Appleseed
Wow, my friends, I am in awe of what I have seen.
Let me first get out of the way that the actual plot of "Appleseed", A Japanimation feature released this year on DVD, isn't too strong. You are sort of just thrust into the story and never get to care about the characters like in the other anime film I've seen recently, "Spirited Away."
With that said, however, the reason that I had chosen to watch this movie in the first place was the visuals. And oh my, were they something. The best way to describe them are a fusion of "Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within" and "Spirited Away." Much of the movie is done by computer generation it seems, but the characters seem to have been animated. This makes for a very interesting visual product, and one that I certainly had not experienced before.
The film itself is set way in the future, with hover vehicles and super-cool Transformers-style robots that blast away at each other with machine guns. Of course, the human characters run around shooting at each other with glamorized pistols and smaller machine guns, but the futuristic backdrop created by this new visual style made the movie completely worth it.
If you have a chance to see something like this, I highly recommend it. It is indeed the sweetest eye candy...
War of the Colds
For having a million years to plan a war, these aliens wage the most ineffective, half-baked war you could imagine. Give the U.S. Government even just one day of preparation, and we'd kick their asses, no contest.Spielberg Curve Grade (compared to other Spielberg movies):
D
Hollywood Curve Grade (compared to everything else):
C
It's impossible to write this without giving away much. Many of the things you don't know about it is a lot of the reasons I'd use to complain about this movie.
That said, if you haven't seen this movie, you probably shouldn't read this review...SPOILERS...THE GOODThe effects were exceptionally well-executed and pretty flawless. There was a lot of good effects scenes, and the movie seemed to try to stay at eye-level, to keep us looking up like the characters. My favorite scene, though, involved a train burning from the inside, flying down the tracks which pretty much indicated that death and destruction was everywhere, and it's coming.
THE BADI didn't really care about what was happening, and that's probably because I didn't understand it. These machines are out killing everybody, but oh wait, eventually they need us to harvest our blood as well, because, well, they need to grow weeds...and, umm...everybody knows that aliens like weeds. Of course, through out the movie, Tom Cruise is smarter than everyone, especially the military, and everything culminates to a nice happy ending as the aliens all die because of failed immune systems. Perhaps, while they were "watching, and waiting with envious eyes," they might have read a biology book or two. My fourteen year old brother seemingly knows more about science than these naive creatures.
AND THE UGLYSay goodbye to logic. Machines hidden under the ground have miraculously gone undetected throughout the world. Their generation creates electric storms shut off cars, watches, refrigerators, but camcorders and TV station equipment seem to work just fine. The infamous van that Tom Cruise and kids drive around is somehow traffic, rubble, and jumbo jet-proof. However, it seems to have serious problems with crowds, containing people who will kill each other to drive all but 10 feet to their destination. Perhaps everyone should have hung around Boston, because these alien forces seem bent on the destruction of...farm houses. It seems the alien plot conveniently involves the continual observation of one farmhouse basement, an important asset on their way to total world domination. It's no wonder they fail so horribly. These aliens just don't get the big picture.
All that said, let's discuss...
