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VITALS:

2007 DVD cover

DEBUT
2007 (Japan) 2008 (USA)
RUN TIME:
101 minutes
RATING:
PG-13 (Action violence and brief strong language)
FORMATS:
DVD, HD-DVD, BluRay (Warner Brothers)
TAGLINE:
It Will Take a Human, a Cyborg, and a Bioroid


Currently the last episode in the unfinished trilogy the 2007 installment decided to shed any remaining aspirations of the 2004 epic and worked hard to gain the "thriller" tagline instead, with distinct marketing to the West. As such, director Shinji Aramaki was joined with action-film producer John Woo, and the "complicated" storyline of the earlier effort was replaced with more easily understood plot, one that took aim at rampant consumerism of electronics.

Cast

Japanese

English

Premise

In this episode Olympus is back in jeopardy, only now it's not solely at the hands of humans, but cyborgs and Bioroids as well. Victims first of universally adopting a new digital convergance device, the Connexus, and second, to the brainwashing signal it's transmitting to their nervous system, they have been reduced to puppets. The puppeteer, as it would be, is Halcon, a organization whose grand plan is to eliminate war and suffering the world over by reducing individual personality to unified senselessness.

Our two heroes, ES.W.A.T. operatives Deunan Knute and Briareos Hecatonchires, have their work cut out for them as it is, but then things take a new turn for the worse: Briareos is severely injured in a counterterrorist operation, and is replaced temporarily with a Bioroid man named Tereus. As Deunan soon finds out, he's the first one of his species to be modelled after a living human entity, and also the first to be a mentally equipped to fight. A nagging question persists, however: why did Tereus have to be a clone of Briareos, in his formerly human likeness?

Meanwhile, victorious in having saved humanity from mass-genocide some seven years earlier, Prime Minister Athena Areios isn't entirely convinced that the seeds of hate and destruction have been wiped clean from the earth. In an effort to make the ground for war as barren as possible, she proposes to merge the entire civilized world's satellite system into one, monitored by Olympus. With unbarred, unified communication, moderated by the Bioroids, not only should the planet's countries talk more freely amongst themselves, but coordinated terrorist efforts will be severely hindered.

However, as the 32-nation peace conference begins in the foritifed, bulletproof Tartaros Conference Hall, the first stirrings of the Halcon conspiracy emerge, as riots amass on the streets below. Disturbingly, Manuel Aeacus, until now a heroic and loyal ES.W.A.T. operative, has suddenly turned renegade, and equipped with the latest armed flight Landmate, takes aim at the political proceedings and Athena. Briareos, pressed into action following his recovery, dogfights the rebel, but soon realizes that something in the air, rogue radio frequencies it seems, is causing him to lose grasp of both reality, and his allegiances as well.

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