Vexille (2007)

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General		Extras
Category	Anime	Featurette-Making Of-The Elements of Vexille: Constructing the film with Director Featurette-Making Of-The Concepts of Vexille: Interview with Director SORI TV Spots Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	2007
Running Time	110:00 (Case: 105)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No Dual Disc Set	Cast & Crew
Start Up	?
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Fumihiko Sori
Studio Distributor	Madman Entertainment	Starring	Colleen Clinkenbeard Meisa Kuroki Shosuke Tanihara Travis Willingham Christine M. Auten Yasuko Matsuyuki Christopher Sabat Jason Douglas Luci Christian Illich Guardiola J. Michael Tatum
Case	?
RPI	?	Music	Paul Oakenfold Fumihiko Sori Toru Hishiyama

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	Unknown	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) Japanese Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Vexille is an anime set in a post apocalypse Japan. Unlike other anime that have been set in the same period, this movie has an interesting twist that Japan has entered into a 'high-tech sakoku' or isolation, shutting off itself technologically from the world. No one is able to enter or leave Japan and the country has set up some advanced electromagnetic field that shuts down all communication, even spy satellites that try to observe the country and its inhabitants.

    Ten years after the isolation policy begins SWORD, an elite US army team try to get into Japan as they fear a large Japanese technology firm called Daiwa is up to no good and is planning on extending their influence beyond the land of the rising sun.

 Sounds like an interesting premise right? Unfortunately the execution is pretty sloppy, the largest fault being the style over story production values that went into Vexille. Like many other entries into this genre, there is little to no character development that results in viewers not really caring too much about what is going on. Yes, there are exciting action sequences and stylistically there is a lot appealing about the animation, but ultimately the hokey back story, flashy animation and convoluted storyline result in a somewhat lacklustre movie.

    For diehard anime fans only.

Video

    The movie is presented in PAL at 1.78:1 and the disc is 16x9 enhanced.

    It's hard to describe the video - some of its looks great, while other sections come off pretty flat. The studio used an blend of CG and hand drawn animation. Where the picture was impressive tended to be CG elements.

    There is a lot of fast moving action in the movie and at times it looks amazingly fluid, almost like the robots are going to fly right into your living room. Some other sections were quite cheap looking.

    Unfortunately the character animations are so airbrushed and wooden I found that they looked the robots (was that intentional?)

    The colour tends to be pretty muted, suiting the dark apocalyptic nature of the story.

    There are no MPEG artefacts at all.

    There is no grain.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There are two main tracks available; an English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) and the original Japanese Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s). I recommend the Japanese track for the film makers original vision, but the English one is done exceptionally well too. There is actually little difference between the audio tracks.

    Dialogue is clear and easy to hear on both tracks.

    There are no audio clicks, pops or drop outs.

    The music is by Paul Oakenfold, it sounds good but the techno feel to it can get very repetitive.

    There is a lot of action in this film and the surrounds are kept busy throughout.

    The sub-woofer also gets a solid work out.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    The Elements of Vexille: Constructing the film with Director SORI (47:45)

    Self important look at the making of the film, why they animated it the way they did etc. Pretty dry.

    The Concepts of Vexille: Interview with Director SORI (61:00)

    Same as above - more about the storytelling angle and how it was developed, but still very self important and boring.

    Japanese Commercials (5:41)

    Pretty self explanatory.

    Trailers

    Includes the Aussie anti-piracy ad, Appleseed trailers, Ghost in the Shell and Akira

    The R1 seems the same so let's call it a tie.

    The movie is ok, but ultimately doesn't live up to its potential.

    The video is good.

    The audio is good.

    The special features are for diehard fans only.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall