...smooth pacing and plenty of action, yet enough moments of pure emotion to tie everything together.
This film is action, action, action from start to finish. The influence of John Woo is apparent immediately from the opening fight scene and the film bears all of his trademarks— doves, two-fisted gun ballet, shell casings raining down, cathedrals, and dramatic slow-motion pauses in the middle of fights. While all of this is beautiful to watch, it did take me out of the action a little bit. Instead of enjoying the fight, I was thinking "Ah, this is John Woo…" Granted, it's great stuff, but sometimes the style overpowered the content.
The story is a reasonably good one, with smooth pacing and plenty of action, yet enough moments of pure emotion to tie everything together. Deunan and Briareos are a believable couple, in spite of her hot-headed personality and his unusual cyborg body. Tereus has his own issues to deal with regarding his existence as a bioroid. The conflict and confusion Deunan has at the arrival of Tereus is also believable and presented well. Overall, I did find the story to be rather familiar somehow, and towards the end I was accurately predicting what the characters would say before they said it— but it's a comfortable, enjoyable, predictability, where you know what should happen, want to happen, and will happen, and you cheer the characters on as they head to their obvious resolution.
Video:
Gorgeous. The film is presented in anamorphic widescreen format and looks amazing. If this is how lovely the regular DVD version looks, I can only imagine how amazing it must look on HD DVD or Blu-ray. Colors are bright, sharp, and rich. Blacks are deep and solid. Everything is absolutely vibrant. Excellent video quality on this disk.
Audio:
There are multiple audio tracks on this disk. Not only do we get an English 5.1 stereo track and a Japanese 2.0 stereo track, but there are also 2.0 stereo language tracks in Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Chinese. There are subtitle tracks in English, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, and Portuguese. I am not used to so many choices, so flipping between the tracks is really interesting. The film has a slightly different feel in each language. I watched this film in Japanese with English subtitles. The 2.0 Japanese track did fair justice to the sound effects and music. There is a lot of action in this movie, and it sounds great.
Extras:
A commentary track and two short specials round out the extras on this disk. The first special is a behind-the-scenes look at how the animation was done using motion capture. The second talks about how the collaboration of Shinji Aramaki and John Woo came about, how they worked together, and how the film as a whole came together. The English commentary track discusses the English production of the film, the plot and how it relates to the original comic by Masamune Shirow, and the history of anime in general.
Film Value:
While the story is a bit predictable, I still found myself enjoying "Appleseed: EX Machina." The art style took some getting used to, but it really is a dazzling work of art. The action scenes are choreographed with amazing skill, and the film as a whole displays a great attention to detail. It is a nice combination of action and romance and friendship.
The story is a reasonably good one, with smooth pacing and plenty of action, yet enough moments of pure emotion to tie everything together. Deunan and Briareos are a believable couple, in spite of her hot-headed personality and his unusual cyborg body. Tereus has his own issues to deal with regarding his existence as a bioroid. The conflict and confusion Deunan has at the arrival of Tereus is also believable and presented well. Overall, I did find the story to be rather familiar somehow, and towards the end I was accurately predicting what the characters would say before they said it— but it's a comfortable, enjoyable, predictability, where you know what should happen, want to happen, and will happen, and you cheer the characters on as they head to their obvious resolution.
Video:
Gorgeous. The film is presented in anamorphic widescreen format and looks amazing. If this is how lovely the regular DVD version looks, I can only imagine how amazing it must look on HD DVD or Blu-ray. Colors are bright, sharp, and rich. Blacks are deep and solid. Everything is absolutely vibrant. Excellent video quality on this disk.
Audio:
There are multiple audio tracks on this disk. Not only do we get an English 5.1 stereo track and a Japanese 2.0 stereo track, but there are also 2.0 stereo language tracks in Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Chinese. There are subtitle tracks in English, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, and Portuguese. I am not used to so many choices, so flipping between the tracks is really interesting. The film has a slightly different feel in each language. I watched this film in Japanese with English subtitles. The 2.0 Japanese track did fair justice to the sound effects and music. There is a lot of action in this movie, and it sounds great.
Extras:
A commentary track and two short specials round out the extras on this disk. The first special is a behind-the-scenes look at how the animation was done using motion capture. The second talks about how the collaboration of Shinji Aramaki and John Woo came about, how they worked together, and how the film as a whole came together. The English commentary track discusses the English production of the film, the plot and how it relates to the original comic by Masamune Shirow, and the history of anime in general.
Film Value:
While the story is a bit predictable, I still found myself enjoying "Appleseed: EX Machina." The art style took some getting used to, but it really is a dazzling work of art. The action scenes are choreographed with amazing skill, and the film as a whole displays a great attention to detail. It is a nice combination of action and romance and friendship.
Average user rating (1-5):
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