Customer Rating:      Summary: John Woo's greasy fingerprints all over Comment: Appleseed the original movie (from the early 90's) was great. Appleseed the CG update from a few years back was also great. This sequel is awful. The creative hand-off from Shirow Masamune to John Woo could not have been worse. Woo, you'll remember, gave us such heartwarming tales as "Face/Off" and "Mission Impossible 2". His signature idiom is that violence is *beautiful*. In CGI, that becomes an even MORE flawed premise than it is for live-action film because the constraints imposed by physics are removed. Most directors of anime are content to continue modeling such normal forces as, say, gravity or anatomy. But that apparently gets in the way of Woo's violence-porn story. In the future as envisioned by Woo, EVERY man is a muscle-bound spartan god, EVERY woman is a gorgeous D-cup. Woo is also in love with Matrix-style slow-motion spinarounds, his theory being that if a little of it is good, then gobs'n'gobs of it is better. The film speed slows down so often so we can watch superhuman gymnastics or visible bullet-trails that I wanted to ask the movie if I should get out and push.
Visual problems aside, the story is nothing to write home about. There's some vague use of the idea of human/cyborg tension and the awkwardness of meeting your own clone, but it goes nowhere and is dumped in favor of a villain whose "I'll-rule-the-world!" monologues make Doctor Evil look nuanced and believable. At one point, the villain's lieutenant commits suicide and I ran the DVD back three or four scenes because I couldn't figure out why. But I still couldn't figure it out and I'm pretty convinced that either there's simply no reason for it or else they accidentally edited out whatever reason there was supposed to be for it. Even the hero's dialog jangles like a handful of loose change.
I never thought I'd watch anime that I enjoyed so little as this film.
Customer Rating:      Summary: Good anime, good plot, good film Comment: A very good new story for the appleseed series. Is good (not excelent) in all the film aspects, but it worth every penny.
Customer Rating:      Summary: Good not great Comment: The story was pretty interesting, and the action was phenomenal. However, I thought they could have done better with the character animation. Final Fantasy had better animation. Still, the movie is is still worth watching.
Customer Rating:      Summary: Awesome!!! Comment: This movie was amazing. It's especially great when you see it in HD. Although the format is pretty much done, there's no sense in getting rid of it being how you already spent the money on it. This movie has an awesome story line and is really easy to follow. The ending is fantastic too. I highly recommend this one to anyone.
Customer Rating:      Summary: Great Comment: I ordered this for my husband. He was really interested in it. Reluctently I sat down and watched it with him and I really enjoyed as well.
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