Vexille

This year had perhaps seen a bumper crop of anime movies making it to the theatres, with the likes of The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Paprika, Brave Story, Doraemon, and now, a science fiction mecha genre anime by the producer of Appleseed, Fumihiko Sori.

Set in the middle of the 21st century, the world has become like that in Isaac Asimov novels, with robots having the intelligence finally to assist mankind in various tasks, which doesn't discount the fact that they'll be used in warfare too, with creations resembling those seen in Clone Wars. Coming from the largest factory in the world, Japan, for their technological genius, the world soon frowns upon their quest to fuse robots and humans (much like the brouhaha on potential abuse of stem cell technology), and Japan decides to shut itself off from the rest of the world.

Naturally, US foreign policy dictates that they are curious as to what's going on behind the iron curtain, so they send their crack paramilitary unit called SWORD to infiltrate Japan. They are afraid of the potential threat the robots give to humankind, and more so are suspicious of the largest conglomerate and robot producer Daiwa Heavy Industries, who are dabbling into questionable robotic research. Led by Leon (voiced by Shosuke Tanihara), it goes without saying that titular character Vexille (Meisa Kuroki) will get to save the day (hey, it's her name on the billboard). Interestingly enough though, this movie has its weight put on the strength of its female characters, Vexille, and rebel fighter Maria (Yasuko Matsuyuki)

There are many familiar elements in Vexille both character and plot wise, but that doesn't detract from the fact that there still are a number of plus points leading to the enjoyment of this movie. The designs of the mecha used by SWORD units, which is like an exoskeleton suit designed for middleweight, individual battles, are crafted to look like they just walked out of any generic Hollywood science fiction movie, as do the enemy's guard droids which look like they were heavily influenced by Robocop's ED209.

And with the many ships and transporters, can someone say Star Wars too? But the one that takes the cake, is the post-apocalyptic look at Japan, making it seem like the planet of Arakis from Frank Herbert's Dune, complete with their version of the Fremen with their tinkering prowess, and those monstrous, lethal sandworms too, which take on a mechanical facade over here, known as Jags. Even the inevitable finale seemed to have taken a leaf from Herbert's literary masterpiece.

As with any mecha-related stories, there's always a tussle between what it means to be a human and android (erm, Blade Runner?), and the hopes and dreams to preserve their way of life against a megalomaniac industrialist, who shares six degrees of separation with everyone involved. But we're not really here for rehashed cyberpunk stories involving the first 2 installments of the Animatrix, are we?

We're here for the action pieces, and boy, they don't disappoint. From the get go we're treated to a full scale assault and brought to see what SWORD can do, and it played out to John Woo-ish distinction with plenty of violence set to slow motion, with numerous guns blazing that would even make the master proud. Credit goes to designing the well crafted action sequences so they are vastly different from one another, and the best has got to be the massive chase/race sequence in the latter half of the movie. And a bonus here is the music, contributed no doubt by the genius of Paul Oakenfold. This one delivered perfectly, adding a huge dash of zing to complement the action, though I thought I heard a few bars off his Ready Steady Go!

The animation is in no doubt stunning with its photo-realism, and for a 2D movie, I thought it even beat Beowulf in the graphics, and intensity of the storyline. Vexille comes across as a recommended movie to catch before the dawn of the new year. Go see!

Saw this as world premiere at Locarno festival. In 2K DLP projection on 27m wide screen. Looked very good apart from some aliasing at times. The film borrows visually from "Dune" (sandworms) and some others but it's quite interesting with its mix of not photo realistic and more realistic CGI elements. Will look great on Blue Ray HD disc. The story is about a Japan of the future which has shielded itself from all foreign surveillance for 10 years so nobody knows what is going on. There are suspicions of illegal production of androids by a mega corporation with unclear goals, potentially dangerous to the human race on a global scale.

Excellent animation and an interesting story combine in this action sci-fi success. The voice work is sometimes clunky, and the characters are all dull as dishwater. In fact, I can't really tell you about the characters, they are all fairly similar. This results in visually stunning action sequences. But it's hard to feel involved and connect with the characters emotionally. Chases, robot fights, fast and well edited cuts, this is how action scenes should be seen. As a combination of both robot/zombie film, it would have been better for some not so obvious mad scientists. Enjoy the action, and try and make it through the dialogue.

The plot: After Japan withdraws from the United Nations and expels all foreigners, the West becomes increasingly suspicious that Japan is conducting illegal research on robotics and transhumanism.

Vexille is a generic cyberpunk story about of the evils of transhumanism, megacorporations, isolationism, and imperialism. The art is beautiful, but it seems wasted on such a derivative and clichéd plot. The story had some real potential, but they decided to dumb everything down, remove all subtlety, and turn the antagonist into a James Bond villain. This is the kind of movie that has themes that a 15 year old would find incredibly deep and philosophical, mixing in generic cyberpunk themes with Romanticism and technophobia. Very little of the movie was actually engaging. Both the characters and the action sequences were flat and mostly interchangeable.

Maybe this movie had a point when it railed against the lack of soul in technological advancement: the CGI art was beautiful but entirely soulless.

Reading some of the rave reviews on here I watched this movie with anticipation. The starting sequence was good with its action but unfortunately that is the best part of the movie. What i liked about the movie was its plot and storyline. Its like Bladerunner meeting resident evil (except with androids instead of zombies). It was interesting even though the ending - the action that triggered it - was weak and derivative. But on the whole the concept was good. What I disliked was the execution. The animation isn't very good. Yes it looks beautiful except for the characters. The characters basically look like those in-game cut scenes you find in video games. The characters especially their expressions are not well done at all. The hair are blocky solid strands. The characters' facial expression are stony even when it came to cries of anguish...stony expression with mouth open. It may be a small thing to some but for me it takes away from the movie. Entire time I felt like I was watching a video game.