Anime feature produced by John Woo and directed by Shinji Aramaki on story/characters of manga artist Shirow Masamune
Studio: Warner Bros.
Video: 1.85:1 anamorphic/enhanced for 16:9 widescreen color, 1080p HD
Audio: English DD 5.1, French 2.0, Cantonese 2.0, Dutch 2.0, German 2.0, Japanese 2.0
Subtitles: English, French, Chinese, Dutch, German, Korean
Extras: “Team-Up: John Woo & Shinji Aramaki,” “Revolution: Animating ExMachina,” Filmmaker commentary track, “The Appleseed Chronicles:” Definitive history of the anime phenomenon, “East Meets West:” How different cultures enjoy the art form
Length: 104 minutes
Rating: ***(*)
Frankly I got bored with the definitive history, but this is the second or third feature Appleseed film based on the popular manga series – the last one came out in 2004. This mecha free-for-all falls into the category represented by an Amazon list titled “Technology Run Amok.” 23 years in the future humanity is recovering from WWIII. Many live in a glittering domed peace city called Olympus, where the population is a mix of humans, androids, cyborgs and something called bioroids. Curvaceous Deunan is a legendary warrior in the government’s ESWAT peacekeeping forces, but she’s usually found in some sort of a Transformer suit that only displays her head. Her 75% cyborg boyfriend and partner is Briareos, pieced together after a near-fatal encounter in the line of duty. He looks like a giant mecha version of Harvey.
In the previous film human terrorists in the military seeking a return to power try to destroy the computer running Olympus and clash with the ESWAT forces. Deunan holds the only solution to the conflict, something connected with the Appleseed. In the new anime, the same general plot about terrorists seems to be rehashed, but there’s no mention of the Appleseed, Deunan is just a soldier and not leader of ESWAT, and a new bioroid character has been added – Tereus. The prime minster of Olympus seeks to launch a worldwide satellite surveillance system to make the world safer. The world’s largest corporation, Poseidon, is involved and may or may not be among the villains. Cyborg terrorists are mounting attacks around the city and humans who are innocently enjoying a new mobile electronic gadget which looks like in-ear cell phones are being subject to mind control which turns them into terrorists. Naturally, Deunan, Briareos and Tereus single-handedly save the world with the assistance of John Woo’s patented fight/gunslinging choreography, including lots of slow-motion stuff.
The transfer looked great, as it always seems to with animation – whether standard DVD or HD. Unfortunate the soundtrack is merely standard Dolby Digital rather than uncompressed 5.1 or at least Dolby TrueHD. The second of the extras shows the extraordinary work that goes into an anime feature such as this one. Motion capture was used extensively to give even the sailing-thru-the-air fights more natural and human-like movements. Yet the flesh textures don’t look as convincing as in some other recent anime features. I guess my own anime interest runs more to the Myazaki style than this sort of mecha stuff, which strikes me as a sort of out-of-control computer game (though I’ve never played a computer game). Or to some of the other films which were on that Amazon “Technology Run Amok” list: Brazil, Blade Runner, The Matrix, 2001, Total Recall. Or in the anime category, Akira. I think Ghost in the Shell – also from a Masamune manga – was a better movie.
– John Sunier
