tomson-7

As the above reviews imply this flick is utter insanity, but brilliant insanity! Thoughtful, creative and brutally raw Dead Leaves is essentially a Japanese acid trip in prison. Full pointless filthy creations that can quite literally only work and defecate! The creators are not surprisingly complete lunatics (But just the sort of guys you would love to have a drink with). The directors commentary is hilarious, opening with the pair discussing how long they have been in the bar drinking before even mentioning the film itself.

Involving the producers of Ghost in the Shell, three drunken Japanese legends claimed to have blown nearly the entire budget in the first ten minutes of the picture. A Dramatic but classic car chase between our protagonists' (one with a TV on his head, the other a strange clown looking woman.) Who set out on a ten-minute trail of destruction through an urban futuristic city, until their exploits dump them into the highest security prison on the moon.

The budget constrictions become so obvious throughout the rest of the picture but rather than holding back, these constraints actually add to films aesthetic affect. It's a comedy more than anything and these financial problems heighten the comedic factor to a great extent. Also the animation is inventive and affective, a simplistic style of animation that would in fact require enormous artistic talent on the part of the animators. Very typical of the best new styles of animation whereby extreme complexity creates a beautifully simplistic image. (Cartoon Networks Samurai Jack being a great example of such an animative style.) Dead Leaves is great fun, a new experience and not for faint-hearted or over conservative. As I say it's raw, brutal and blunt; the writers have held back in no respects whatsoever, putting the true dark extremities of the human consciousness into a comic script. So for fans of the genre or newbie's who want to see something crazy, off world and unimaginable – Dead Leaves is well worth a watch. You may feel slightly offended but will certainly not miss 55 minutes of your life! Enjoy.

A visually spectacular edition to the CGI anime genre - buried inside a thoughtful and intensely relevant perspective of humanities future, putting an interesting spin on the common 'Neo-Tokyo' theme. The makers of Vexille have created a sci-fi backdrop to rival the likes of Akira and Ghost in the Shell. Sadly however the characterization and narrative structure both more than fall short, not to mention some minor plagiarism, in turn cause a visually inspirational piece of CGI cinema to fall into the rubbish bin of cinematic mediocrity.

For fans of the genre, it's a great piece. A bit slow perhaps in the middle and I felt it was the films construction that let it down. For example, the first CGI Appleseed kept the structure simple and simple works. The first half of the picture introduced a sci-fi world, Olympus and its characters. The second half focused on a narrative plot. Whereas Vexille tries to be too clever, they push for a psychological standard to compare with 'Ghost in the Shell' but sadly there just isn't the depth and creativity of Masamune.

Not a picture to dismiss and if your new to the genre your in for a treat but hardcore fans will not leave feeling overly impressed.