Vexille

Normaly Japanese movies (in my oipnion) are known for their graphics rather than their story line. But this was story line and graphics hand-in-hand. This is a movie I'll be purchasing on dvd in a minute, after I finish writing this.

Like a lot of anime this film is set in a dystopic near future. If you like things like Ghost in the Shell, you will probably warm to this pretty quickly. Its Japanese, it's anime, there are robots, there is no English soundtrack (even though many of the characters are meant to be American).

The themes of humanity and technology are intertwined tightly in Sori's film, though they stop well short of the ponderous philosophical naval gazing that drags on Ghost in the Shell, which leaves a lot of time for, action!

And action abounds, thrilling racing, enormous set pieces, cataclysmic metallic monsters, things blowing up, people running away.

The bow which ties it all up is the animation, which is absolutely fantastic, photorealstic in places, sumptuously stylish and beautifully conceived in others.

It isn't terribly original or well scripted, the characters are painted in broad strokes, but my goodness is it a cracking ride anyway.

This film is for anyone who is a cyberpunk fan and for me this is one of Japans finest annemie's to date since Ghost in the shell. The story keeps you guessing and doesnt seem to drag on, personally i love it because its not predictable also the producers choice in music is perfect. i was a huge fan of Manga's early 90's cyberpunk collection which consisted of nine films, Geno cyber 1 to 3, Cyber City Oedo 808 1 to 3 and Dominion Tank police 1 to 3, so it was great to see the cyber genra in an upto date form. The only draw back for some is that its a subtitled film which can sometimes take your attention away from the picture, personally i dont mind subtitles so this film deserves a thumbs up, enjoy...

Solid Science Fiction story with some of the best animation I’ve seen and I’ve seen a few as something of an anime buff. Fans of the genre however will I suspect have problems with the degree to which Vexille draws from other sources, particularly the ‘Ghost In The Shell’ series, but also, quite shamelessly, ‘Dune’. Another problem that I had was the marked facial similarity between the main female characters for no good reason that I could see. On balance Vexille is worth seeing for the animation alone, but I think anime fans will feel let down by the story.

Personally I was rather dubious about the whole anime in 3D idea. I didn't think it worked well in Ghost In The Shell 2: Innocence, and so I didn't imagine that I would enjoy this. But I was devastatingly wrong. Despite being a Manga fanatic, and despite being a big fan of Appleseed, I decided against going to the cinema to see Vexille, and boy did I regret it.

When I finally got around to seeing this I was completely blown away by the stunning 2D/3D animation. The way the 3D characters were decorated with 2D designs was done in a such a subtle manner that I almost missed it, but somehow it managed to make this film look like classic anime and modern cinema at the same time.

The story is typical of anime but still quite origional, this time taking the 'moral' of the story to such an extent as to be a little more shocking than in past movies of this kind. I actually found myself drawn to tears on more than one occasion, and I never cry in movies!

The soundtrack is awful, but fortunately it doesn't manage to ruin the movie. And I found that I liked all of the voice actors, they all suited their characters well and there wasn't a single irritating cast member, a first amongst animated movies I think.

In short: this film is fantastic. Beautifully animated and shot, well voiced, gripping story line, and it's all put together to create what I would consider to be the best anime of the past 10 or so years.

Very highly recommended.