Review of Appleseed: Ex Machina (2007) by Noel K — 08 Jul 2010

A team of "E.S.W.A.T.'s" including a female human, a male "bioroid" (enhanced clone) and a male cyborg, both of the latter in love with her, and genetically similar, must face a new threat to the "utopian" city of Olympus, where a summit is being held to unite all the satellites around the Earth (whatever that means) as a prelude to a peaceful New World Order that will make the world safe for shopping and partying.

Based on a manga by Masamune Shiro, just like "Ghost in the Shell", "Appleseed" feels like a teenage version of the latter, more Marvel Comics than literate cyberpunk, more "Iron Man" than William Gibson. In this case, the menace is very reminiscent of the kind featured in the new Doctor Who. In fact, one of the episodes of the British series had something almost identical, which enabled me to be well ahead of any of the characters.

The film is filled with borrowings from better movies, from its very own Borg Queen to an escape scene lifted from "Aliens". In fact, the enemy's ideology sounds half Borg, half Darwin.

The whole thing was a disappointment for me, but even though I had greatly enjoyed the original about five years ago, it was a disappointment I expected, not that I thought the sequel would be that much worse than the original, but because I feared that I would not be the same person watching. As years go by, I have become allergic to poseurs, and "Appleseed" is full of them. The women are all models on the catwalk (with Deunan even modeling two costumes by a famous Italian designer), the men are all extremely muscular, heavily armed and trained in the martial arts, and everybody shares the same Schwarzenegger humour. There's not as much posing as in, say, "Advent Children" or "Blade II", but there was enough of it to really make me feel totally unconnected to any of the characters.

If you watch this film, though, count the number of times they say "Briareos." I wish I had.