The year is 2077, a decade after the UN has put a cap on all robotics development for the sake of public safety. Japan, the world leader in AI research and biotechnology development, fiercely opposes the ruling and ultimately leaves the UN, withdrawing completely from the world stage. It uses its superior technology to cloak itself with an electromagnetic shroud, effectively disappearing off the face of the earth.
Daiwa Heavy Industries, the largest and most powerful company in Japan, manufactures and supplies most of the world’s technology. It also is making biotechnological advances that threaten to permanently blur the line between man and machine. There is a growing suspicion that Daiwa has seized control of Japan itself and is planning to expand its empire towards the West, and more specifically, the USA.
Vexille is an elite soldier for a crack US task force called SWORD. As tensions mount, SWORD sends troops, including Vexille and her boyfriend Leon, into Japan in a last gasp effort to avoid an impending major war. But when the rest of her squad is wiped out, Vexille finds herself alone and on the run in a country she knows nothing about.
Audiences familiar with visions of a dystopian future like in Blade Runner, Dune and Ghost In The Shell will find plenty to enjoy in director Sori’s CGI follow-up to Appleseed, but also will be left yearning for something more profound. The story is a curious mixture of ideas, at once a cautionary tale of artificial intelligence and man’s own self-destructive nature blended with references to Japan’s sakoku (closed country) period, when the nation was effectively cut off from the rest of the world.
Unfortunately, the film’s script lets the rest of the production down on occasion, never fully exploiting the potential of its intriguing premise. The set-up in the first half never really gets the pay-off it deserves, instead opting for a revelation that is something of a cop-out and a final coda that would be more at home inside a fortune cookie. Also, considering the film is named after her, Vexille is lacking in both emotional complexity and truly believable motivation. Sure, she can hold her own in a gunfight but never does she evoke the iconic status of Ghost In The Shell’s Kusanagi or the eponymous heroine of Aeon Flux – two strong and dynamic femmes fatales to whom Vexille quite obviously aspires.
However, Sori and his animators compensate for the film’s failure to fully deliver on a narrative level by ramping up the action to a spectacular degree. Visually the film is dazzling, whether depicting the morning cityscape of a futuristic Los Angeles, or warm yet desolate deserts at sunset. The film contains a string of blistering action sequences – from the opening raid on a snow-caked mansion to a climactic dash down a series of large industrial pipes, hotly pursued by giant magnetic sandworms. These are all strung together by a thumping electro-trance soundtrack – masterminded by Paul Oakenfold and featuring such recognisable talents as DJ Shadow, Basement Jaxx and MIA – which one can’t help but enjoy. Thus, Vexille must be considered a success, a noticeable advance in Japan’s CGI moviemaking, and two hours of thoroughly entertaining science fiction. It is just a shame that a film willing to raise such poignant questions about what constitutes humanity, mortality and indeed, reality ultimately shies away from offering any real answers.
James Marsh
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