Appleseed Ex Machina [Blu-ray] | ![Appleseed Ex Machina [Blu-ray]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/5141NFLVHvL._SL160_.jpg)
 enlarge | Director: Shinji Aramaki
Actor: Kara Greenberg
Studio: Warner Home Video
Category: DVD
List Price: $34.99
Buy New: $22.00
You Save: $12.99 (37%)
New (32) Used (6) Collectible (1) from $18.99
Rating:  92 reviews
Sales Rank: 1852
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Widescreen
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: Blu-ray
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 104
Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: 120066
UPC: 085391200666
EAN: 0085391200666
ASIN: B0010358CG
Theatrical Release Date: 2007
Release Date: March 11, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand New and Factory sealed - 100% satisfaction guaranteed!
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Product Description
The next installment in the Appleseed franchise Appleseed: Ex Machinaavailable on DVD! Produced by John Woo and Directed by Shinji Aramakiand featuring next generation CG technology Appleseed: Ex Machina isback bigger and badder!Based on the manga from reknown creator Shirow Masamune in this movieDeunan and Briareos are both partners and lovers. As members of ESWATthe elite forces serving Olympus they are deployed everywhere troublestrikes. The two fighters find their partnership tested in a new way bythe arrival of Tereus who uncannily resembles Briareos before thewartime injuries that led to his becoming a cyborg. At the same timeOlympus finds itself under a stealth attack . Cyborg terrorism deadlynanotech zealots and rioting citizens are just some of the threats thatDeunan must contend with as she fights to save Olympus.System Requirements:Running Time: 104 minutesFormat: BLU-RAY DISC Genre: SCI-FI/FANTASY/FANTASY Rating: PG-13 UPC: 085391200666 Manufacturer No: 120066
Amazon.com
Produced by John Woo and directed by Shinji Aramaki, Appleseed Ex Machina (2007) ranks as the most elaborate, stylish, and violent of the three adaptations of Masamune Shirow's manga. When it was released in 1988, the original Appleseed felt like a summary of anime's past, while Akira pointed the way to the future. The second Appleseed (2004), also directed by Aramaki, was an unimpressive motion-capture CG feature that borrowed elements from other sci-fi anime. In this latest incarnation, Deunan, Briareos, and Tereus of the E.S.W.A.T. team are charged with preserving the peace of the city-state of Olympus, a hi-tech paradise on a largely ruined Earth. Screenwriters Kiyoto Takeuchi and Todd W. Russell have given the story a contemporary twist, adding attacks by "cyborg terrorists" and an effort by the ruler of Olympus to control a world-wide satellite surveillance system. When cyborgs and human launch coordinated attacks on the government headquarters in Olympus, Deunan, Briareos, and Tereus swing into action against a mysterious enemy. The plot has little in common with the earlier films: the Appleseed technology that was at the core of the story isn't even mentioned. The look, tone, and characters in Ex Machina recall Shirow's Ghost in the Shell, rather than the original Appleseed. Not surprisingly, the elaborately choreographed fight scenes reflect Woo's signature style, with slo-mo martial-arts combat, close-ups of falling shells, dynamic camerawork, and all-out gun battles. But the weightless movements of the motion-capture characters and the limited rendering of the skin textures gives Appleseed Ex Machina the feel of an extremely elaborate computer game. Despite the limits of the mo-cap technology, Appleseed Ex Machina is a fast-past, take-no-prisoners cinematic adventure that will delight action-movie fans as well as anime lovers. (Rated PG-13: violence, violence against women, profanity, grotesque imagery, potentially offensive religious imagery.) --Charles Solomon
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| Customer Reviews: Read 87 more reviews...
