In a post-apocalyptic Earth, humanity has survived by isolating itself in towering bastions of urbanism, the most powerful being the city of Olympus lead by the stoic, xenophobic Athena. Outside, the smoldering remnants of World War III litter the landscape. Society has been cleft in two - natural born humans that have made their way out of the war-torn ruins into the fortified cities and bio-droids which are humans that have been genetically engineered to exist comfortably in the cities' highly regulated community.

While Olympus' bio-droid population welcomes outside natural-born humans, a subtle tension simmers between the two. "Appleseed" opens years after the fall-out in the midst of a terrorist threat; though Olympus is a pheonix from the ashes, it is haredly a paradise and still suffers from the ailments of urban life. Buliarous, and Dunan, two natural born humans and loyal officers of the Olympus police, strike audaciously at the terrorists, diffusing the threat and saving several hostages. However, a shrewd cyborg named Sebastian, with leaked information about this police raid, slips away, marking his escape with a healthy tally of police bodies.

From here, a plot interred with intrigue and betrayal unfolds. A natural born police officer, Karon, who secretly blames Olympus for his wife's suicide, works from within the system to bring down what he considers the tyrannical powers of the Olympian officials by plotting to shut down Gaia, the computer intelligence that runs the city. Hot on his trail, Buliarous, a burly, cyborged, tough guy, and Dunan, a cute, hot-headed, tomboy, begin to question their own identitites as natural born humans living among superior bio-droids in an artificially created utopia.

Overwhelmed with heady themes such as racial tension, urban politics and semi-tyrannical regimes, the film's plot gets lost in the fray. Instead of focusing attention on one complete facet, writer/director Kazuyoshi Katayama takes on the entirety of creator Masamune Shirow's story, attempting to constrict it within an inadequate 70 minutes.

Based on Shirow's manga series in which the richer themes could be fleshed out in a less hyper-active medium, Katayama's script flippantly lip-serves the role of cyborgs in this split society. This eschews the emotional core of Shirow's world in favor of elaborate action sequences. The action sequences are heart-pounding but they follow action film conventions straight into the mundane which is disappointing since animation offers a far more liberating medium than live action.

Katayama, though, renders these characters with enough depth to insinuate inner turmoil. Close-ups of the young, alacritous Dunan reveal intense feelings of betrayal. The narrative peripherally follows her quest to uproot the police department's internal corruption which leads to her friend, a heart-broken Karon. This plunges her into ambivalence, as she questions her role in Olympus' perfect society. The strong American voice-cast, led by Bill Roberts and Larissa Murray as Bularios and Dunan, crystallizes this layered complexity, perhaps even sustaining interest when the script lags. But Katayama's barbarous stampede into an explosive resolution undermines his sensitivity to these emotional dynamics, providing a closure to Olympus' threat but leaving Dunan and Buliarous' reversal practically hanging in mid-air.

An essential component missing from this animated version is the foreboding images of the scorched desecration outside of the cities. A few shots of charred bodies in an ephemeral, back story montage relay a vague feeling of the dynamic between the two worlds. However, considering that the most interesting quality of the story is the latent tension between natural borns and the bio-droids, understanding the dilemma for reconstituted humans is paramount to Karon's actions against the state.

"Appleseed," though, whether it knows it or not, isn't without a sense of humor. Reveling in convention, the gibing relationship between buddy-cops Buliarous and Dunan, tinctured with sexual overtones, lightens, and in a way thankfully dispels, oppressively serious tones. And the recurrent use of Greek mythology in naming Olympus' bio-droid leaders blends well with the urban-warfield scenario, licensing a lower threshold for credulity and contrivance - a kind of deus ex anime.

Ultimately, "Appleseed" succeeds primarily because of its multi-faceted reflection of our own society, but without more time to answer the social questions Katayama poses, the film only delivers half of what it promises.