he year is 2131, and the world is rebuilding after a devastating war. While massive industrial centers spring up and revive humanity from apocalyptic decimation, Deunan Knute (Proud) knows nothing of the peace and continues to fight a battle that has long since ended: Mechanical predators remain active in the wastelands, determined to destroy all human life. During an attack by a band of mechanical predators, she is rescued by a military patrol from the city of Olympus and finds herself thrust into the center of a bustling new culture in which humans and robots co-exist peacefully.
After a short-lived reunion with her presumed-dead lover Briareos (Lyon), Deunan becomes the central figure in a growing rift between humans and their genetically engineered progeny; specifically, a human clone named Hitomi (Bradly) explains that the regular armies resent their bioroid counterparts and want to reclaim control of Olympus for themselves. Deunan soon discovers that her mother was the inventor of bioroid technology, and was killed by Olympus' seven elders when she refused to cede control of it.
Now, on the eve of man's greatest triumph, the elders propose that humanity be destroyed and replaced by bioroids, which were originally designed to provide a harmonious balance against mankind's destructive impulses. At the same time, the human armies will stop at nothing to wrench control of Olympus from the bioroid leader Athena and the increasingly illogical decisions of the elders. Only Deunan can decipher what greater truth hides behind these lies, and what humanity's future will be. Aided only by Briareos, Hitomi and a weapons designer names Yoshi, Deunan must fight untold hordes of opponents to provide Athena with the salvation of humanity and preserve the planet for all mankind.
Beauty is only cel deep
Appleseed is the third anime (or Asian animation) effort to make it to American shores in the past 12 months, following Ghost in the Shell 2 and Sky Blue, and by far the least of those entries. Not because of the way it looks, mind you; seldom have images been so vividly and distinctively rendered as they are here. But director Shinji Aramaki, or perhaps his screenwriters, Haruka Handa and Tsutomu Kamishiro, seem to possess little ability when it comes to telling a story that's half as compelling as the animation it accompanies.
The film's formula works like an assembly line of conflict, moving from the physical to the intellectual to the emotional in repetitive succession without building much in the way of suspense or depth; it says much that the press notes highlight the musical acts employed for the soundtrack but make no mention of the actors used to voice the characters. There's some big fight scene, set to the thump of a techno tune by the likes of Paul Oakenfold, Boom Boom Satellites or Basement Jaxx; then a bunch of talking about what's going on—most of which is technobabble no one understands or cares about; and then some moral or emotional quandary ("I lost you once and don't want to again!") drawn far too simply to register with audiences who embrace the conceptual complexity of the animation.
Meanwhile, the world contained in the film is depressingly familiar to animation fans—yet another gleaming, post-apocalyptic dystopia from the only country to have survived an H-bomb—and the characters are surprisingly thin for having come from a longstanding and well-reputed series of comic books. The animation, which is described as "3-D live anime," uplifts the proceedings as long as there's an easy adversary to overcome; if there's a tank to blow up or robot to wreck, you'll be completely entertained. But Appleseed's purpose is to ask, yet again, the age-old question "Are humans doomed to destroy themselves?"; whether or not that answer is yes, movies like this show that some of their art forms, at the very least, are rapidly imploding.
