The stock characters and leaden stretches of expository dialogue are welcome evidence that there's still no computer program capable of telling a decent story.

| Apr 25, 2007

Shut your brain down for optimal viewing pleasure.

| Feb 9, 2006

It's busy, stiff, artificial graphics are a perfect match for its busy, stiff, artificial plot.

Full Review | Sep 26, 2005

It's an impressive effort, packed with ideas and good action scenes, but still trots out a clichd plot about a super-soldier babe, a race of meek artificial people, giant robot suits, confusing conspiracies and a lot of explosions.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 19, 2005

There is plenty to admire from a technical and artistic standpoint.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 16, 2005

Newbie viewers will be left twiddling their thumbs while waiting for Deunen's next bout of butt-kicking action sequences.

Full Review | Jan 25, 2005

Yes, it looks good, but it doesn't come close to exploring the grand themes it has in mind, or to ascending anywhere near the landmarks of anime.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Jan 14, 2005

The action scenes might grab you, but there's a lot of talky downtime.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4 | Jan 14, 2005

Though Appleseed has its selling points, it's not an especially strong entry in the genre, despite the presence of so many pneumatic heroines.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jan 14, 2005

This long-overdue big-screen adaptation makes it hard to tell what was so revolutionary about the series.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Jan 14, 2005

Dazzling visually but is flattened by corny dialogue better suited to the 1936 Flash Gordon serial, a needlessly hard to follow plot and heavy-handed exposition clotted with pseudo-scientific mumbo jumbo.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jan 13, 2005

Has a plot that frolics in the no-man's land between fiendish complexity and utter incomprehensibility.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jan 13, 2005

Despite swaths of verbal exposition and a tendency to overdose on robot action sequences, the film has enough originality to interest demanding fans of the genre.

Full Review | Jan 13, 2005

The bizarre gulf between the realism of the backgrounds and the stylization of the characters undermines a story line about a conspiracy to rid Utopia of 'bio-roids.'

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Jan 13, 2005

The spectacle of the Appleseed anime characters performing Matrix gymnastics proves to be less than awe-inspiring.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jan 13, 2005

In the clash of 2-D and 3-D images, Appleseed emerges as the cracked-voiced, pasty-faced example of computer animation's clumsy adolescence.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jan 13, 2005

Even in a cartoon this technically astounding, most of the characters appear to have sprung from the DNA of Astro Boy.

| Original Score: C | Jan 12, 2005

For all the movie's impressive figure and facial modeling, as well as the superfluid humanoid motion, any depth is purely an illusion.

Full Review | Jan 11, 2005

The film let's us know early on that its cyberdrama will be served cold.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Dec 20, 2004