Vexille

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.

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.

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.

I really liked the story in this film. Easily one of the best anime stories I've seen. I'd say it's like "Ghost in the Shell" meets "Resident Evil". This film is an Action, Sci-Fi with a bit of a drama, horror undertone. The visuals are amazing. It has strong CG look but the textures almost looked hand colored. It has a real unique look to it. I can't explain. The score seemed a bit thrown together. The songs didn't seem to fit into what was happening on screen. Paul Oakenfold did a pretty poor job with the score if you ask me. The sound effects were well done and the voice acting was good. This film is worth seeing for it's great story and rich animation.

Okay, so if you've read all of the other reviews then you know that the animation of this film is AWESOME! It's an excellent step forward for hybrid animation. Also, though not all of the reviewers agree, my opinion of the action in this film was that it was sweet and sick (in the most radical fashion.) For the animation and action alone, this film is totally worth the price of a rental. Which brings us to the plot of the film; while some reviewers thought the plot was empty or lacked merit, I am of the opinion that those reviewers probably didn't pay attention to all of the dialog. The plot was well developed, more believable than several of the big-budget live-action Hollywood films (such as The Happening, which totally sucked,) and played along the social issue of fear of technological invasiveness quite nicely, though it was a rather formulaic script. The dialog was a little weak, and there wasn't much for serious character development, but the nonverbal scripting played quite well. After all, this was an animated action flick, and quite frankly it was one of the better offerings from the anime genre in recent years. To recap, this is worth the cost of the rental if only for the visual imagery. However, if you have a well developed sensibility for the suspension of disbelief, then you will also likely enjoy the story as a whole. I know that I certainly did.