenes in too much detail. Finally, the animators barely bothered with the mouths, they barely move and certainly don't come close to syncing with the audio or even resembling talking.

Sound - 7/10
The soundtrack to this movie is mostly synthy electronica stuff. Nothing stood out, but there was nothing wrong with it either, so that's that.

Characters - 5/10
Angela is a spoiled fighter from the digital world who must go down to Earth to complete her mission. Zarik is her assistant, a tough but smart guy who's good with computers. There's also a robot that has gained sentience and wants to go to space. These may sound like incredibly vague descriptions, but they're pretty much the limits of the characters. There's little to no character development in any way, and any attempt comes out as forced. Also, Angela is an incredibly annoying character sometimes.

Enjoyment - 6/10
While it didn't feel like an absolute drag to get through, I didn't find myself getting very excited or deeply attached to any of the moments or characters. It all just sort of blends together. Perhaps that's because the second third of the movie is riddled with dialogue and a lot of it isn't relevant to the story or isn't wrapped up or fully explained by the end.

In the end, it wasn't a terrible movie, but you could do much better. If you're a fan of what defines humanity and existentialism in a high-tech setting, you'd be far better off watching Ghost in the Shell. If you're in it for the mechas, hit up some Macross. Where it stands, Expelled From Paradise is an aesthetically unappealing hodgepodge of genres that never really reached out to me.

So Nolan's Interstellar was a good movie if you're into characters who speak dialogue meant to convey plot points and thought-provoking ideas rather than talk like actual human beings. It was a little overlong with a plot eerily similar to Gunbuster meets 2001: A Space Odyssey, terrible implementation of Hans Zimmer music, and Anne Hathaway's distressed female role being a little too obvious of a counterpoint to McConaughey's fatherly one. But the mixture of intense space sequences, Oscar-bait family drama, and really engaging things to say about humanity's future was well worth the IMAX price of fifteen dollars.

As such, I can probably be excused for ... being a little aggravated that I paid the same price to see a movie that tried to mimic Nolan's success, only to get a jumbled mess of half-baked ideas and cliches with lesser visuals and even lesser characters. I mean sure I got a free poster out of it, but considering I think that sort of stuff is tackier than a disco ball in a board room, let's just say it's never going to marry a wall anytime soon. It did have the advantage of being shorter than Interstellar, but that's a small blip compared to its other numerous problems.

Basically, what I'm saying is that I got to seeing Expelled From Paradise a little while ago and it wasn't very good. Which is a shame because this is the first thing Gen Urobuchi has worked on anime-wise that he had full control of script-wise, and not just something he wrote the scenario for and handed to some lesser studio because they wanted a piece of that "butcher pie". I'm not sure what he was thinking during the writing process, but let's just say if you saw the promo art, trust me when I say that the problems run deeper than the awkward CG and the lead being a skimpily dressed female officer voiced by Rie Kugimiya.

Not that those problems help. The CG is a step-up from some of the TV stuff we've been getting recently, but it's still awkward to watch, especially with its "lower than it should be" fps rate. And Angela, our main female character, ends up little more than a tough-as-nails female who experiences weakness when out of her environment and has to be taught by her male partner, Zarik, regarding how his life is different from the one she's used to. Yeah, that doesn't sound similar to Kugimiya's other roles, does it? These flaws pay off a bit during the final climax when Angela has to take on a bunch of her own fellow officers - even if the action can be a little too busy at times - but the buildup to get there isn't exactly a smooth ride.

The plot of the movie is basically a mix between virtual reality sci-fi and buddy road trip with the crux of the film centering on the relationship between the two main characters acting about as chummy as an actual human and a female cyber personality out of her element can be. Both of them are assigned to deal with a potential virtual threat by Angela's higher-ups and we basically follow them for the majority of the movie with most of the conflict being internal rather than external. Because Angela is used to having machines do everything for her, she's not used to getting sick, needing sleep, and other such things we humans can do because of the hardships we were unlucky enough to experience. Thus, the majority of the movie is her dealing with such things whilst the characters talk about their differences and exploring the benefits/costs of both worlds whilst bonding in the process.

