An visually stunning, but overall mediocre 3D animated film from the people who made the last Appleseed movie. You can really tell that this is the same creative team, because it shares a lot, including a beautiful lead female and her piloting a giant robot in a futuristic world. The movie is decent, but the story is OK, and the big monsters are ridiculous, and their explanation is not so impressive. Fans of Appleseed will probably enjoy this, because the graphics have improved, and it looks pretty damn good, and has another Paul Oakenfold soundtrack, but if they had done a better story maybe this movie wouldn’t have been such a failure in Japan. An OK popcorn film, but not too impressive.

We start with a brief history of what has been going on up until 2077, where Robots and Robotic machines are everywhere, but a Japanese Megacorporation named Daiwa Heavy Industries is found to be making Human/Robot Androids, and the world declares these illegal, banning them in all UN countries, so Japan closes itself off for 10 years. THey do this with a magnetic shield that blocks all communication and visuals, though they still sell their goods through cargo ships. A US Poliitcan heads for a meeting with a Daiwa Executive named Saito (Ohtsuka Akio) along with politicians from around the world, and they will be double crossed and killed. A UN Special Operations organization named SWORD working on a tipoff from a woman named Maria in Japan heads in to stop whatever is going on. The team is led by Commander Leon Fayden (Tanihara Shosuke) along with his girlfriend Vexille Serra (Kuroki Meisa) and best friend Zack (Kuroda Takaya). They find that Saito is an android, and Vexille manages to hang on to him as he escapes on the wing of his plane, but he cuts his own leg off and get away, and the team gets the politicians out, seemingly alive and find. To see what is going on the UN decides to send SWORD on a mission into Japan to break through the shield so they can see what is going on.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

The Team manages to get through the shield, and set up their device, which will take 3 minutes before it will break the shield, but they are attacked in the last seconds. Zak is killed, and Leon has Vexille escape into the water, since she has the only other transmitter, but the rest of the team seems to be wiped out.

Vexille wakes up in a dilapidated house with a young boy named Takashi (Paku Romi) and she escapes out into a slum market, filled with people, but she gets brought back by Maria (Matsuyuki Yasuko) who runs the resistance in Japan, and who send the message, and who was also Leon’s girlfriend 10 years before, but when he was expelled, she was not allowed to leave with him.

Saito comes to find Vexille, and she and Takashi go on the run, and are taken to the headquarters of the underground, though is first taken to the walls of Tokyo, where she sees that all of Japan is a wasteland, except the city, which is has huge walls keeping out giant mechanical sandworms called “Jags.” Also Maria has activated her Transmitter, so Sword can see in, and they see that the only human in Japan is Vexille. Vexille is told the story, that the surviving Japanese are all Androids now. 10 years ago the Daiwa corporation declared there was a virus, and had a mandatory vaccination of all Japanese, but in fact it was an experimental treatment to transform people into Androids, and it only worked a small portion of the time. Most the time it didn’t, and the people went to pieces and their pieces joined together and became the Jags which search for all metal to absorb. And the Andriods that did make it eventually are taken over and becoming just robots without their minds anymore, and go to the Daiwa corporation. Maria is fighting with her friends, and they scavenge metal from the desert that the Jags drop using fast 4 wheel vehicles. Now they plan to trail metal cable and run into the Daiwa corporation in the bay along the attachment corridors during an upcoming earthquake, and so bring the Jags in to destroy the place.

Vexille gets her power armor back and they all head out to do the plan, but of course only Vexille and Maria make it, and the Jags don’t.

Vexille and Maria are brought before the scientist who did this all Kisaragi (Morikawa Toshiyuki) who is about to inject the vaccine into Leon, and who plans on doing this to the US next, but Vexille cuts him with a blade she hides in her mouth, and he bleeds blood, proving he is still human, and this infuriates Saito who already replaced the earlier politicians with androids, and he attack Kisaragi who kills him.

Meanwhile the Androids in Tokyo realize they have been foolish and open the walls of Tokyo letting the Jags in, and into Daiwa as well. Kisaragi runs with the nano serum and they go after him, and Vexille manages to crash his helicopter, and as the Jags attack Maria grabs him and holds him as the Jags come and get them both, and Leon and Vexille are saved by Sword.

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An OK film, with great visuals. It is alright, but the Jags and their explanation is just silly. I can buy the other cyberpunk stuff, but that is way too silly to make sense. Oh well, no wonder this was only OK. Hopefully APPLESEED 2 will be better!