Vexille

This is so far the biggest problem with Japanese animé: weak character development, mediocre and plain dialog that seems to be aimed towards children under 10 years of age, redundant stories, characters that look too much alike - we get it that it's a style, but some of the character look like cheap duplicates of one another like Maria & Vexille.

The animation itself wasn't that bad, although it seems like there hasn't been much improvement for the past 7 years... the people are still stiff and have a dead look from time to time, the kissing scene between two main characters was very stiff and unnatural like two dolls kissing.

The effects were nice and definitely passable, but the weak plot of the movie is tiring.

now last, but not least, is the music... it didn't fit with the scenes, totally random and seemed to be there just because someone liked the sound and not how it fit with the story...

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.

Back story: Vexille 2007, Nihon Sakoku (Vexille 2007, Japan National Isolation) is set in the middle of this century, at about the edge of the foreseeable future. There has been rapid development in the areas of human-form robots, able to assist humanity with running it's civilization. Ten years ago, technology reached a point where completely human-made robots reached the peak of their potential. The trend shifted towards the augmentation of the human body, and the merging of man and machine. However, the basis and ethical implications of such technology were condemned by international treaties and organizations, and all development was banned. Japan (the world leader in robotics) was completely opposed to the condemnation, and the potential ban it found imposed on itself. Japan withdrew from the international community and went into national isolation.

Ten years later, there have been no visitors allowed in or out of Japan. There has been no cultural contact, and no shared media from Japan since the isolation. However, despite the self-imposed isolation, Japan remains the world leader in the field of robotics. The robots manufactured by the conglomerate DAIWA can be seen all over L.A., able to assist mankind with maintaining it's civilization. Before the isolation, the robotics industry was so vital to Japan that DAIWA had grown in to a colossal mega-conglomerate, with strong ties to every part of the government.

After two incidents of terrorism by DAIWA, outside of Japanese territory, America discovers that Japan may well have cyborg technology. Fearing the worst, America sends its most highly specialized team (Sword) to secretly infiltrate Japan, and gather intelligence.

The CG: There's no doubt that the CG is an important part of the appeal of this film, and for the most part, I think it comes off very well. Fans of the last major CG film released outside Japan will feel very at home with the visual style's blend of very photo realistic elements, such as mechs, landscapes, and high-paced action scenes, with low-polly toon-shaded actors. Although landscapes, mechs and characters are all very pleasing to the eye, the one complaint I have is that the characters sometimes suffer from very stiff movement, where motion capture seems to not have been used. Sometimes this stiff movement will happen between cuts in the middle of a scene, which tended to remind me that I was watching a CG movie.

The Music: The film also follows a similar flare to Appleseed, in its choice of dance and electronic artists such as Basement Jaxx, Boom Boom Satellites, Carl Craig, etc, and other more aesthetic tracks by Paul Okenfold. The blend of music does a good job of making the movie come alive, without sounding forced.

The story: The story was the most important thing for me, and probably the hardest to criticize. I enjoyed the story very much -- the progression is smooth, and easy to follow. The characters are presented well, and developed in enough detail to satisfy the viewer. The story progression starts very quickly, and immediately moves into meat of the story, which is infiltrating Japan. The story is spread out with a lot of action scenes, no doubt, because this is a CG movie. Most of which do a job in telling the story, but truth be told, are mostly for eye-candy value.

The main criticism I have of the story comes down to the complexity and presentation. I think as a CG film, Vexille didn't have enough time to devote to its story.

With a story so central to people and events of the past, I feel Vexille falls short in its delivery of everything it set up -- including the back story. Because of time constraints -- probably both in production and running time -- most of the story's revelations and plot points happen quite close together, which means the viewer's attention is often pulled away from one revelation to a new facet of the story, which does tend to dull the experience in the more dramatic scenes, and leaves little time to savour the experience.

In all honesty, I think a more expanded Vexille story could have easily filled another film, with a little bit still taken out. Of course, this is a natural part of cinema and story-telling, but it doesn't make it any less disappointing.

Final Verdict: I think Vexille is quite a solid CG film that stands apart from Applesed, with its own qualities, and enough differences to enjoy it for what it is. Although I was slightly disappointed by story in what I, personally, wanted to see, I think that just shows it to be a fairly well-balanced film, that I would recommend to anyone with a taste for action, CG or Japanese entertainment.

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.