Which would be fine if the "tell don't show" mode this movie runs on wasn't so awfully handled. Not only does the show utilize talking heads rather than actually showing us said worlds and what they can accomplish, but the dialogue is duller than a college class introduction. The ideas it brings up regarding reality versus the virtual world are about as complex as the cliffnotes version of Tron. Everything ultimately boils down to Angela realizing the virtual world she was used to isn't for her. The tipping point where she makes her decision due to the fact that she sympathizes with the very robot she was supposed to destroy is about as Hollywood cliche as they come. If you replaced the environmental messages with technological ones and downgraded the CG animation, you'd basically be watching a less pretty version of Avatar.

And despite the final climax being the highlight of the film, it isn't very good either beyond the spectacle. Without spoiling too much, the cause of said fight is due to one side wanting to give someone potentially dangerous a chance whilst the other side will have nothing of it. This isn't an inherently bad idea if said person/object in the middle of the conflict was Jonah from Monster, but let's just say he's nowhere near that quality. The potential danger he provides is no less complex than a DDoS attack except targeted towards a much bigger system - aka the virtual world - which probably would have been engaging if I knew more about said world beyond the shallow things discussed during the mountains of dialogue delivered in the real world segments. But as I stated before, that is not the case, and the final climax would have functioned better as an animation showcase rather than a vital part of a lacking movie.

I guess this movie is worth watching if you want to see Urobuchi enter the film business in something not related to any of his past projects and see some actually competent usage of CG. But outside of those attributes, if I wanted to see a Christopher Nolan movie, I'd watch the actual Christopher Nolan movie that's still in my local theatre. Interstellar blended in its multiple genres reasonably with unique ideas, powerful scenes, and flaws beyond what's written in "How To Write Cliches #101". Expelled From Paradise tried to do all that and failed, getting lost in a sea of tired shallow cliches, anime or otherwise. I don't know if Urobuchi watches Nolan's films or if the director is more to blame and hasn't seen 'em either (he did direct the Gundam 00 film and Conqueror of Shamballa after all), but either way they need to become friends with the dude and learn why he works. And Nolan would deliver his wisdom in long bouts of exposition that he prepared years in advance for such an occasion.

*MILD SPOILERS AHEAD*

For a little while, I`ve had this craving for more mech shows. Mecha is probably my favorite type of Sci-fi, and if done well, can lead to a stellar experience such as with Code Geass or the Macross Franchise. A mech anime isn`t so easy to truly and utterly screw up since even with clunky CGI, both this, and the two seasons of Aldnoah.Zero offer some cool mech fights that can really exite many viewers, which makes those anime so hard to truly F up in the enjoyment factor, even if certain stories like the one for both seasons of Aldnoah.Zero divulge into ... an utter mess. Funnily enough, the man behind parts of Aldnoah.Zero was also a part of this movie; Expelled From Paradise. Well, enough rambling. Is this movie worthy of paradise, does it deserve to be thrown into the junkyard, or is it just there to soak up some action and disposable right afterwards? Let`s find out, shall we?

STORY: 6/10

To put it this way, the questions brought up are interesting. What is freedom? Is freeing yourself from the limitations of your body worth struggling in a society dominated by predetermined factors and a status quo? Well, don`t delve into those questions for too long. The movie sure as hell dosen`t. There is one major moment around the 69 minute mark that is questionable and only really there to give some action to this mostly average road trip that only had 2 action scenes up to that point. Also, there is a post-credits scene that was so forced, I almost felt uncomfortable. A girl is sent to Earth to track down a hacker, and goes on a road trip with a partner in order to arrive and put a stop to all of this, and everything feels harmless and mundane, well, alien v mech scene and gang up scene aside. For the longest time, there`s little sense of urgency or even threat. However, even with minor plotholes near the end, it was a decent road trip movie with, surprisingly no real antagonist until the last third of the film. Also, the pacing is a bit weird in places.

CHARACTERS: 6/10

OK, let`s get this out of the way. Angela, the main protagonist is a bit inconsistent, and whiny. Not to mention, she`s a total ass at times. Her development is a bit rushed and inconsistent as well. She isn`t a very good character overall. Dingo, on the other hand, is a decent character. He`s sarcastic, semi-philosophical, and has a thing for rock music. He`s a pretty cool guy. Also, he`s voiced by Steve Blum. Frontier Setter is an OK robot who just wants to go to space, and take some other interested people with him. He`s built up as this dangerous hacker, but to see him so light-hearted and harmless, is pretty interesting. The REAL antagonists are pretty lame and one-dimensional, and they kinda come out of nowhere.

