Vexille Reviews

Great graphics!!!

Thought that the graphics were brilliant in this film (from the same makers as Appleseed). Great imagination too, look out for the snakes of debris in the desert which seem to have a mind of their own!!

Bit of a dark and distrurbing film about life in the future in Japan after it cuts itself off from the world. It's only towards the end that you realise just how bad things have become for the natives there. Good plot too.

[Highly rated reviewer]

Hi-Tech black ships required...apply within

Politics seem to creep into everything and Vexille is no exception. An investigation is carried out by SWORD (an American unit) owing to the illegal activities of Japan and their advancements in robotic technology.

The story overall is good if somewhat clichéd, you know, the typical dystopian juxtaposition of an advanced society. Heavily influenced by other sci-fi classics such as Matrix, Dune and Ghost in the Shell, Vexille puts an additional twist on the fate of man and it's obsession with advancements, power and even immortality.

The visuals are stunning, but I find them occasionally distracting. The rotoscoping/motion capture used here is impressive and some of the scenes you'll find very realistic, it's just that the combining of 2D and 3D animation here does on occasion feel split. Certain scenes where the characters are close up don't look like they're actually in the surrounding environment. Of course, the characters are a separate layer to the scenery but they should look like they're actually in the room, market place or whatever other backdrop is used. The lighting is very flat and characters appear glossy almost washed out which again in it's own right is not a problem it's just they don't always compliment the surrounding environment.

Overall this is a good film, it's just not great. It could have been considering the plot but the lack of character depth, the CG and on occasion the seemingly inappropriate musical accompaniment from Paul Oakenfold just let things down. And why is it we always have to have scenes where things happen just in the nick of time or occur when required, it's starting to become annoying. They're their own downfall as the whole idea is to induce tension, excitement, thrills etc. the problem is you now expect them and predict their outcome, thereby removing their original emotional agenda.

What I would recommend though is listening to the commentary from Jonathan Clements. Both insightful and a joy to listen to.

Excellent and strangely melancholy CG anime

Vexille is in the mixed style of CG animation that doesn't try to be realistic in style (toon shading for the traditional cell like animation for the characters) but realistic in terms of motion capture and camera motion and effects. It's style can be seen in the previous two CG anime films of Appleseed; not surprising since the films director produced Appleseed.

The film has stunning (if derivative) action scenes and influences from Hollywood sci-fi blockbusters (Minority report, Mission to Mars (for the Jags), Blade Runner and the Matrix) make it a feast for the eyes, and yet it has a mature pacing that gives quieter scenes more resonance. The story has a sombre quality to it (The Japanese don't do humour in CG anime it seems- well not yet!) and whilst the outcome is in no doubt, getting there is still a perilous path and the film doesn't shy away from sacrifice. I was fortunate to not know anything about the film or see the trailer, so the reveal half way through had the desired impact.

The film has no English dub which is a shame as taking your eyes off the lovely visuals for just a second to read subtitles is an unnecessary distraction, but fortunately those dialogue heavy scenes aren't cut so quickly. If only some of the music could have been dubbed or dropped altogether. The opening song and some of the incidental music aside, there are two misconceived 'hip hop' tracks that feel totally out of place mid way into the film. Fortunately they last only for a few seconds which makes you wonder why include them at all.

Picture quality is good with only a few scenes of banding, 5.1 surround sound is excellent. Bonus disc isn't really worth bothering about aside from a little extra depth to the characters revealed in interviews with the director. It's mostly a video diary of the director and no real nuts and bolts analysis of the CGI or concept work that I would have liked to have seen. All the extras are in 4:3 ratio.

If you liked or already have the two Appleseed CG animes, this would be a perfect accompaniment.

One brilliant scene, shame about the rest.

Vexille is far from the best anime movie you will see. The CGI is good but not quite Pixar standard, the premise intriguing but poorly executed and the characters are unengaging.

However I would still recommend renting it for one sequence. The metallic sandworm chase is fast, thrilling, brilliantly animated, and far outshines the rest of the film. Yes, it's clearly lifted from Dune (and Tremors to a certain extent) but executed so well it lingers in the memory long after you've forgotten the rest of the film. One can only hope the Sandworms get their own spin-off movie!

[Highly rated reviewer]

fans of sky blue will love this

Absolutely mind blowing animation and spooky futuristic plot in this incredible next gen anime. Japan has isolated itself from the rest of the world for ten years while creating machine weapons, banned by the UN. 8 soldiers break in the find out whats been happening behind Japans closed curtains but were not ready for what they find. Fans of Sky Blue would love this

Vexille not as good as the others say

Its funny how so many people are blown away by this movie just because it looks nice. Yes there is nothing else quite so pretty and well animated except maybe FF7 Advent Children but just like that movie this one has a script a 5 year old could have written and a story with more plot holes than my old dads allotment. If like me your a bit of an action movie junkie then those last 2 points wont make a jot of difference to your enjoyment of this movie though. So don't expect too much and you'll come away well satisfied. Recommended with reservations.

Innovative visuals, if not plot

The CGI-anime feel works really well (at times it is quite stunning & some of the effects are uncannily realsitic) for this sci-fi epic - far better than the Final Fantasy movies, for example. The plot is standard fare, though, but does not suffer from the overly-complex trend that dominates a lot of anime sci-fi.

The ultimate hook of the plot is quite bleak and surprising and redeems many of the film's weaknesses (some inconsistent character design & ropey scripting, etc - the usual culprits). A tense finish caps off a not-bad little sc-fi flick. If only they'd put as much time into the script & plot as they did the visuals...

Vexillerating Stuff!(sorry)

Awesome looking very emotive viewing,a story line that borrows heavily from quite a few films,some more obvious than others but none the less a very enjoyable bit of escapism!

Watching Vexille reminded me of how i felt the first time i saw Akira,which was nice.

I would reccomend this to anyone.

Not that great

I was looking forward to watching this film and the opening scene showed great signs of a great film. But then it just sort of stopped and slowed down and never really picked back up. I was hoping it would have a great and attention keeping story like the appleseed films but I was disapointed.

The films did look great though and it had great attention to detail, its just a shame that the story line didn't.

something different

This was a pleasant enough film. There was a really good plot premise but sadly it never really amounted to much. There was enough of interest to keep me watching but the characters were quite cliched and the end was a bit of an anticlimax.

I don't watch a lot of Anime but I have seen better films both for plot and charcters. So overall just ok.