Original text at the nekoheadz.org forum

Review number two (review number one being Sketchbook ~full color’S~) for this week is the computer animated blockbuster Vexille brought to us by FUNimation. Hopefully, you’ve seen Appleseed and Appleseed: Ex Machina done in the same animation style as I’ll be mentioning them in this review (actually, I was going to review the second Appleseed movie, but then I rented Vexille and I think I can kill two birds with one stone, two beautifully rendered cg birds that move like bricks). Just a little history here: Appleseed (the movie, not the OVA) was the first anime to be made entirely in cg. Fairly well received, it was a shiny cyber-punk political action thriller in the same vein as Ghost in the Shell, but not quite as smart or deep. A sequel came out three years later to a similarly warm reception. While the CG (computer graphics, not cute girls) didn’t quite turn the genre on its head like I get the impression the makers wanted, it was a new style for anime and probably helped push more cg into other series. Almost exactly a year and a half ago, the same people that made Appleseed released a new movie, Vexille. As always, consider this a warning for spoilers, but I’ll try not to ruin anything for you like I probably did with one of my more harsh reviews. See, the Appleseed movies and Vexille are kind of the equivalent of the Hollywood summer blockbusters, so they aren’t the most complex things in the world.

Vexille is set in the relatively near future where a ban on advanced robotic technologies forced Japan into isolation. For ten years, Japan was completely closed save for their sole export: combat robots from Daiwa Corporation. Rumor had it that Japan continued on with the forbidden research. Meanwhile, the American super advanced tactical police SWORD, following said rumors, finally tracks down a Daiwa representative at a business meeting in a rather explosive opening sequence. Vexille, one of the squad leaders for SWORD and stereotypical kick-ass female lead like Deunan Knute from Appleseed, takes part in an unsanctioned intelligence mission to break the quarantine on Japan and find out what’s going on. The truth is pretty shocking as all of the dangers of advanced cybernetic technology are shockingly realized.

We’re going to start with the least important aspect for this movie: the music. As a big action packed movie with lots of flashy effects and a dash of human drama, the music kind of gets left on the sidelines. Terrible shame, too, as a better soundtrack could have really driven some of the moments in this movie to sheer mind-boggling awesome. However, the music during the action bits does add all the zest and energy they need, so they hit the mark there. It’s just that, well, a good dramatic moment needs one of two things to give you goose bumps: silence, or appropriate music. Vexille lacked the music to really drive home some of the big thematic elements and the movie as a whole lost some of its impact as a result. As I usually point out, music, animation, and story are the big 3 of anime elements that need to be polished and mesh well in order for a production to achieve greatness. The story in Vexille had some potential, but the ineffective score squandered it all. I guess they put the entire budget into lens flare and cel-shading.

Vexille spares no effort to dazzle in the visual department. The animation is top notch, even by Hollywood standards. In case you haven’t seen the style before, it’s all computer generated with cel-shaded textures and motion capture. In non-tech terms, that means it looks like a bulgy cartoon and the people move like people. Appleseed was pretty groundbreaking since it was one of the first CG anime to come out and not get trashed by anyone who saw it (I like the Final Fantasy movie thank you very much; ooh, that would be a good review). Actually, it reminds me a bit of how the Matrix came out and showcased all of those new advances in computer effects; well, Appleseed did that for anime and while Vexille isn’t ground-breaking in any way, it looks even prettier. The animation is smooth and the motion capture for the people was pretty tight so they don’t move like their flesh is a sumo suit. I only noticed one or two moments where they didn’t render at the same frame rate as the movie, but they were brief little things on the side, which makes me think they rendered the movie in parts and stuck it together later (a common technique for CG animation). Anyway, enough technical stuff: Vexille is dazzling and it better be, as that’s one of the main selling points for the movie. Seriously, how interested would you have been in this movie otherwise? It’s not like the story on the back would have been enough to pull in so many people, especially since the animation likes to take center stage whenever it can.

Vexille has a wonderfully complex story about madness and technology gone horribly wrong, but poor execution and character design took the shine away. Plus, there are a few holes in the plot. See, the animation is so prominent a feature and took so much of the focus on the director’s part that the story was left to fend for itself as it journeyed down been-done-before road. Vexille, our hot American lead who looks identical to the Japanese characters, is married to her team leader (adding to the vibe that this movie might have been better as an Appleseed prequel) and has the same tough-girl suddenly sobbing but will still kick you in the balls if you get too close attitude that’s come out in a lot of the “strong” female leads lately. She’s too dependent on her husband for me to take her seriously and when the shit hits the fan during the covert mission she gets a little flighty while the men take charge. It pisses me off, actually, because I was hoping they would do something different with a female lead…and she’s hot. The lead villain is insane and while I want to say I can’t believe that both the Japanese government and its people would be lead down such a dark road by him, history repeatedly proves such desires futile. While the historical parallels could have been built upon to give the movie some depth, it’s actually just brushed over almost intentionally. I guess for some reason no one wants to draw historical links between the Japanese and genocidal madmen. I WONDER WHY. Anyway, ten years ago, the characters in Vexille would have been unique and ground-breaking, but now they are just formulaic and verging on clichéd. The robot designs are pretty solid and all of the technological stuff tickles my nerd fancy, but I have one major gripe with the designs: the jags. Jags are these partially aware metal assimilating worm things that play a pretty important role in the story and such, but they look boring. Big budget super CG fest and the super metal worms look dull. It’s like they couldn’t decide between the dark menacing mouth and the shiny metal graceful body and we wound up with neither. The sounds on these beasts needed work, too, as they have this really nice jingly sound which makes for some amazing shots, but they aren’t menacing at all. For playing such an important part, the jags were woefully neglected. As often happens in CG works, the technical nature of the production means that those involved are so well versed in the programming end of things that creative art direction can fall through if the staff isn’t up to it. The jags are a casualty of that, but I think the story direction fell victim to it as well. (We need a new paragraph, I think.)

