*This Appleseed movie review is the third of four that I will be doing for the month. For a small primer on the comic series, check out my Appleseed Month announcement here*
Appleseed Ex Machina still is a fun cyberpunk action movie that flies by seamlessly and effortlessly. It is better than its animated predecessors in every way, from a technical, graphical or writing perspective. The graphics are even slicker, the story more straightforward and evocative, and the characters fuller, more interesting, and worth caring for (if only a little bit).
Directed by Shinji Aramaki and produced by John Woo, Appleseed Ex Machina (hereafter referred to as Appleseed Ex) is the 2007 sequel to the 2004 Appleseed movie. It takes place two years after its immediate predecessor, and the sci-fi battle couple of Deunan Knute and Briareos enter another quest to save Olympus, the technologically and politically dominant city-state that they call home. They start with defeating a collection of cyborg terrorist groups, only to stumble onto a larger conspiracy that involves mind control, mad scientists and negligent mega-corporations. The duo also has to save Olympus while working with new ESWAT co-worker Tereus, who looks and behaves nearly the same as Briareos before the latter's cybernetic transformation. That fact alone is what makes our heroes’ romantic relationship stranger, complicated, and more interesting. I would love to say that the clone started a love triangle, but that would give the movie a bit too much credit.
The movie’s story is not as grandiose or ambitious as previous Appleseed movies, but that narrative modesty works to its advantage. It does not indulge in the grand discussion of techno-racial politics between humans, Bioroids (artificial humans who cannot feel or express extremely negative emotions) and cyborgs that spurred the plots of the other two movies. But I could not help but detect a strong thematic undercurrent of identity permeating in the work. The primary villain of Appleseed Ex believes that human individuality is the true cause of war and conflict, and thus wants humanity under one Hive Mind to stop people from fighting. Briareos and Tereus also need to figure out what makes them unique given that they share the same mannerisms and habits as the other. Even the final boss, a cyborg woman who attacks with a gaggle of tentacles, proves herself more an anti-villain than a monster. A human being is underneath all the cybernetics, and she does not want to carry out the mission that she was made for. In short, the movie has nothing unique to say about identity apart from the latter's inviolability. BUT I will give Appleseed Ex credit for doing it more artfully and subtly than its ham-fisted elders. I cared a little more about the heroes because I wanted them to be secure in the knowledge of their self-worth.
Improving upon Appleseed 2004's stellar presentation was going to be hard, but Appleseed Ex manages to do this by upgrading their character models and varying its locations. In a previous post, I noted how the cel-shaded humans did not gel with the rest of the movie's aesthetics. This issue does not occur in Appleseed Ex, and its character models are gorgeous. They look less plasticky than their 2004 counterparts. The shadows also gently rest on the characters' faces as they do on the other objects in the setting. The movie also has the space to show off its graphical artistry by looking into various rooms and places nestled underneath the Olympus skyline, each with their moods and vibes. We have a debriefing room, a dojo, a nearby cemetery, and the exterior of a government building replete with greenery and classical Greek columns. But the set- piece de la résistance is the floating Halcon fortress. It is a dark and terrifying locale that resembles a final boss level, replete with an endless swarm of drones as a defense mechanism. So kudos to the movie's artists and designers for making such a vivid cyberpunk world that pops on the big screen.
Compared to any of its animated predecessors, the movie also does a better job of fleshing out its main characters and its supporting cast. Despite existing in a plot that runs about as long as Appleseed 2004, they do plenty of things that give us a glimpse into their everyday lives. We see Briareos engage in some guy talk (pictured below) with one of his co-workers at the ESWAT shooting range, eventually exchanging banter regarding their love lives and significant others. Then we see the department attend a funeral for that co-worker when he died while in the line of duty. The movie also has a birthday party scene where the heroes and their coworkers make merry and enjoy themselves in each other's company. Some might argue that these quasi-slice of life scenes distract the audience from the movie's story or its themes. But because I thought the cast from Appleseed 2004 desperately needed more characterization, I welcome those lighthearted moments when Deunan, Briareos, and others aren't behaving like generic action heroes.
The problem I have with the characters is that they did not inherit the common sense of their inferior 2004 counterparts. They aren't as rock-stupid as the 1988 cast, but I had so many questions regarding their decisions made throughout the story. ESWAT, the paramilitary organization that employs our protagonists, should have anticipated that Deunan will resist working with someone who blatantly reminds her of her lover. ESWAT also should have also recognized that someone else in its division was perfectly capable of monitoring Tereus' performance. The villains want to zombify humanity into a Hive Mind to avoid war, but their scheme contradicts that objective by having their zombified subjects kill off whoever is not under their control. But the "Most Idiotic Decision Made in the Movie" Award has to go to Prime Minister Athena and the Olympus government. When they learn that the villains' mind control signals will turn its recipients into unthinking looters and plunderers, and that said signals will come via the Connexus (think smartphones installed inside AirPods), they go about confiscating the devices in the most half-assed manner. By their own admission, they only managed to grab one out of every ten Connexus, thus dooming everyone else to subjugation and possibly death. To paraphrase the Appleseed TV Tropes page, Olympus would have saved many more lives if it explicitly told its citizens about how the Connexus could turn them into zombie rioters for the bad guys and force the city police to shoot them on sight. The characters' collective idiocy doesn't ruin the movie for me, thankfully, but it is a sign of lazy storytelling and a lack of foresight on the writers' parts.
