Appleseed: Ex Machina

On its own singular merit, ExMachina should get a solid 10, however, its target audience has lots of exposure to anime and cgi films. When held up to movies like Akira, The Incredibles and others, ExMachina excels exceptionally at action scenes and choreography, but lacks the grandiose semi-philosophical structure from Akira, and the emotional realistic impact from The Incredibles. Its not wrong to expect such qualities to be standard in a production that clearly had a lot of care and thought devoted to it. ExMachina hardly suffers from this too much, and is actually quite an impressive action movie that delivers some exceedingly thrilling scenes that aren't easily forgotten. The characters are fun, interesting and memorable and are quite unique which is one of Appleseed's biggest strengths. (even the manga)

ExMachina is produced and influenced by John Woo, but stop praising him so much for this! He didn't write or direct ExMachina, stop giving him undue credit. SERIOUSLY. Its NOT a "John Woo" film. Furthermore, ignore the pretentious slobbering half informed fanboys who blindly review ExMachina with less than half of their facts correct... they irritate me beyond belief.

Finally, Appleseed ExMachina is a top quality sci-fi adventure that can be judged independent of its impressive use of CGI. It will 'wow' you. Absolutely recommended.

From the first minute on the movie was playing, I was in love! Appleseed Ex Machina, is brilliant! The first installment, when I discovered it a little over a year ago, was good; an exiting journey in cool environments and with a captivating story. Ex Machina, takes that to the next level.

The action scenes are better, the motion capture is grander and the camera movements even sweeter. The whole movie long your in that world. Feeling all the emotions displayed by the beautiful, yet still traditional anime-style looking characters. The storyline is beautifully symbolic and the characters a dream to come true! Their cool, strong and yet so human.

I wish more 3d movies like these where made, with so much tender, love and care for the materia that is sometimes so underestimated by the grand audience. I take my hat of for the amazing team that has been working on Ex Machina - it's incredible from beginning to start and I can't wait to watch it again!

"Appleseed: Ex Machina" is not the future of Japanese Anime' (Japanese animation) but it's still a very entertaining animated feature done in the spirit of its predecessor "Appleseed" (2004), and other classic Anime' such as "Akira" (1988) and "Ghost in the Shell" (1995). It's also wise to not overlook the contributions of American sci-fi like "Blade Runner" (1982), "The Terminator" (1984) and "RoboCop" (1987), with a little helping of "The Matrix" (1999) for extra measure.

"Appleseed: Ex Machina" comes to us from Hong Kong action veteran John Woo and director Shinji Aramaki. It's a continuation of the Manga (Japanese comic book) by Shirow Masamune, who also wrote ye old "Ghost in the Shell." "Ex Machina" is a visually dazzling animated feature from Japan that's almost completely CGI with a little bit of hand-drawn animation and motion-capture work. The story is rich in thematic ideas and intelligence, namely Greek mythology and the unconditional love between humans and machines, but it could have used a little bit more polishing in the character department, allowing "Appleseed: Ex Machina" to rise above above-average storytelling. The characters also seem a little one-dimensional, too.

The film follows the adventures of a paramilitary task force called E.S.W.A.T. and its operations in 2199 Olympus, a futuristic utopia where humans, cyborgs, and bio-engineered human beings called "bioroids" are attempting to live in perfect harmony. However, a series of random terrorist attacks perpetrated by cyborgs and humans alike threaten to throw Olympus into total chaos. As it turns out, these humans and machines have come under the influence of an unknown electronic signal that hacks into their nervous systems and they then become the unwilling servants of a malevolent computerized entity.

Thrown into the action is the plucky female E.S.W.A.T. warrior Deunan Knute and her cyborg lover/partner Briareos as they investigate these bizarre occurrences with the other members of their unit. Things become complicated when a bioroid named Tereus, who resembles Briareous in his human form, joins their unit and threatens to come between their relationship. But these three must put aside their differences to face an even greater threat that promises world destruction in its wake.

From the opening moments of this stunning animated feature, I was pretty drawn in. I can tell that this was a very expensive piece of Anime' from Japan. John Woo's influence is everywhere in "Appleseed: Ex Machina," not limited to dual-wielding weapons and flocks of birds appearing before the action breaks out. Like I said earlier, problems arise with some fairly deficient characters, but with enough action and special effects splashed across the eyes of this viewer, it's only a minor complaint.

Japanese Anime' continues to be a rapidly evolving genre of film-making that shows no signs of going away any time soon. It is clear that more groundbreaking Anime' does need to come out if the genre plans to make a big splash in the West.

8/10

While Appleseed from 2004 had a fantastic story, Ex Machina has the best graphics that I've ever seen since FF VII:Advent Children. If you are a fan of Ghost in the shell & Matrix this is for you "a must see anime" The connections between the first part and the second aren't many, so if you haven't watched the first part, there is nothing that you won't understand in this anime. Unlike some other anime with complexed plot and long boring scenes with never ending conversations, this is anime with great story (although as I said from the first part is better) and you won't wanna miss a second. The action scenes where cyborgs with big machine guns fight combined with awesome music will blow you away. Another good thing is that they aren't so much nasty bloody scenes like in the first part so this anime can only be watched by the younger audience. 10 out of 10 no doubt about it!

I really appreciated this post modern SciFi saga. There are some scenes and themes that reminded me of Star Trek Borgs assimilation, The Matrix Sentinels attacks, Blade Runner city atmosphere and commercials, Star Wars space vehicles landings and political environment, Transformers battle of machines and not to forget the zombies from Resident Evil. The graphics are really stunning. The way the city landscape has been designed is phenomenal. The motion capture is seamless. The camera movement is very realistic. The love story in the movie was touching in the way it depicts how love is unconditional. The scene where Deunan is stumbling, and then you see that she took of her high heel shoes to feel comfortable is so hilarious, knowing what a tough cookie she is. What was missing in the story was to understanding better why and when Briareos became extensively replaced through cyborg equipment. I was lucky enough to see the English dubbed version.