A movie that is protesting the mechanization of human beings... and the destruction of the soul.... is entirely CGI, and is full of mindless and pointless violence and special effects.
The best character is Maria. This character fascinated me... the only character i can remember to speak less, is Clint Eastwood's man with no name from the old Sergio Leone western movies. It is a credit to the animators and artists and voice actor (... did they use motion capture? if so, then the actor as well) to portray this character as she is portrayed.
Actually Saito isn't too bad, there are one or two scenes that hint at his complexity... but it is hard to find them when buildings are exploding airplanes are slamming through windows, explosions pound inside your head, etc.
The kid character is not too bad... not great though. Wanted to know more about him. Sadly, I feel I know more about 'wall-e' the robot in the Disney movie than about this kid who is so eager to go off to battle.
Some other strange things,,, a kid going to battle (whats his relationship with Maria? child?).. the never-explained desecration of the entire island of Japan the lack of curiosity that Vexille displays about this (ie, how about 'where is mt fuji?') Oh yeah. Actually the entire damn plot is strange and makes no sense. I half expected for the movie to stop in some parts and et me play a level of 'starcraft'. That is the level of exposition we are talking about here... just people droning on about missions and '50 years ago the xyz corporation blah blah blah'. The thing with the iron wire makes absolutely no sense, the giant wall is the same... the inability of the 'jags' to jump, when they jump all over the land. Why does the city have gates in the first place? How about a tiny little hole you drive out of? If the security is so tight, why are the top of the walls safe to hang around on? Why attack America? China is much closer and has more 'human guinea pigs' to experiment on. What happened to the presumably 200 million+ people of the island? Did they all die? Where when and why? Did none of these 'survivors' have relatives from the past to talk about? Pile on more and more of this stuff, and you lose your ability to suspend disbelief. . . you just start going 'wtf..' and wondering if this is the level where you get some awesome upgraded ship , again, wondering if you are watching a movie or a cutscene in starcraft.
Miyazaki made a good film, called Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. It wasn't good because of the artwork, voices, etc, although all those are great... it was good because of the story... the world created.. it actually kind of made sense... a little bit. . .
Vexille's world has many parts that make almost no sense... but unfortunately the nonsensical parts of it seem to be rather central to the mechanics of the plot.
But , what can I say. It is a much better film than Indiana Jones 4. . . and even I like it better than some of the Star Wars prequels.
If nothing else, it is unique, and if you just see 5 minutes of it for the visual effects of the jag, just do it. Or, if you actually want a story, fast forward to the scenes where Maria 'reacts' to events happening around her.. and see her 'discussion' with Vexille... I found these scenes to be fascinating. If you only care about action, you will not be disappointed.
But if you have to have things polished up, with nice neat plots to tie things together logically... you need to take a leap of faith before you are going to get any enjoyment out of this film.
Bye and thanks for reading.
The best character is Maria. This character fascinated me... the only character i can remember to speak less, is Clint Eastwood's man with no name from the old Sergio Leone western movies. It is a credit to the animators and artists and voice actor (... did they use motion capture? if so, then the actor as well) to portray this character as she is portrayed.
Actually Saito isn't too bad, there are one or two scenes that hint at his complexity... but it is hard to find them when buildings are exploding airplanes are slamming through windows, explosions pound inside your head, etc.
The kid character is not too bad... not great though. Wanted to know more about him. Sadly, I feel I know more about 'wall-e' the robot in the Disney movie than about this kid who is so eager to go off to battle.
Some other strange things,,, a kid going to battle (whats his relationship with Maria? child?).. the never-explained desecration of the entire island of Japan the lack of curiosity that Vexille displays about this (ie, how about 'where is mt fuji?') Oh yeah. Actually the entire damn plot is strange and makes no sense. I half expected for the movie to stop in some parts and et me play a level of 'starcraft'. That is the level of exposition we are talking about here... just people droning on about missions and '50 years ago the xyz corporation blah blah blah'. The thing with the iron wire makes absolutely no sense, the giant wall is the same... the inability of the 'jags' to jump, when they jump all over the land. Why does the city have gates in the first place? How about a tiny little hole you drive out of? If the security is so tight, why are the top of the walls safe to hang around on? Why attack America? China is much closer and has more 'human guinea pigs' to experiment on. What happened to the presumably 200 million+ people of the island? Did they all die? Where when and why? Did none of these 'survivors' have relatives from the past to talk about? Pile on more and more of this stuff, and you lose your ability to suspend disbelief. . . you just start going 'wtf..' and wondering if this is the level where you get some awesome upgraded ship , again, wondering if you are watching a movie or a cutscene in starcraft.
Miyazaki made a good film, called Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. It wasn't good because of the artwork, voices, etc, although all those are great... it was good because of the story... the world created.. it actually kind of made sense... a little bit. . .
Vexille's world has many parts that make almost no sense... but unfortunately the nonsensical parts of it seem to be rather central to the mechanics of the plot.
But , what can I say. It is a much better film than Indiana Jones 4. . . and even I like it better than some of the Star Wars prequels.
If nothing else, it is unique, and if you just see 5 minutes of it for the visual effects of the jag, just do it. Or, if you actually want a story, fast forward to the scenes where Maria 'reacts' to events happening around her.. and see her 'discussion' with Vexille... I found these scenes to be fascinating. If you only care about action, you will not be disappointed.
But if you have to have things polished up, with nice neat plots to tie things together logically... you need to take a leap of faith before you are going to get any enjoyment out of this film.
Bye and thanks for reading.