And with that, let me get to our heroes. I'll begin with Tereus because I have the most mixed feelings about his character. Besides inheriting Briareos’ looks and combat ability, he is a Bioroid too. That is, his limited range of emotions prevent him from feeling or expressing any negative emotions (anger especially). But by the end of the movie, Tereus outgrew his genetic programming by discovering his own identity and humanity. He lies to ESWAT to throw them off Briareos’ trail (“Thanks to you two [Briareos and Deunan], I just told my first lie”, he jokes), thus allowing our heroes to track down the villains and put an end to their mind control scheme. He also accepts the fact that he will not be with Deunan in any romantic capacity, and that he needs to find his own social life that only involves her platonically.
The problem I have with Tereus is that the writers did not handle his self-discovery arc well. They know what the start and end of his character development, but have a hard time showing how he reaches Point B from Point A. I did not sense any aha moments from him, no indication that he is increasingly aware of himself. Furthermore, Tereus spends virtually all his time with Deunan, Briareos, or both. I would have preferred to have the clone on his own for certain scenes. To throw a hypothetical scene that I made up, he could have done spectacular feats befitting an action hero and have people thank him, only to result in an inner dialogue about the legitimacy of that praise given that he inherited his skills (not earned them). Here is where a possible self-identity conversation can take place. It pains me to say it, but the movie wasted Tereus. I could not help but think of him as a non-romantic manic pixie dream guy. That is, he only exists to make the lives of our leading characters slightly more interesting. At least this trope is put to some use, as we'll see below.
I once thought Deunan was just a one-note action girl, but her iteration in Appleseed Ex grew on me. She first shows her tomboyish side when she looks uncomfortable wearing a high-fashion dress and trips over herself while on high heels. She also likes to drink when unhappy, and she considers the battlefield, the pub, and sports bar to be her natural habitats. What saves her from becoming a static character is her budding relationship with Tereus. As stated earlier, she initially objects to working with the clone who resembles her lover, for fear that she will damage her love life with Briareos. But after coldly telling Tereus to buzz off at the birthday party, she later apologizes to him and agrees to work with him in good faith. Then, when fretting over Briareos' mental health, she allows her new partner to become a literal shoulder for her to cry on.
I think she had her change of heart because she begins to understand just how lost and empty Tereus' life is. She realizes that, given the nature of his creation, he lives for nothing but war and fighting. That, unlike the other artificial humans in the Appleseed universe, his sense of identity unhealthily consists of becoming as formidable a combatant as Briareos, to the point that he does not know who or what he is otherwise. So every once in a while she gives Tereus a worrying look from a distance, like when she watches Briareos lay the smackdown on him in the dojo. I thought that look communicates her concern for his struggle to find himself, but also the hope that he can do so. Deep down she knows that Tereus is his own man and that, contrary to whatever ESWAT thinks, he does not have to be Briareos' equal to justify his existence. I find it no surprise that she is the one who tells him in the final battle that he is one of a kind and thus worth saving, that the idea of Olympus replacing him with more copies of Briareos can go straight to hell. In the end, Deunan proved that she has a softer and more compassionate side that I didn't think to be possible. And I am glad to be proven wrong by her.
Briareos does not have the same character development as Deunan, but he is an improvement from his 2004 and 1988 counterparts. Instead of his expected stoic and calm demeanor, he displays much more anger than in his previous incarnations, especially towards Tereus. He denigrates his new co-worker in no uncertain terms, seeing him only as a 'copy' and an experiment without an identity to call its own. But Briareos unknowingly reveals his real insecurities when under mind control by the bad guys. When he confronts Tereus at that point, he begins lashing out and angrily asks why someone looks exactly like him, and why Tereus has what he lost. I know the cyborg was saying that when under the bad guys' control, but I thought that outburst came from a real place. That brief exchange tells me that our cyborg protagonist is nostalgic for his previous life as a human and that he values his uniqueness and individuality. Perhaps he fears that Deunan will dump him and hook up with his human copy. He might even dread the day when Tereus does supplant him as the best soldier in ESWAT.
In the end, Briareos does reconcile with his clone co-worker during the final battle. But I do not think he is over the fact that he will remain a cyborg for the rest of his life. His only real remedy for this reality is focusing on his relationship with Deunan. His promise to protect her, even at world's end, is cheesy but heartfelt. So while he does not change over the course of the story, I appreciated the movie for having Briareos grapple with his cybernetic nature in a more emotionally resonant manner. His character reminds me of the first iteration of Iron Man in 1963, as someone forever trapped in an iron costume for survival's sake, and I was made to care for his safety and wellbeing.
To sum up, I love Appleseed Ex Machina. When I first watched it nearly a decade ago, I left convinced that it was the best thing the series had to offer outside of the manga. I can easily recommend the movie to anyone curious about the Appleseed universe.
Next week, I will be looking at the last Appleseed-related movie (for now) released in 2014, Appleseed Alpha. Could it meet the relatively high standards set by Appleseed Ex?
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