Vexille is a CGI demo reel that didn’t know when to call it quits. Sure, anyone with even a passing interest in digital filmmaking will be absorbed by it, and there are countless frames that more than pass the Desktop Wallpaper Test. But for all the countless CPU cycles they burned up to generate those yummy texture maps and volumetric lighting sources and particle effects, you think they could have also spared a couple of brain cells to bash together for a decent script.

Is this doomed to happen whenever Japan pumps up the visuals for one of their prestige projects? Probably not all the time, but enough for it to be annoying. For every Casshern or Tekkonkinkreet that comes out of Japan — movies that are full of wild, uninhibited invention and more than a little soul — there’s three or four Vexilles or Appleseeds. It’s impossible to look this movie in the eye and deny they sweated blood over it, but it makes the mistake of thinking it has more on its mind when it just doesn’t.