ART: 6/10

The CG anime esque art style can work. Heck, RWBY, for the most part, uses it to great effect, especially season 2 onwards. Here, it looks stiff and clunky. Plus, Angela`s hair looks very plastic. The facial and mouth expressions leave a lot to be desired as well. However, the mechs look good, and have good CGI. Some of the character models don`t bug me nearly as much as Angela`s, and the obvious fanservice bits don`t really help. The fights look pretty good, as to be expected from a mech anime, especially one with a film budget. The 2-D bits, while not always integrated amazingly, can still look good at times, as well as the CGI. Also, the futuristic and cyber looking stuff shown occasionally, looks pretty good as well.

SOUND: 6/10

The techno music that permeates most of the OST is pretty forgettable, and slightly obnoxious at points. The ending theme, while OK, tries to give off this vibe that would say that you`ve just experienced a beautiful, climactic, and utterly satisfying journey, and it doesen`t work given how this movie both is, and feels. That one song Dingo sings is pretty alright. Otherwise, not a very notable soundtrack. The DUB on the other hand, is kinda good. Yes, the actress for Angela is a bit annoying, but her character is annoying, so meh, but Steve Blum as Dingo, is pretty great. Then again, this IS Steve Blum we`re talking about. Johnny Yong Bosch as Frontier Setter, also gives a good performance. One thing that was odd was when the characters would sing. They tended to use Japanese lyrics instead of trying to translate them, so they didn`t even dub those parts, instead, leaving the original Japanese performances. Overall, not a groundbreaking dub, but good none the less.

ENJOYMENT: 5/10

Yeah, I gotta be honest. This movie wasn`t very entertaining. Sure, the 2 mech fights where cool, but, philosophical questions and Dino aside, the movie didn`t really engage me. That`ll likely turn some people off. It`s not a slow burn movie either. There aren`t enough interesting moments with some dullness sprinkled in for that. It`s just a bit too dull, even with an interesting premise such as this, I wasn`t as entertained as I should`ve been given something like this. However, the mech fights were alright, and I still enjoyed much of Dingo`s presence.

OVERALL: 5/10 RAW SCORE: 5.38/10

I understand that this movie is rather dull at points, and that it didn`t really deliver on such an interesting premise. However, the fights were decent, and Dingo is an enjoyable, not gonna lie. Also, philosophy is always gonna grab my attention in an anime if used even remotely competently, albeit the usage here was a bit lacking. If you have 100 minutes to kill, and are looking for some Sci-fi mixed with road trip, this might have a chance of doing the job, but only if you're running out of decent Sci-fi movies. With all that said, I bid you adieu.

In an idealized version of The Matrix world- humanity lives in a state of blissful ignorance of the physical. Technology has advanced to such a point where the collective consciousness of humanity has been placed onto a space station orbiting the ruined Earth, after a destructive event renders most of it uninhabitable and desolate. Adults and children alike's DNA was examined and coded into a virtual world known as Deva- where they are immortal, suffer from no maladies, no war, no hunger- a true paradise with only their imagination restraining the infinite capabilities for the cyberized denizens.

This paradise is not alone, however. Humans still ... exist on the Earth- those left behind who did not have the ability or means to have their consciousness transported offworld. Being completely reliant on an in-universe version of the internet and computing abilities, Deva is then vulnerable to cyber attacks- which comes in the form of a strange request from one calling themselves the Frontier Setter- seeking humans to travel to the far reaches of the solar system in order to find a new home for humanity, leaving their digital paradise behind.

Security agent Angela Ballzac (yes, someone had the bright idea to name a character ballsack... how this passed and made it into the movie is beyond me) is tasked with discovering the identity of this hacker, and is sent to Earth in a newly cloned human body with her consciousness. She meets up with Dingo, a suave, roguish man who also works with the security agency and together they find out that the "threat" posed by Frontier Setter is not exactly what it was made out to be.

The story itself borrows heavily from the aforementioned Matrix movies, and with a healthy dose of Gen Urobuchi's flavor of existentialism- focusing on what really makes a human human in a world where AI can achieve sentience and a consciousness can be transformed into data. Like the Matrix, it also examines the question of whether humanity is really happy in an heavily regulated, artificial world of their construction, versus being in control of their own destiny in a world full of harsh realities, inequalities, and threats to continued existence. This idea is present throughout the story, and while there's not enough runtime to really flesh it out a lot aside from some comments and mentions, it does at least raise some interesting thoughts. Ultimately though, the plot really has no central antagonist and no one to really support or get into their struggle- it's almost purely an action fest with hints of a deeper thread that never thicken.

