Appleseed Ex Machina directed by Shinji Aramaki (2007)
13 March 2008A John Woo produced CG sequel to the last Appleseed film, that far exceeds the original film, even if it does have a some rough edges. Still it is nice to finally have some good character development in Duenan and Briareos, even fi their friends Hitomi and Yoshi are given second thrift. The film has great action, the computer graphics are top notch (even if the compression is a little ugly, with some nasty gradients and compression on this disc). The biggest complaint I have with this disc, is the subtitles are in fact dub titles, meaning they are taken from the English Language track instead of being what the original Japanese were. This is a horrible rookie mistake by Warner, and is exactly what real anime fans hate. So I ended up watching the English dub of the film. If you like Mechs and high tech John Woo style action, you will certainly enjoy this film, and I am really looking forward to the third film in the series. I like how the technology has been updated as the Appleseed Manga is from the 1980’s and this is the 21st century.
Once again in the post apocalyptic future, where the world is totally at war, there exists a city nation named Olympus, which is a supposed Utopian Metropolis run by Gaia a vast artificial intelligence computer. The society is kept Utopian by being run by genetically engineered humans called bioroids whose DNA has suppressed strong and negative emotions to keep an ordered society. Things of course are not always orderly, so the Country has not only police, but a Special Forces called ES.W.A.T. The two top soldiers are a team consisting of the lovely blond Duenan Knute and her cyborg partner Briareos, and they were lovers before he was so wounded to become a full body cyborg. The film starts with the team helping out another country with some terrorists, and of course Duenan rushes in as she always does, but these terrorists are different and turn out to be all cyborgs, though they manage to take them all out, but then the cyborgs start to explode, so Briareo pushes Duenan out, but he is caught in the blast and badly hurt. He is still alive, but must have his body worked on, so Duenan is given a new partner, one that will severally complicate things.
REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…
The leader of Olympus, the bioroid named Athena, has a plan to stabilize the world, by putting all of the worlds satellites under their control, and thereby stop their use by terrorists, and hopefully to end war.
Briareos is worked on by the best Cyborg doctor Dr. Xander, but he will be out of commission for a few weeks.
Duenan is partnered with a bioroid named Tereus, and isn’t too happy about it. The reason being is that Tereus was made from the best warrior DNA, which happens to be Briareous. So he looks just like Briareos when Duenan and him were partners and lovers before he became a cyborg, so she is totally confused. She does not want to be his partner at all.
At a birthday partner for Duenan’s bioroid friend Hitomi, she sees Briareous has been fixed by Xander, but is not being partnered with another cyborg instead of her, while she stays with Tereus.
When Olympus is holding a conference to take the Satelites over, a bunch of Civilians, as well as Cyborgs, like Briareos’s new partner all go mad, and try to kill the people in the conference, but they are stopped, and eventually the zombie like riot ends. Briareos sees strange things, and ends up having to kill his partner, and they realize the birds are robotic, and have been sending out the signal.
Seemingly there is something connected to a huge mega corporation outside of Japan, where Cyborgs with their parts are being taken over and becoming terrorists, so the Cyborgs, and even Briareous are made to stand down.
Deunan and Briareous decide to go out, and take Tereus, but something has happened to Briareous and he goes mad and attacks a computer terminal, and hacks the Satellite control system, killing the first level, and the second has already been subjegated by Xander, who also put nano machines into Briareous, which has made him take control. Briareous is arrested and imprisoned, and won’t see Duenan. Hitomi comes in, and helps hi leanr more about Xander, who used to work for the mega corporation, and something happened, so Briareous escapes with Hitomi’s help, and ES.W.A.T. is sent out, but Deunan is told to stand down, but she can’t.
Briareous finds Tereus who tells him what he did to him, and that he will lose control every time his adrenaline gets pumping, and he tells him it is too late to stop it, and kills himself. The cops come, but Briareous escapes, but Tereus finds him, and is going to take him out, but Deunan catches up and stops him.
The Satelites then all go haywire, and many people start rioting and attacking the whole world over, it turns out it isn’t cyborgs, but a new in the ear computing system that everyone is using, and that Xander developed. And he uploaded everything in return for his girlfriend’s death in the past. Terues joins Duenan and Briarious and they head out to the ship of the mega-corp to find out what is going on.
They learn that Xander used to work for the corporation, but their unit got into mind control, and got out of control, and eventually his girlfriend was hurt in an accident, and the unit was shut down, but not early enough. And they tell them the location of their abandonded base, and with some backup and a new mech for Duenan, They head in and battle small machines, and mechs, and eventually go up against the central computer, which is in fact Xander’s ex girlfriend. They use the chemical they have used to help stop Briareous from losing it, and kill her, setting her free, and of course escape.
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Great animation, a simple, but good and fun plot. An enjoyable hollywood style adventure in a future world I have loved for many, many years.