I was surprised and glad to see John Woo joined this project. I was expecting a bigger and better Appleseed with a John woo twist, but I was disappointed.

pro: John woo's style dominates the whole movie. cool fighting sequence, double-team shooting back to back, bullet time. It's such a reminiscence of John's 80's HK movies. I highly recommend this title, if you like John Woo and has not seen "appleseed 1".

However, all the characters and CG are really really pretty, if you like the Japanese style, which I like better than Disney.

Con: John changed the whole Appleseed style, and he has lost his creativity. I'm sorry to say this, since I'm a huge John woo fan. I would rather see a new title or a completely different setting, than naming this a sequel to Appleseed. Remember what he did to "mission Impossible"? He did it again.

The twisted plot and subtleness of story-telling is all gone. The characters got insanely talkative and cliché. John woo focused on the main characters, but they are mundane and quite predictable. John woo has told the story 100 times in HK and similar plot has been in 1000 Hollywood movies.

After all, "appleseed 1" was a great Japanese anime following "ghost in a shell" heritage. "ex machina" is a just another pretty-looking Hollywood movie with John Woo, but not to the height of "face off" or even "broken arrow". If you want to see a great anime, go see "appleseed 1". If you just want John Woo, then "ex machina" is what you want.

I think John Woo has lost his edge since "face off". I hope he picks it up in the next big production "Red Cliff" (chi bi).

From the first minute on the movie was playing, I was in love! Appleseed Ex Machina, is brilliant! The first installment, when I discovered it a little over a year ago, was good; an exiting journey in cool environments and with a captivating story. Ex Machina, takes that to the next level.

The action scenes are better, the motion capture is grander and the camera movements even sweeter. The whole movie long your in that world. Feeling all the emotions displayed by the beautiful, yet still traditional anime-style looking characters. The storyline is beautifully symbolic and the characters a dream to come true! Their cool, strong and yet so human.

I wish more 3d movies like these where made, with so much tender, love and care for the materia that is sometimes so underestimated by the grand audience. I take my hat of for the amazing team that has been working on Ex Machina - it's incredible from beginning to start and I can't wait to watch it again!

Deunan and Briareos are police in the ESWAT team. Having saved the world in the previous installment, they have been awarded a life of danger and anguish. That's the new world for you. Anyway, somehow they get tangled with the villain in an improbable sequence of events, then he pretty much takes over the world, even if he was dead, only to be defeated in the end in a huge battle with a Borg cube. What is not to like about that?

Anyway, to me it seemed like the animation style didn't progress at all since the 2004 film, perhaps it even went to worse for some reason I can't just put my finger on. Also the story, as action packed as it was, seemed lazy. The typical Woo action scenes didn't impress either, as they go against any reasonable military training I can think of.

There were some interesting parts, though. The Briareos bioroid and the interactions between the characters were funny enough, the villain method of capturing the minds and hearts of consumers (now you know where the Apple in Appleseed comes from :) ) and some hidden gems like the quote "A human, a cyborg and a bioroid working together... Only in Olympus". It was nice to get a glimpse of the world outside Olympus, too.

Bottom line: they tried too hard. I also watched the English dub version, which may or may not have taken some soul out of the film. It was enjoyable to watch, but a simple story dragged on by useless action scenes (and by useless I mean not furthering the story) can only go so far.