The characters themselves, Angela and Dingo are fairly interesting, if a bit underdeveloped. Dingo is your Han Solo type rogue character who plays by his own rules but always gets the job done, and Angela is a bit of a spoiled brat who has to learn how the other half lives. As a trained security agent, she has experience with all manner of technology and weapons- including the use of large mechs. Interestingly enough for how stripperific her outfit is, Angela isn't overly sexualized (this even lampshaded with one of Dingo's comments), nor is she sidelined for being a female MC- which was refreshing. She wasn't turned into waifu bait and set aside for the other characters to run over, but instead takes an active role in the action and plot. Angela and Dingo have decent chemistry as characters, but thankfully there's no terrible tacked on romance to ruin anything the viewer might imagine between them.

An an auditory note- Steve Blum is fantastic as Dingo, and Wendee Lee is at her best here as Angela- both veterans gave excellent performances. The animation itself is probably the best Toei has ever done, and maybe ever will do. It makes heavy use of 3D, but the framerate stays above that necessary 20fps for about 95% of the time, with just a handful of noticeable dips below. Not visually stunning as a film, but given Toei's track record with visual aesthetic... this ranks among their best!

In conclusion, Expelled From Paradise has a few big ideas in it that are borrowed from series like The Matrix and Ghost in the Shell, but doesn't capitalize on them in the same way- they're merely ideas tossed out in breaks in the action, which is Paradise's second biggest flaw aside from not having a real antagonist. As far as being a shallow action flick, one can certainly do worse, but then again, there are better out there.

This movie should be a drinking game, every time they say Angela Balzac take a shot. I mean this film has a very serious tone but not even Dingo the witty side kick had anything good to say, in fact the whole script was monotonous and cliche. Along with boring, never ending periods of dialogue the sole reason why this movie was so tedious was because of the bitchy main protagonist Angela who again and again manages to piss everyone off except Dingo.

Those seemingly minor problems set aside, I think this movie was fantastic as far as most other things are considered especially the ... fighting scenes and sound track along with them. I can say I enjoyed watching Expelled From Paradise but to put my feelings for it shortly would be wasted potential. Swap out Angela with someone we would care about, and alter the script here and there and this movie well deserves a 8.

What I got from watching Expelled From Paradise
- Balzac is in fact a real last name
- felt like I was watching a PS2 cut scene
- fan service is real
- there are in fact explosions in space

Expelled from Paradise is rather straight-forward in its premise as it takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where much of humanity has integrated itself into a virtual world and an agent named Angela is tasked with seeking out the whereabouts of a mysterious hacker who is hijacking the virtual world she is part of. Manifesting within reality in a living form, Angela is assisted by a normal human named Dingo to track the hacker's whereabouts, where her perceptions on living as a human become challenged throughout her mission as she interacts with Dingo and learns of the true motives of the hacker she is seeking ... out.

To a great extent, the movie dabbles into a number of common sci-fi and action anime tropes in exploring Angela's adventure. Elements such as a post-apocalyptic future, a seemingly utopian virtual world, giant mecha fights and a badass female officer are nothing new in anime, especially as said badass female officer is a busty and cute-looking tsundere voiced by Rie Kugemiya. In addition, the plot is rather simple in its developments as Expelled from Paradise mostly focuses on Dingo and Angela tracking the hacker's whereabouts, Angela adjusting to life having a living body and later coming to learn of things with the hacker that aren't as they would seem on the surface. The movie does offer some exploration of how one would define their existence as a human through the differing upbringings that Angela and Dingo have in their experiences of living via Angela's virtual life and Dingo living within the barren wastelands of Earth, as well as the flaws to the virtual life that Angela had perceived as a utopia. While these are decent elements to Expelled from Paradise, they are secondary to the movie's main plot of tracking down and confronting the hacker. It's not so much that I hate what this movie offers up for its premise, but rather that it doesn't really have anything new to offer that I may have already seen from past sci-fi titles hence making it largely typical fare for me.

