Review: VEXILLE

Yeah.... watching this sure was a mistake. Oh... and spoiler alert, I'm gonna ruin the story for you. Well, I would, if the story wasn't already ruined to begin with.
How I watched this: Alone, in my room.
Why I watched this: It was a random pick from my list.
What version I watched: Blitz DVD rip.

Synopsis from AniDB: 10 years has passed since Japan had decided to leave the United Nations to go into isolation. They have completely blocked the islands with an ultra magnetic field which prevents anyone to see what is going inside, nor for people to travel in/out of the country. This was a result to opposing to a treaty which UN has passed, preventing the development of all bio and robot technology which has evolved drastically and has become a threat to the human beings. When Japan finally begins to move, the US government sends in a special force team SWORD, lead by a female commander Vexille, to investigate what is really happening inside the closed country. What has become of Japan? Why did this happen? What is Daiwa trying to do? Who is Maria, and why is she helping Vexille? Will Vexille be able to find out the answers to avoid the world from falling apart? One mystery leads to another which directs to the dramatic ending....

OK, so I watched this after it was randomly picked by my random number generator. I didn't really know much about it except that is was CG and it was similar to GitS. Well, it's not. It's much, much worse then that. GitS is in another league compared to this drivel. But, let's get right down into it, shall we?

Story: The story is pretty straight forward. After the UN banned the R&D of androids, Japan was outraged and left the organization. They were upset because they were the leaders in that filed, and not allowing them to continue was considered an insult. So, they isolated themselves by creating am electro-magnetic barrier around Japan that did not permit any king of signals to leave or enter the island. They also imposed heavy guards around the territory of Japan so as nobody could enter or leave. Cut to many years into the future, and nobody knows anything about what goes on in Japan.

           The story starts off with a lot of action, mechas and personal powered suits. A team of soldiers equipped with personal battle armor break into a mansion where several world leaders are meeting with someone from Japan.

Did I mention he's the villain? No? Because I don't have to!

 The mansion is guarded by robots who fight off the intruders, who have their own mecha to deal with them. It's quite a good action scene, showing off nice battles, exciting movement and lots of explosions.

You will never see this cool looking mecha again.

And I sure hope you enjoyed it because that was the height of the action for this movie. It's all downhill from here. They corner the guy, but he escapes by cutting his own leg off, and setting his house to self-destruct.

It was an brilliant move to have your house explode after all your enemies got out. Wait... 

Thus the mission ended and we're properly introduced to the heroine of this show: Vexiile. She's part of a private military organization called SWORD. She was the one to got closest to the target before he cut his leg off.

 Look freaking familiar?

We're introduced to the world our story takes place in: Generic Future City no.65421. Nothing about this place is original. There are robots everywhere, hovering cars, etc. For some reason, there are Japanese robots all over the place, in spite of the fact that nobody knows what the hell Japan has been doing for the last decade. Those could be walking bombs for all they know, but nobody seems to question the fact that they are buying and using robots they know nothing about. 

So what if they're breaking our laws? They have awesome robots.

Anyway, turns out the leg they got is artificial, made from a type of bio-metal, in clear violation of  UN laws. Thus, the UN orders the leg to be returned to Japan before it could be studied properly because of political pressure from Japan. Wait, what? They're giving it back, in spite of the fact that it proves that Japan broke UN laws by sending an android/cyborg into their territory? Yup.

They did manage to defeat him once... they can do it again.

Then we get a flashback scene when someone from Japan actually makes it outside, but is chased by evil robots. Two SWORD operatives take on the robots and before the young Japanese man dies, he tells them about the meeting that took place at the beginning of the movie. He also mentions Maria, who one of the soldiers knows.

It's a good thing he gave them so many details.

 The next course of action is to infiltrate Japan to see what the hell they are up to. They will then set up a transmitter that will allow SWORD to decode the diffusion pattern that keeps Japan safe from any long range surveillance. Good plan, no? Not really. A better plan would be, I don't know, a couple of stealth jets equipped with film-cameras? There is no way every single border would be 100% protected by Japan, as you will see later in the film, and even if it was... you're the freaking UN. You could stomp on Japan until says "Uncle". But OK, let's do it your way.

So much for that radar of yours, Japan.

They somehow manage to infiltrate Japan quite easily. And go an plant the transmitter. It takes 3 minutes for the signal to set up and they actually show us the timer. Oh gee, I wonder if it's going to make it to 2:50 and then something will go wrong? Myeah... what a shocker, the team is discovered, and even though they are all in the same personal armor suits from the beginning of the movie, they are all easily picked off by guys with bazookas... and unlimited ammo.

 Damn it, if only we had powered armor able to defeat mechas with. Hey wait a second!

The team sacrifices themselves to let Vexille survive. Why? Because she has the only backup transmitter. The fuck? Why the hell does she have the ONLY backup transmitter? This is the whole purpose of the operation, and they only brought two? The hell is wrong with this idiots?

WHY? Were they out of transmitters at the shop? BRING MORE YOU MORONS!

Anyway, she escapes and waked up in a small house where she meets Maria. She is the leader of the resistance group. But the evil people from Daiwa Heavy Industries come looking for her, and she has to escape with a young boy named Takashi. SWORD manages to track her, but it turns out she's the only human on the entire island.

What a twist. This could have been interesting.

