Typical. Not 2 posts ago I said something along the lines of “one day I’ll blather on about artwork, but not now” and here I find myself about to ‘review’ (although that is probably too lofty a word to use) something that is going to require me to blather on about artwork.
Does that make me a lying filth? Probably, so let me move on to the topic under discussion instead…
Thought I’d start off with a few screen shots to set the tone. Although they don’t really do justice to the actual show, they should provide a fairly good indication of what you’re getting yourself into (just click on them for a larger image).
I must confess to having a bit of a like-dislike (I feel a little self-conscious when it comes to saying I “love” an anime… commitment phobia, probably) relationship with the Appleseed franchise. I was still a relative newcomer to the world of anime, when I saw the 2004 film version, with its impressive use of combined CGI and animation. Although no stranger to CGI films, thanks to shows like (the visually amazing but otherwise incomprehensible) “Final Fantasy – Spirits Within” and more mainstream releases like “Monsters’ Inc”, “something” about this film touched a nerve. Maybe it was because I was seeing anime outstripping things like Pixar’s releases (of course, purists would probably have me burnt at a stake for calling a CGI film ‘anime’, but they’ll have to find me first), whilst still telling a pretty decent sci-fi / action tale. That’s the ‘like’ part.
Being a curious person and (at that time) a newbie to the whole genre, I wanted to find out more about what I’d just seen, being vaguely aware that nearly all anime had its beginnings in manga form. True enough, there was a manga, published way back in the mid-80’s, when our generation was still getting used to things like Transformers and Battle of the Planets. Moreover, it was by Masamune Shirow, who went on to develop Ghost in the Shell and the recent Ghost Hound. There had also been a previous film (or OAV – Original Animated Video), released in 1988. Both were eventually tracked down… and both were a great disappointment. It might be partly my fault, but the manga seemed horribly dated and the story a bit twee. You don’t really expect a cyber-punk action sci-fi thingy to open up with the heroine cooking supper (not to mention the terrible bouffant hair-do). I am an impatient reader and alas the printed story just didn’t grab me (ironically, now that I know more about Shirow and the general talkativeness of his works, I can understand why. Maybe I should revisit the manga one day.) The OVA was even worse – cheap, nasty animation (even allowing for its 1988 pedigree), bad acting (ok, voice-acting) and a plot… well, what plot? With that, I wrote off Appleseed and moved onto other things, including Ghost in the Shell and Ghost Hound.
Ok then, long, cathartic ramble aside, which camp does “Ex Machina” fall into? Without a doubt, the “like” crowd. maybe even the “like a great deal” crowd. Possibly even “lo-”… no, let’s not go there.
So, what’s so good about it? Well, firstly they’ve gone the 100% 3D CGI route, as you might have guessed from the screen-shots above. As with any technology, this just keeps advancing in leaps and bounds, and the imagery used here far surpasses anything else I’ve seen to date. Buildings and backgrounds are captured in magnificent detail (the Gothic cathedral in the opening sequence has to be seen to be believed); lighting and textures are first-rate (well, to art-ignoramus me anyway), the characters are fully integrated into their surroundings (now that I think about it, maybe Appleseed 2004 didn’t use animation for the characters, but they did often look ‘painted in’ when compared to their realistic CGI surroundings.) and for once they finally seem to have CGI humans moving as humans do. No doubt it’s due to the influence of producer/director, John Woo (who, like or hate him, knows how to put an action film together), but the fight sequences are extremely well choreographed, especially the aerial battles involving the land-mates. Not to mention the fluid motions of the characters in these scenes. The programmers really earned their keep on this show and if this is where state-of-the-art CGI stands at the moment, I wait in anticipation to see what the future has in store for us.
Story-wise (forgive me if I don’t explain every term used here, I’m working on the assumption you know something about Appleseed, otherwise you probably wouldn’t have read this far. If you really want to know, have a look here), I guess it’s nothing too original. Billed as a sequel to Appleseed 2004 (more on that later), it picks up at some time not long after the last film. Deunan & Briareos (not a name I’d like to try and call out in a moment of passion) are still members of ESWAT, defending Olympus against what seems to be a string of random terrorist attacks involving cyborgs. At the same time, President Athena is pressing the remaining world powers for a unified satellite system, to further ensure world piece. Needless to say, somebody has other plans for such a unified system and it’s up to our heroes to thwart his plans for world domination.
During all this we actually get to see more of the dynamics of Deunan & Briareos’ relationship here than we did before, especially after Briareos gets injured and Deunan’s new partner, Tereus (is nobody called Bob in the future?) is a bioroid, cloned from Briareos’ genetic material, thus looking, sounding and even thinking like B did, before winding up as a walking tin-can. How the three of them deals with this adds a decent human (well human-cyborg-bioroid) element that was missing from the first film. All the classic elements of a good old rough and tumble action film are present and fortunately, they all work. Maybe the only “meh” bit is a scene towards the end which could have been lifted straight from one of the later “Matrix” movies.
Without wanting to sound like a rabid fanboy, I’ve been trying to think about negatives to discuss, in the interests of balanced writing, of course. I’d have to say that there are precious few. True, it’s probably not the most original story you’re likely to see, but then again, I never expected to learn the meaning of life from watching this. I expected to be entertained for nearly two hours, and in that respect, it delivered. However, another potential weakness of the story is the fact that it’s a sequel and it assumes that you’ve seen the prequel. So, although all the familiar characters are present (Hitomi, Pres. Athena, et al) they aren’t re-introduced, but are just ‘there’, which could make them seem pretty insignificant to the uninitiated. It’s not a biggie, as the story really is about our three protagonists anyway, but somebody might wonder why Hitomi invites Deunan to her birthday and why she later…oops, nearly let a spoiler out the bag there.
I guess the final criticism comes down to a combination of the shortcomings of CGI (no matter how advanced it is) and budget. As good as the character design is, it’s no more than ‘realistic’. Facial expressions are minimal and often the only thing that moves on a character is their mouth. Blinking obviously wasn’t added to the jobcard, so the minute a character has a close up for longer than a few seconds, your eyes start to water in sympathy. Lastly, as good as the faces and bodies are designed and textured (although for some reason they still haven’t been able to make CGI characters look any less ’shiny’), hair seems to have been last on the list and in many cases looks as if they’ve had a large blob of plasticine molded on their skull. Again, it’s a small point, but it does jar, when there’s been so much attention to detail elsewhere. Then again, I always remember comments about “they spent a quarter of the budget on her hair” when Final Fantasy was released, and yes, her hair looked great, but I wish they’d spent a bit more of that budget on the scriptwriter.
Final opinion? Even if you aren’t a fan of anime (just think of this as a Pixar CGI movie, ok) and you enjoy action or sci-fi films, you won’t be disappointed with this latest incarnation of the franchise. Anybody who saw and enjoyed the first film will lo-… er… really enjoy this one.
