The 3D animation is so fluid and precise that every gunfight and mecha clash feels like watching tactical choreography instead of just explosions. Post-apocalyptic New York actually breathes as a character, all rust and decay and verticality, which makes the combat sequences feel like they're happening in a real place instead of a video game cutscene. The story is straightforward, find Olympus, stop Talos, survive, but it doesn't need to be clever when the visuals are doing this much work.
Twenty-second century New York lies in ruins after a third world war, a shattered wasteland left behind by the conflict. Deunan, a young soldier, and Briareos, her cyborg partner, pick their way through the wreckage in search of Olympus, a legendary city said to hold humanity's hope for the future. Two Horns, the warlord who rules the ruined city, hires them to wipe out bipedal combat machines. During that fight they meet Iris and Olson, two people on a mission of their own. Deunan and Briareos become friends with them and choose to join their cause: Iris must keep the malevolent cyborg Talos from seizing a secret weapon that humans were building. Talos, however, uses Iris to bring a gigantic war machine to life. The film retells the early days of the pair as an alternate beginning, separate from the earlier Appleseed movies, and mixes mecha action with a grim post-apocalyptic setting.