 good animation and music, thin plot and naive dialogue, cool pradas July 18, 2008
you can see john woo's hand prints all over this one. the plot was thin, the characterization shallow, the dialogue naive. nothing like the "ghost in the shell" series. the height of this was when our hero pouted, jumped up and down and left the party almost hysterically and dramatically like a distressed school girl when she found out she had to stick to her new partner even though her old one (so obviously her lover) was up and running again. she was depicted as acting extremely unprofessionally, by assuming that she has the right to be outraged at a change of partner, just because she happens to be in love with him, and therefore suggesting that she potentially will be more than willing to jeopardize any larger goals for as long as she and her lover cum ex-partner can work together. a lot of other scenes could have been made more elegantly, but this was the worst. perhaps many years from now, advance psychological research may found that being emotionally entangled with the person you partner up with professionally is a healthy thing, especially in an extremely high stress profession like our heroes here. but even so, unless it is part of the story that human beings have by then evolved into a highly specialized being, where being a good combat soldier means loosing some of your maturity, or, they are so advanced that our hero is in fact a highly trained ESWAT soldier by the time she was 12 years old, this lover cum war combat partner dynamic was clumsily done, and the whole thing came across awkward and embarrassing.
also, how idiotic is it to traumatized someone by giving her a biological copy of her lover's former body as her professional partner to replace her still-existing-now-machine ailing one when it is widely known in the story that she has an emotional attachment to the latter?? i figured some of the old sciences must have died during all those wars which preceded our story here, one of them must be psychology. and perhaps some of the old political system too, is olympus a democracy? how come national decisions were made by the two women rules alone?
the movie is nothing like its trailer. it is boring to watch a lot of the times.
other than that, it has beautiful animation, great music, and some cool pradas (anime has a habit of dressing their women as elegantly as pole dancers. it is nice to see that prada managed to get involved here. pity fashion can't help the quality of movies. sex and the city anime anyone?)
 Exmachina Greatness!!! July 9, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I really loved the storyline and graphics. I'm not going to spoil the movie for you but if you loved the first Appleseed then you will love ExMachina.
Appleseed Rocks! July 8, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This DVD is a sequel to the movie released in 2004 [Appleseed (Widescreen) (2004)] not a remake. This is a "must see" not just for Appleseed fans but for all fans of Japanese Anime. The bonus features are entertaining and informative. Add to cart, you won't regret it. (AliasQTip is a real person, not a paid celebrity.) :D
awesome! July 5, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
it amuses me that there's always a handful of people who can give a 1 star rating for just about anything. if you wanted to watch shakespeare in the park then you're to blame - not the people who created this awesome work. the animation is incredible, the action scenes are fantastic, the repeat viewability is very high. if you're looking for serious brain stimulation, do sudoku. if you want to enjoy a fun animated film - this is 5 stars for sure.
 John Woo's greasy fingerprints all over July 5, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
Appleseed the original movie (from the early 90's) was great. Appleseed the CG update from a few years back was also great. This sequel is awful. The creative hand-off from Shirow Masamune to John Woo could not have been worse. Woo, you'll remember, gave us such heartwarming tales as "Face/Off" and "Mission Impossible 2". His signature idiom is that violence is *beautiful*. In CGI, that becomes an even MORE flawed premise than it is for live-action film because the constraints imposed by physics are removed. Most directors of anime are content to continue modeling such normal forces as, say, gravity or anatomy. But that apparently gets in the way of Woo's violence-porn story. In the future as envisioned by Woo, EVERY man is a muscle-bound spartan god, EVERY woman is a gorgeous D-cup. Woo is also in love with Matrix-style slow-motion spinarounds, his theory being that if a little of it is good, then gobs'n'gobs of it is better. The film speed slows down so often so we can watch superhuman gymnastics or visible bullet-trails that I wanted to ask the movie if I should get out and push.
Visual problems aside, the story is nothing to write home about. There's some vague use of the idea of human/cyborg tension and the awkwardness of meeting your own clone, but it goes nowhere and is dumped in favor of a villain whose "I'll-rule-the-world!" monologues make Doctor Evil look nuanced and believable. At one point, the villain's lieutenant commits suicide and I ran the DVD back three or four scenes because I couldn't figure out why. But I still couldn't figure it out and I'm pretty convinced that either there's simply no reason for it or else they accidentally edited out whatever reason there was supposed to be for it. Even the hero's dialog jangles like a handful of loose change.
I never thought I'd watch anime that I enjoyed so little as this film.
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