Excellent, smart action film.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Horrible movie, the plot is so stupid beyond imagining. So I'm not gonna even try to here.Well the plot is like this evil corporation has already took control of the entire country of Japan. But instead of using the country to develop some mega super weapon like what everyone thought it was doing and be generally bad ass, it instead decides to:a) Wipe out its own country's total population b) Wipe out all its own infrastructure c) Restrict itself to to a tiny tiny island where its easily destroyed d) Fire or kill all its employees until there's only a few dozen security guards and one android of dubious loyalty.And you wonder why they failed. Christ even James Bond villains have more brains than this!

Shades of the Matrix, District 9, and Blade Runner combine in this brilliant film about humanity and mechanization. While it certainly draws inspiration from a lot of sources, it is very original and worth a watch. I found the exploration of the Japanese culture fascinating as well from an anthropological standpoint.On a technical level, this animation is truly astounding. It looks like a Michael Mann scifi film - if somebody gave Mann 200 million dollars. Hopefully, this technology will improve even more so interesting, intelligent stories can be made without costing an incredible amount.Watch this film. Definitely worth the 90 minutes.

A movie that is protesting the mechanization of human beings... and the destruction of the soul.... is entirely CGI, and is full of mindless and pointless violence and special effects.The best character is Maria. This character fascinated me... the only character i can remember to speak less, is Clint Eastwood's man with no name from the old Sergio Leone western movies. It is a credit to the animators and artists and voice actor (... did they use motion capture? if so, then the actor as well) to portray this character as she is portrayed.Actually Saito isn't too bad, there are one or two scenes that hint at his complexity... but it is hard to find them when buildings are exploding airplanes are slamming through windows, explosions pound inside your head, etc.The kid character is not too bad... not great though. Wanted to know more about him. Sadly, I feel I know more about 'wall-e' the robot in the Disney movie than about this kid who is so eager to go off to battle.Some other strange things,,, a kid going to battle (whats his relationship with Maria? child?).. the never-explained desecration of the entire island of Japan the lack of curiosity that Vexille displays about this (ie, how about 'where is mt fuji?') Oh yeah. Actually the entire damn plot is strange and makes no sense. I half expected for the movie to stop in some parts and et me play a level of 'starcraft'. That is the level of exposition we are talking about here... just people droning on about missions and '50 years ago the xyz corporation blah blah blah'. The thing with the iron wire makes absolutely no sense, the giant wall is the same... the inability of the 'jags' to jump, when they jump all over the land. Why does the city have gates in the first place? How about a tiny little hole you drive out of? If the security is so tight, why are the top of the walls safe to hang around on? Why attack America? China is much closer and has more 'human guinea pigs' to experiment on. What happened to the presumably 200 million+ people of the island? Did they all die? Where when and why? Did none of these 'survivors' have relatives from the past to talk about? Pile on more and more of this stuff, and you lose your ability to suspend disbelief. . . you just start going 'wtf..' and wondering if this is the level where you get some awesome upgraded ship , again, wondering if you are watching a movie or a cutscene in starcraft.Miyazaki made a good film, called Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. It wasn't good because of the artwork, voices, etc, although all those are great... it was good because of the story... the world created.. it actually kind of made sense... a little bit. . .Vexille's world has many parts that make almost no sense... but unfortunately the nonsensical parts of it seem to be rather central to the mechanics of the plot.But , what can I say. It is a much better film than Indiana Jones 4. . . and even I like it better than some of the Star Wars prequels.If nothing else, it is unique, and if you just see 5 minutes of it for the visual effects of the jag, just do it. Or, if you actually want a story, fast forward to the scenes where Maria 'reacts' to events happening around her.. and see her 'discussion' with Vexille... I found these scenes to be fascinating. If you only care about action, you will not be disappointed.But if you have to have things polished up, with nice neat plots to tie things together logically... you need to take a leap of faith before you are going to get any enjoyment out of this film.Bye and thanks for reading.

**SPOILERS** I bought this movie on DVD expecting to get me through a boring night or at least give me cheap laugh at it's pitiful attempt to 'be'/'beat' Appleseed.20 Minutes into the movie. I was hooked, shocked and more importantly - GLAD I bought the film! What's so good about Vexille that it (in my opinion) tops Appleseed? It's everything as a whole! First off, the storyline.Its set in Japan in the near future.Although many say it's too weak, not interesting enough and rather linear. They fail to realise the brilliance of the story! Instead of the typical and overused human's creating robot like humans Vexille does something which is the exact opposite! It focuses on a crazy Company called 'Daiwa' which develop a virus that slowly mutates/transforms the human DNA into metal! Then they get the government to unleash an illness that requires the whole Japanese population to be vaccined. (Really, the vacination is the mutation virus). Slowly the body turns into metal then finally, the virus attacks the brain causing the brain to be taken over by the virus and then controlled, so that Daiwa can control the humanoid's! That's the jist of what has happened in Japan. I've spoiled some parts of the story, but left out what actually takes place IN the film.Now the story does have some weak points like not explaining WHY the Daiwa company are wanting to turn human's into humanoids (of course they want to take over the world, but WHY exactly?!?). And HOW exactly the government got involved in this... But that should all be explained in the next movie which will probably be a Prequel.The CGI/2D Shaded graphics design is nothing new, it's used in Appleseed. The design of the characters are much like Appleseed too, but what really makes it unique are the robots and the 'jags'! I've watched a lot of anime's and Japanese movies and let me tell you. The Jags are probably the most unique robot/enemy I have ever seen! They are the main reason why this movie differs enough from Appleseed.Again, the only problem is, we are told WHAT the Jag's are doing in Japan, but we aren't told HOW exactly they are built and etc. Another problem I hope the second movie deals wth.The movie is filled with a mix of action, drama and tension to keep you interested and not bored.Overall, Vexille is a good compact eye catching movie that will hook any anime/robot lover from start to finish.Give it a solid 8.5/10.