The positives of this film are the CGI model of Briareos, the drones, Two Horns, the hot cyborg chick, and the gun platform. The fight against the drones, the character interplay, and the final fight are all well done. That and the ending credits music is really cool.
However, there are a number of things that hurt this film (and most of them are pretty easy to fix). Duenan's CGI character is one. Her face is modeled incorrectly. Not sure what happened there. And then there's the issue of the musical score during some of the fight scenes.... There's this odd frenetic bubblegum pop music playing during some of the early fight scenes. It's totally inappropriate and is even mixed wrong. Very odd. I also found Deunan's hesitation to help the world a bit strange. It seemed at odds with the more confident personality she exhibited in the graphic novels.
The other element of this film that kind of bothers me is the tone of it. It's much too light -- especially in comparison to the graphic novels. I'm really not sure why Ghost in the Shell has been adapted well to the screen while maintaining its atmosphere and tone, yet Appleseed seems to be too much of a challenge for studios to faithfully bring to the screen. Of all the Appleseed films, Appleseed: Ex Machina is the best (and there are a few things about that one that I'd like to augment as well).
I'm still waiting for a studio to properly present books 2 and 3 of the manga to the screen. That would be amazing and would actually introduce the current movie-watching generation to what Appleseed is really about.
Lastly, it's a bit amusing that the name "Appleseed" has been changed to a warm and fuzzy metaphor for the two protagonists spreading hope whereas the original meaning of the name came from using an appleseed to adjust the balance of a bullet to increase its destructive power.
However, there are a number of things that hurt this film (and most of them are pretty easy to fix). Duenan's CGI character is one. Her face is modeled incorrectly. Not sure what happened there. And then there's the issue of the musical score during some of the fight scenes.... There's this odd frenetic bubblegum pop music playing during some of the early fight scenes. It's totally inappropriate and is even mixed wrong. Very odd. I also found Deunan's hesitation to help the world a bit strange. It seemed at odds with the more confident personality she exhibited in the graphic novels.
The other element of this film that kind of bothers me is the tone of it. It's much too light -- especially in comparison to the graphic novels. I'm really not sure why Ghost in the Shell has been adapted well to the screen while maintaining its atmosphere and tone, yet Appleseed seems to be too much of a challenge for studios to faithfully bring to the screen. Of all the Appleseed films, Appleseed: Ex Machina is the best (and there are a few things about that one that I'd like to augment as well).
I'm still waiting for a studio to properly present books 2 and 3 of the manga to the screen. That would be amazing and would actually introduce the current movie-watching generation to what Appleseed is really about.
Lastly, it's a bit amusing that the name "Appleseed" has been changed to a warm and fuzzy metaphor for the two protagonists spreading hope whereas the original meaning of the name came from using an appleseed to adjust the balance of a bullet to increase its destructive power.