Visually, Expelled from Paradise milks the same 3DCG-type animation employed with Knights of Sidonia which makes use of a brighter color palette to depict the movie's more lighter mood. The animation rendering still gives character designs a plastic feel, though they have a wider range of facial expressions animated compared to Sidonia. While not as heavy on action as Sidonia, Paradise still has its moments of depicting gorgeously animated sequences at points in the movie's run such as Angela's virtual actions within her world and a large-scale mecha assault that Angela and Dingo have to fend off in the movie's finale.

As it is, Expelled from Paradise is a decent time-killer with what what it offers up with its sci-fi premise. It does have some interesting ideas it explores with what defines being human, but largely follows typical storytelling tropes of sci-fi and action titles that make it offer nothing new in the grand scheme of things.

I'm writing this review because I went in with low expectations. I was bored and browsing Netflix and saw this on there and just watched it cause I had nothing better to do. I was surprised when I finished it and found that I had actually enjoyed it. Who would have thought.

If you've seen any of the other reviews for this show you'll see that there are some people who hate this show, and others who really enjoyed it. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, so I won't bash on theirs. I'll just give you my own.

There are a lot of things that this ... show does right and a lot it does wrong. I'm not gonna bore you with a list of everything so I'm just gonna name off some highlights.

The characters we're very in depth for a movie and got flushed out very well. Everyone had motives and you could sympathize with them for it (albeit not very well). My favorite was Frontier Setter. Everyone had goals and pursued them.

My least favorite thing about the movie was the animation. I can understand doing the whole thing with CGI, but I would have appreciated some more hand-drawn stuff. I like the way it looks a lot more. The animation style did work very well for the fight scenes though.

Overall I say the movie lacked a lot of depth and entertainment value, but the characters did save it a little. If you've got a couple of hours to kill and you can't find anything better to watch go ahead and watch this. You'll be mildly entertained at least.

*Disclaimer*
Just personal scratch.
Advised, possible spoilers.
Opinion & Informal

Art: 7/10 I gave this a 7 for "good" as good for CGI. This film was primarily CGI. I didn't really notice if there were any traditionally drawn sections. So, CGI character models and backgrounds/environment. There weren't that many, or any, expansive shots showing off the nature/environment. There was a brief moment where the night sky was shown which looked pretty good as well as that moment when Angela saw the "potential beauty" of earth while high up in the atmosphere. Those two moments were pretty much the only impact-shots in the film. In fact, those were sorta nice ... to look at. Only sorta. The overall art and detail was about above-average for a CGI film. The rendering didn't produce any clipping or the like. The style was non-realistic and more modern-anime style. The anatomy and proportions were fine. Angela had typical modern-anime proportions such as eye size and body figure.

Animation: 7/10 This did pretty well for itself. I felt that this was satisfying enough action-wise. The movements were fluid enough and believable for the standards of a CGI. Motions like walking, running, and body language didn't seem off at all. There were a lot of flashy movements, especially during the action scenes. There weren't any montage sequences or use of cut-shots during action bits so that's a plus. I'm giving this area a 7 for good because the action was good, plain and simple; this is tagged as an action, the action was good, thus this area is a 7 for good because all other aspects of animation didn't detract from the overall experience.

Characters: 4/10 One-dimensional, copy-and-paste, and predictable. The characters were nothing new or had anything about them that would make them interesting. Angela is your typical copy-and-paste, busty, tsundere blondy. Dingo is your down-to-earth handsome wise-guy who's supposed to act as the foil and "human-teacher" to the MC, Angela. Honestly, the best character was Frontier Setter. Its character design was unconventional, a robot; he (she/it/whatever) had a cool hat and even eventually a guitar. Dingo's design was just normal clothes. Nothing really to talk about. Angela's design was just blatant pandering. For a superior society, did the digital society forget the concept of functionality? No way, absolutely no way, was Angela able to go toe-to-toe with those thugs in THOSE heels. Give me a break. Why does she need star-shaped hairpins? What's the point of that getup? Armor? Where was the functionality? Sigh, yes it was cool. Yes it was nice to look at from a guy's perspective, I won't lie there. But was there something lost in translation when the digital society was coming up with appropriate mission gear?

Plot: 5/10 It was a bit predictable and nothing really surprised me in terms of what plot was introduced or came to be. There's a problem. The "sheltered-type" (I suppose that's what I just call it) goes to solve the problem as a representative of some super-cool and fancy institution. They get culture-shocked, red-pilled, whatever. Doubt. Realization. Going against their former beliefs. Crisis solved. Open-ended ending for the future.