Now that I think about it, the story in Vexille is actually dark enough and deep enough to rival Blade Runner as far as lessons about future technology and human nature are concerned, but the makers were so thoroughly focused on the shiny presentation they forgot about everything else. Think of the story as a beautiful park on a sunny day. Now think of the animation as the car that drives you to the park. Only now you can’t get out of the car; in fact, the car drives by so fast you can’t get a good look at anything. And the windows are rolled up and the air conditioning is off. Now there’s this unique flaming tree that talks out in the park, but you only get a glimpse of it as you pass over a hill. That’s Vexille. The story was there, but those graphics just blow right by it. It’s just like the big Hollywood productions that stifle the story because it cramps the style. The Appleseed movies were guilty of this as well (which is what almost prompted me to review one of them), but the stories for those movies were considerably less well-done so it wasn’t nearly as tragic when their storytelling got ran over by the animation truck. I know I talk about the potential of anime a lot as opposed to the anime itself, but I’m working with the big picture here: in order for an art form to survive it needs to adapt and change. There’s all sorts of other deep and intellectually and let’s be honest: pretentious things I can say about art and anime and what they mean, but for now let’s just settle with the fact that if anime doesn’t continue to produce new things, people lose interest and it’ll go the way of the musical (movie, not stage). Anyway, back to the story, well, the holes in it. Persuasion of the Japanese government aside, the whole setup for the Japanese isolation is covered fairly well from a political standpoint (yay for that), but the practicality and implementation of it is brushed over to the point where I’m left going “how did no one see that coming?” You know those moments in a movie where you stop and say “wait a minute, don’t try and pull that one on me.” I’ve been told that’s more about the suspension of disbelief, but I’m watching a movie about future robot technology and cops with powered armor that would make the Master Chief jealous (yes, I’m a gamer, and no, I’m not a fanboy so shut it); my belief is already suspended. However, that doesn’t mean I won’t cry foul when you screw up. I saw this Bruce Campbell movie (the guy that was in Evil Dead) where these aliens invaded and due to some epically bad script writing, it was never clarified whether the girl he won at the end wasn’t an alien. It pissed me off a lot when the exact same thing happened at the end of Vexille where one of the characters could have been turned into a robot. They sure aren’t going to take the time to tie up that little loose end because they were too busy working on that beautiful sunset everyone flies off into and we are too busy marveling at it.

Vexille is by no means all bad; I actually enjoyed it a bit and found it hooked me in enough to keep me watching to the end despite some rather annoying distractions. But the experience was far too shallow given the content. There’s a movie you watch and when it’s over you go “yeah, it was good,” and then you go about the rest of your life without missing a beat. Then there’s a movie you watch and you can’t get it out of your head for days. Vexille is the former when it should have been the latter. See, the Matrix was a pioneer for new special effects but it was also a solid movie and deserved most of the hype it got (let’s just pretend those sequels never existed); the movie could stand on its own without the shiny graphics and that’s why when it was so well dressed it changed a lot of people’s expectations for movies (which promptly changed back when the sequels came out; haha, bashed twice in the same sentence). It’s also why so many movies have so much nauseating CG now. Appleseed wasn’t nearly strong enough as a story to push the computer animation into a genre bending tool like the Matrix; while there has been more CG that’s been more of a result of the industry going digital than the viewers demanding it. Vexille is very much another Appleseed in spirit, so the comparisons are more than fair. Pretty animation will only carry a production so far and when you’re the third child of an already lackluster line, I imagine the bar is pretty low. If I had seen this in a theater, I’d probably remember the popcorn more than the movie. Actually, I’d have gone to see Wall-e instead.

~Whim

PS – I watched this movie subtitled on DVD from FUNimation.
PS2 - At some point I’m going to get away from my set pattern and get more free-form with the reviews, but I want a little more practice at keeping things logical before I start getting fancy.
PS3 – I’m debating whether to only post one review a week that way I have a backlog in the event I lose my ability to download or something comes up, but I hate the idea of sitting on reviews for weeks on end.