Steamboy

Steamboy is looking like the big Anime movie event for this year, the return of Akira's Katsuhiro Otomo. The official japanese site is here, and the American Sony site is here.

Word so far is fairly mixed though:

"Steamboy" is pretty to look at, the outlandish inventions come to life and the battle sequences near the end of the film are stunning in their detail. With that said, the rest of the film is a gross disappointment. Being Katsuhiro Otomo*s first feature length animated movie since the ground breaking "Akira", "Steamboy" had a lot to live up to and fails in most respects...

...Instead of building up the drama within "Steamboy", most of the effort seems to have been put into the visuals, which are amazing. Highlights include Ray using a wheel powered by an engine to escape from a tractor and the entire last half hour war sequence involving the "steam tower". Yet even when the visuals are at their best there is never any real pull for the audience. Much of the film consists of bickering between Ray's relatives and Ray only begins to impact the battle within the last fifteen minutes. There is one wonderfully warm sequence where Ray and Scarlett explore a fair after hours but it is brief and any follow up subtle, effective moments such as this are sadly absent from "Steamboy".

If anything, "Steamboy" seems like a pilot for an ongoing series. Characters are introduced but there is no true payoff for the audience. Adding to the sense of "Steamboy" feeling unfinished is a series of still images over the end credits indicating what will happen to these characters in the years to come. Amazingly many of these still images possess more power than in most of the explosions and screaming matches that took place in the film. One almost wishes these scenario's had been made into a movie instead of the senseless violence that took up most of the film's running time.

"Steamboy" is a mostly entertaining visual treat and while better than a lot of other films out there, pales in comparison to what might have been.