It turns out that Daiwa used some sort of virus on the people of Japan that turns them into machines from the inside out. When they are completely transformed, they will obey Daiwa. And Daiwa did this to experiment with the virus so that they could replace the world leaders with machines so that they may take over the world. Also, the only habitable place is now Tokyo, the rest of Japan having been reduced to a wasteland, because.... evil?

Take that, Captain Planet!

In this wasteland there exist giant sand metal-worms that are just metal parts joined together by magnetism and that try and eat other metal parts to grow in size. The reason they are partially sentient is that... uhm... a wizard did it?

 A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct.

 
Anyway, the little boy is converted to machine and Maria kills him as to not revel their position. They have a sad, tearful burial scene for the kid... who nobody really cares about. We knew him for 20 minutes, and we didn't know anything about him except his name. The scene is long, tedious, and boring since there is zero emotional connection to him... or anyone else for that matter.

Alas, poor Takashi, we hardly knew thee. And I mean that.

OK, it's time to take down Daiwa. The plan is to lead those sand metal-worms into the place so that they eat everything. They will do this by attaching a metal wire to the cars and driving really quick through the tunnels. Everyone from the resistance will try their luck, and will, of course, all die except Maria and Vexille. The fact that they try actually try and make this scene anything other then a cliche is laughable. Nobody cares about those other people. We don't even remember their damn names.

Oh no... that guy is dead. Who was that guy again?

Anyway, Maria and Vexille make it, but the plan is a bust because there's a gap in the bridge leading to Daiwa, and the sand metal-worms can't jump that far. Even though they shouldn't be able to jump to begin with and should be levitating thought electro-magnetic energy.

Did those plans you stole not show the giant gap?

Anyway, the ladies get captured and taken to the big bad, who captured the other survivor of Vexille's team. He used to be Maria's boyfriend. I forgot his name, so I'll just call him Man.

Hey, I remember him! Wait, no I don't. I remember him existing, does that count?

The bad guy tries to infect Man with the virus, but the girls manage to escape while the city rebels and opened the bridge to Daiwa. They let some sand metal-worms inside, that are not able to jump the gap... for some reason, and they start tearing the place apart.

The worms must have had a bigger running start and waited until the last second to jump. Yeah...

Bad guy and Maria die while Vexille and Man are rescued by a SWORD aircraft that was ordered to not interfere by the president, but did so anyway. The end. No, really.... that's it.

Good God, that was a chore to watch. The pacing is horrendous, the story is cliche, and the climax is.... anti-climactic. This tries to be really deep and matrix-like, but it fails horribly. The only reason I even remember the story is because I made notes for this review. It is as bland as it could have been, in spite of an interesting premise. The part about the virus was quite interesting, but it never went beyond, we will use it to take over the world. Whoopty-freaking-do!


Execution: Yeah, the director should indeed be executed. Oh, wait, the other kind of execution. My bad.
Well, nothing about this movie is well executed. The action to story ratio is abysmal. There are only 5 action scenes in the entire movie, and those are very short. The premise is interesting, but presented in such a boring way that it's impossible to get invested. Not much is actually explained. Why do those metal creatures exist? Why did Daiwa allow them to exist, considering how dangerous they were. Why did they turn Japan into a wasteland anyway? These kinds of plot holes ruin the credibility of the movie. Bottom line, this movie is very poorly executed. It threw everything at you at the beginning, and then remembered it literally threw everything it had at you. As such, there's nothing left for the rest of the movie.

Why was he in this picture again? Oh, to die and makes us feel sad.

Charatcers: Despite this movie using 3D animation and being in 2D, the characters in it are in 1D. They are not even cardboard cutouts, they are just cardboard. Nothing about these characters is even remotely memorable or likable. There is absolutely no development to their personality. The only one that even has a story to tell is Maria. We know absolutely nothing about Vexille. Nothing, nada. The villain's motivation is complete BS... for what it's explained anyway. There's not even much to say about them. They are as bland as you can get. The only thing you'll remember (maybe) is that Vexille kind of looks like Deunan from Appleseed.

Deunan, a much better character from a much better movie. 

Visuals:  The movie looks OK. Not great, but OK. The 3D animation is passable, but way behind other movies that use the same technique. I will say that they at least tried (to ripoff other 3D movies). Not much to say here... it's just as bland as the rest of the movie. The character's movements are a tad off, and their faces are very uncanny.

Everything is way too slick for being underground and built from scrap.

Acting:  The voices are passable, but it does seem nobody gave a crap about acting. And why should they? The dialogue is forced, and there's no real emotion behind it. You can't just tell us all this stuff at once, you have to gradually introduce it to us.

 Bla, bla, bla... even the characters don't care.

Sound: I honestly can't remember anything about the music or sound affect of this movie. That should say a lot about that. I do not remember a single song or BGM. I can't even say there was much BGM. The explosions sounded really nice though.

 Boom, house-shot!

Enjoyment: What enjoyment? I didn't enjoy a single minute of this. It was one of the most boring things I've ever seen in my life, and I had to sit though Twilight - New Dawn (Part 1). There is absolutely nothing worthwhile about this movie. The characters are boring and bland, the story had a good start but turned to BS. The action was promised but not delivered. Avoid at all costs. Go watch Appleseed Ex Machina instead.

Indded you do, better 3D SF action movie, indeed you do.