Appleseed

Animation: B

Story: C

Overall Impression: B-

Appleseed is based on the famous manga by Shirow, and like other translations of his manga, it really lacks everything that makes his work so unique. The problem with this movie is it is working with about 800 pages of material and trying to fit it into 1 hour, its not going to happen. The biggest problem is it uses tons of references that are not explained in the movie, you have no idea what they are talking about unless you have read the manga. The biggest thing that I know will confuse people is the idea of outlanders, which took up most of Appleseed vol. 1. Forget about character developement, that was in vol. 3 and there is no time for it here. The movie is most like vol. 4, plenty of action, fairly bloodless, and not much else. The animation is smooth and while nothing really stands out, either good or bad, its pretty easy on the eye. Its to bad Shirow's work is allways made into hour features. Both Appleseed and the disapointing Ghost in the Shell could have been so much more if they were just made into a longer movie, aka Akira, or aired as a series that comes out in installments, a la Giant Robo. However, Appleseed is a fun movie to watch, Worth a rental but not a purchase.