Fenxy

Just wondering if anyone else had seen this movie and what they thought about its messages. It's by the same guy that did Appleseed.

My very short review: The movie takes place in the 2060's. Japan's been isolated from the rest of the world for 10 years because of their insistence on creating cyborgs and androids, an isolation they've chosen, creating shields to block themselves from satellites and stopping all incoming and outbound communications and transportation. A team from the UN is sent in to see what's going on, and they discover a people with exceedingly advanced technology, but one which came with a horrible price.

The film is basically a cross between Appleseed, Dune, and The Matrix. It's got a good story, once it gets toward the middle. The beginning is, unfortunately, very boring, but if you can stay awake past that, the film's not bad. The relationships between the characters are a lot like Appleseed in that pre-exising romantic relationships are at the core of all current relations between the heroes and villains. I also noticed a few homages to both The Matrix and Ghost in the Shell.

The film portrays a future in which people have been turned into machines, not by the addition of robotic parts, but by the molecular-level replacement of their biological components. While that offers advantages like no longer having to eat, immortality, and regeneration, it does offer some very distinct disadvantages, such as control from an outside source.

The animation in it is beautiful, as was Appleseed, but only if you like the almost-flash-animation look. While I wasn't crazy about the art, I absolutely loved the film's use of various colors to depict certain feelings. (such as the juxtaposition of what was considered to be a very "alive" environment with colors betraying a darker world).

Alright, so this was a longer review than I had expected. Overall, I give the film a 3.5 out of 5.