Development: 5/10 It was okay. The character development wasn't really there. Dingo wasn't given any real backstory and was just there as a supporting piece to Angela's cliche culture-shock development. Angela developed pretty much how I expected. She developed, but it wasn't too much added substance. Actually, Frontier Setter probably developed in a much more meaningful way than any of the two main MCs. lol. There wasn't really any world-building in this. Some terminology and how things came to be really weren't addressed. It's not too much a minus but it leaves the film really flat and nothing really beyond "just a show of eye-candy."

Music: 6/10 Cool. I personally didn't find any of the music catchy or worth remembering. The battle bgm was spicy enough to make the battles exciting. The ED song was a good listen.

Conclusion: 5/10 Average. This did us the courtesy of giving us a clean open-ended ending for the future. All the important questions were answered. It gave us a comic-relief and happy epilogue. Angela and Dingo live happily ever after...Dingo that bastard, getting to spend the rest of his life with a busty 16-year old tsudere. Wow! I'm so jelly! It's...it's almost as if there were self-insert aspects to this film...wait did they make Dingo bland on purpose so that he would be easier to self-insert into? What!!!

Overall: 6/10 This was fine. It wasn't average, it was above-average because it did well enough in the art, animation, and action departments to make up for the terrible everything-else. Again, this was fine. It wasn't average nor was it good. This succeeded as an action film for me, that's it. The mech designs were dope.

I think one of the biggest hurdles for people getting into this is that it's a 3D animated movie compared to a traditional 2D anime but that has never really bothered me so I finally decided to give it a try.

The story isn't overly unique, think The Matrix mixed with Elysium. Humanity stretched Earth to its very limit with overpopulation and global warming, so much so numerous different plans were made for the continuation of mankind. One of these was a giant orbital space station where humans would be scanned onto a huge computer system and live in a virtual world. This however created a ... cast system between these digital humans who see themselves as the next step in evolution, where they can experience anything they want in the virtual world whilst the humans on the surface are struggling to survive and get by.

When the digital world is hacked by a connection relay on Earth, the elite ruling class on the space station send numerous agents down to Earth to track down the hacker. The agents are all young, attractive women in skimpy costumes, which is a bit odd. I wasn't sure if the movie was trying to make a message since the three ruling members of the digital world are men who gave themselves avatars resembling gods and they made their security forces all hot young women, but the movie reveals itself to not really be that clever.

The main character Balzac is a likable enough character, a very cliched character who has never experienced "real life" and has to be shown what it is to be human by her actual human helper "Dingo" who is the best character in the movie. Balzac's story isn't overly complicated, to catch the hacker they have to go "off-grid" and disconnect from the space station entirely, leaving her with none of her advanced equipment or backup so she has to struggle to be human for a change. Her character is quite inconsistent though. When she's first introduced on the space station, she's calm, cool and seemingly quite reserved but when she goes on her mission she's very loud, easily flustered and whiny (which is weird since she says "I do my job, I have never complained"). I then wasn't sure if this was because she purposefully made her body 16 so maybe her mentality was changed too but once again, I think the movie isn't that clever and instead it is just for blatant TNA which is pretty off-putting. For her also being made out to be a great agent and very intelligent, she is then repeatedly confused and caught off guard by numerous things that should have been blatantly obvious, like if the hacker can monitor all of the digital world, why does she think it'd be a good idea to stay connected to it the entire time whilst hunting them?

The mission is over pretty quickly, finding the hacker and having to deal with the knowledge that the digital world isn't all good because it also has a cast system where if you aren't useful, you get less "memory" allocated to you, meaning you can't do much as a digital avatar and even have worse models. The movie doesn't explain what being useful is though in a digital world where everything is provided for you. Balzac works because she's a security agent, but what's the point of security agents if the rulers have total control over everyone and can kill them instantly with just a thought? What does everyone else do? They're hardly builders or farmers or anything along those lines. So how is your "worth" determined?

It might seem like I have a lot of complaints, but I did enjoy the movie as a character and action romp. If you actually think about the plot or the world, it doesn't make much sense at all.

The ending in particular just felt weak. It is one of those anime where I could easily imagine you thinking "Well, what was the point of this movie?". It suffers from being a movie where a series could have paced it out better, giving it time to expand on its lore but with its run time, everything just feels crammed in to get the story out the door.