Odds are you have never seen anything like it on this scale. Set in and around London in the late 1880's this is quite simply one of the most amazing animated films ever made. How can one accept the presence of a 20,000 foot tall steam powered flying rocket (built by a mad scientist and stuffed with secret weapons) and not expect escape bays, rocket packs, secret pods, and trap doors?ĭoesn't one certainly imply the other? This is a review of the English subtitled version of the film and not the English dubbed version A boys own adventure as our young hero fights to keep a steam ball out of the hands of evil corporate profiteers. Of course it was a comic book style plot, blowing up the famous historic buildings at the Victorian Exhibition using steam power! I easily accepted and enjoyed the diabolical plot twists for what they were. If you were taking yourself (as Monday Morning Quarterback) a little less seriously, you would see it was poking fun at the notion of a hero's 'heroic moment'. As it was, I burst out laughing at the twist and thought it clever, along with the two more twists including the one just before final credits. If not for the extra-twists in the list 30 min, we would all be complaining that the plot was flat and the ending dragged out of a dustbin. I don't understand complaints of the ending 'dragging on'.spoiler. And the storyline was a perfect 'Perils of Pauline' tied to a gone-bad 'Mad Scientist' tale as seen in Frankenstien, the Invisible Man or any of 1,000 such movies. The English dubbing was great, and again helped me appreciate the film. In this way, I feel I was finally able to visually appreciate the quality of the artistry for the first time. The visuals looking through various magnifying lenses were absolutely incredible! I was surprised to see how the setting in Victorian England had given me such an easier time visually comprehending familiar scenes, vehicles, etc instead of the usual anime Asian or Space-Age themes I had come to expect.
I found myself thinking of people seeing early Disney features in the 1930's. I was astounded by the superb quality of the graphics, especial the CGI macro shots, throughout the film. It becomes somewhat more plausible! I was dragged to this movie by my son, knowing of Anime only Totoro, the Cartoon Network Anime shows, and passing things from the web. As a final note, if anyone finds the explicit diatribes concerning science a little distracting, try to keep in mind that they all come from your stereotypical mad scientists types. But it's far from lacking meaning or emotion, so as long as you can detach yourself from expectations you're assured quite a ride.
She's given the typical 'redeeming moment' at the end of the film that has no real grounding or weight considering her screen presence it comes and goes without making a single ripple in an audience.Įssentially, Steamboy crams too many action set pieces and grand ideas into a story too lightweight to fully support them, and the plot suffers because of it. Scarlett in particular seems to have had her personal developments skipped or accelerated just to give a comic or emotional foil to Ray and the others, and it sticks out noticeably. Numerous characters such as Scarlett and the henchmen are essentially devoid of anything resembling development. The film, in many respects, is comparable to works like Sky Captain and the Indiana Jones films a classic storytelling style somewhat augmented for a modern audience. But there is a story to the film and although the hardcore fans of Otomo may have been expecting something a little deeper, and although the pacing and characterization is notably flawed, it still stands as an extremely fun yarn with no shortage of what you'd expect from a classic action/adventure flick. Steamboy has such a rare quality of production values that it almost merits a viewing for the aesthetics alone.
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