Vexille (2008)

This is a fantastic movie! I had never even heard of it until I was scrolling through action movie titles on the internet. I read the reviews and decided to check it out for myself. I was so impressed that I considered quitting my job to travel around the country promoting it. But seriously, the film is visually stunning, has a great plot, and touches just about ever emotion a person can experience. I highly recommend it. There is enough action in this movie to satisfy even the most insatiable movie buff. Most of the time I forgot I was watching an animated movie. Set in the not-so-distant future, this film creates a plausible scenario of a mega corporation so bent on the advancement of technology that it forgets what humanity is all about. I was on the edge of my seat from the very beginning.

To summarize my thoughts in one phrase I'd say that this is unfortunately one of those production that just fall short of achieving greatness.It has most of the essential elements right ; The main storyline is original and interesting enough, artistically speaking its on par with what is to be expected of any big animation studio at the time and furthermore it has just enough action throughout not to be dull.For me, its biggest flaw has to do with characters development ; Motivations of each protagonist while made obvious are SO one-dimensional it give no chance to the viewer to get drawn-in to the storyline.Since the whole theme of the movie is about 'humanity' and what it represent to be human, one would say this make the ending sequence appear especially hollow.It would have been interesting to emphasize on the love,hate hopes & fears of the doomed Japanese denizen (as well as of those of Mariah's crew members) instead of merely presenting them as background elements ready for the proverbial 'Grinder'.This is especially aggravating with the main 'villain' whose dialogs & motivations are so 'cliche' they made me cringe.Had they for instance removed the whole first part set in 'Japamerica' and merely had Serra's team wiped out upon attempting infiltration (oh please kill Leon already!) and instead had her stranded far from home grieving for her friends and surrounded by 'enemies' who later became people who then became friends, then you might have had a good emotional setting for what came next.In short, an above average production, pretty to look at all the while being mostly forgettable ; No reasons to get out of your way to get it, yet with enough good content that you should at least see it.

This is so far the biggest problem with Japanese animé: weak character development, mediocre and plain dialog that seems to be aimed towards children under 10 years of age, redundant stories, characters that look too much alike - we get it that it's a style, but some of the character look like cheap duplicates of one another like Maria & Vexille.The animation itself wasn't that bad, although it seems like there hasn't been much improvement for the past 7 years... the people are still stiff and have a dead look from time to time, the kissing scene between two main characters was very stiff and unnatural like two dolls kissing.The effects were nice and definitely passable, but the weak plot of the movie is tiring.now last, but not least, is the music... it didn't fit with the scenes, totally random and seemed to be there just because someone liked the sound and not how it fit with the story...

From what i can see in most of the negative comments. it is like most film critics. the comments are being made with very little, if NO prior experience to this group of specialist animation.Most of the "vexille" story line has been insinuated in the Appleseed series. if you watch the Appleseed films and read a couple of the early comics, you will have the prior knowledge to fill in the gaps in this "weak story".The way this film has been produced is stereotypical to Masamune Shirow's writing and i would assume it is an impression of Shinji Aramaki's and John Woo's directing.however i'd agree that this film is not for those who are new to Japanese animation as a lot of this is too close to home and yet too unbelievable.