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Steamboy - Director's Cut (Widescreen Edition) Actors: Anna Paquin, Patrick Stewart, Alfred Molina Director: Katsuhiro Ôtomo Number of Items: 1 Format: Animated, Color, Widescreen Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested) Studio: Columbia Tristar Hom Region Code: 99 Product Group: DVD Release Date: 2005-07-26 Buy from Amazon |
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From Amazon.com The first feature Katsuhiro Otomo has written and directed since his watershed Akira (1988), Steamboy offers a fantastic, sepia-toned vision of the past-as-future. In place of the dystopic Neo-Tokyo of Akira, Steamboy is set in England in 1866. Young Ray Steam receives a Steam Ball, a mysterious, powerful device, from his inventor grandfather. Governments and businesses covet the Steam Ball, and Ray finds himself in a murderous conflict over its possession. He's also caught between his father, a 19th century Darth Vader who builds terrible weapons for an American arms merchant, and his grandfather, who believes science should improve people's lives. Otomo uses computer graphics to create dazzling visuals that few recent films--animated or live action--can match: monumental systems of gears and pistons; machines that dwarf the Tower of London; antique weapons of mass destruction. But the dazzling imagery can't disguise the lack of a coherent plot and the flimsiness of the characters.
Steamboy is being released in a dubbed version that's been shortened by 20 minutes, and a more satisfying subtitled version that preserves Otomo's original pacing. Both versions suggest that Steamboy is the work of an important filmmaker who can't quite shape his awesome visions into a effective narrative. (Rated PG-13 for action violence.) --Charles Solomon |
 "Pretty good up but dragged on a bit "I have been on an anime kick for sometime. My latest anime pic I recently rented is Katsuhiro Otomo's "Steamboy". The story takes place during the industrial revolution. A young boy named James Ray Steam receives a package from his grandfather which contains a powerful ball that pretty much harnesses the power of steam. Just as the package gets to his home, two suspicious looking gentlemen arrives at his home and tries to take the ball from James. James doesn't allow the agents to take them when he sees the note from his grandfather that the men are not good. This quickly sets off a chase between these agents and James. Slowly but surely the premise of the film of the goodness of humanity vs. the evils and dangers of technology is revealed. I loved the animation of the film. The combination of hand drawn animation and computer generated animation was gorgeous, especially towards the end of the film. The first hour of the film had me deeply engrossed but the last hour started to drag on for me. Sometimes I think director's cut versions of films are really not necessary 'cause they have a tendency to bog down the story of the film, and this is the case here on "Steamboy". I also was annoyed for most of the film by Miss Scarlett. I never understood her relationship to Dr. Eddie Steam. I only watched the Japanese version. America needs to stop ruining anime films with their dreadful English dubbing. It just takes so much away from the magic of what the Japanese created. All in all I did like "Steamboy" but the pace of the film was too slow for me at times.  "Think Tom Swift playing James Bond in a Jules Verne novel rather than "Akira" revisited"After directing "Akira" in 1988, Katsuhiro Ôtomo avoided making another feature length anime for years. In 1991 he did a live action film, the horror-comedy "Warudo apaatoment hora" and then in 1995 he did the "Cannon Fodder" segment for "Memories." He wrote the scripts for Hiroyuki Kitakubo's "Rôjin Z" in 1991 and adopted Osamu Tezuka's manga for Rintaro's "Metoroporisu" in 2001. But it was not until 2004 that Ôtomo helmed "Steamboy" and left himself open to the inevitable comparisons of this two-hour anime with the classics in the field in which he had a major hand. On the one hand "Steamboy" is as visually stunning as you would expect, albeit in a decidedly different way from "Akira" and "Metroporisu." This time around Ôtomo is not telling a futuristic story, but one set in 1866 in the London of Victorian England, which mandates sepia toned colors rather than working with a palate of bright neon colors. That alone justifies a different look to "Steamboy," and the chief attraction for this anime are the hand-drawn animation, enhanced by computers, of the massive machines of gears and pistons. But there is another interesting consequences to the setting of "Steamboy," which is that for the first time with a Japanese anime I am recommending that you listen to the English audio track rather than the Japanese. Since the characters are actually English, then for once it makes sense to go this route. Besides, we are talking Patrick Stewart as grandfather Dr. Lloyd Steam, Alfred Molina as his son Dr. Eddie Steam, and Anna Panquin as James Ray Steam, who is the film's title figure. The key idea behind "Steamboy" is to recast the Industrial Revolution of the 19th-century with steam now holding a power and promise akin to atomic energy after World War II, although I guess scientifically the power is more like a jet engine (but the implications for transforming the world strike me as being more in the realm of the idealized future represented by atomic power). Ray Steam is a boy inventor who comes into possession of "steam ball," and then finds himself in a struggle between his father, who has become part-machine and power mad, and his grandfather, who turns into a wild-eyed Cassandra of gloom and doom. The evil Dr. Steam is building an army with steam-powered tanks, mechanical armor suits, and even steam jet packs for aerial assaults. If Ôtomo did not read Jules Verne at some point in his life I would be really surprised, because "Steamboy" owes as much to Verne's writing as it does to James Bond spy films and Tom Swfit adventures. However, the story is just not up to the grandeur of the animation, which involves not only the captivating combination of hand-drawn animation and computers, but also some great camera movement. If this were a live-action film we would be talking about the impressive cinematography, especially since Ôtomo seems to make a point of going for angles you are unlikely to get in the real world. So there is more than just the retro look of "Steamboy" to recommend when it comes to the visuals of this 2004 film. But Ôtomo does not explore the steam technology as much as I would have liked, so that a promising idea becomes rather conventional and the substance behind the style ends up being disappointing. Even the big debate behind the power play is childishly simplistic, so we are not dealing with a potent allegory either. Besides, I was waiting for there to be more of a payoff to the character of Scarlett O'Hara (Kari Wahlgren). Then again, it is entirely possible that Ôtomo is never going to top "Akira" (what has James Cameron really done since "Titanic"?) and even with its faults "Steamboy" is certainly worth watching.  "Truly an amazing movie"Steamboy is a movie i have never seen before. It brings future facts and machines to the 19th century. Truly amazing animation, great story. The music was truly adventurous and spectacular. The ending blew me away. One of the best animes and movies i have ever seen.  "STEAMBOY"I purchased this as a request from a young man in Australia and it has been sent to him! "GREAT animation--Disney in quality--but..."I, being a (self-proclaimed) animation oficionado, know somewhat of the reputation of Katsuhiro Otomo. I, myself have never seen AKIRA (yes, I know I should), but after hearing how good this guy was, I wanted to see Steamboy. So, I rented it from Blockbuster and popped it into my DVD player. I watched the beautiful steam effects and animation. I will give him credit for the fact that his movie was visually beautiful. However, he's no remote kind of patch on Hayao Miyazaki for story. Well, I guess that's kind of unfair. Let me rephrase: I could see some definite things that needed fixing. In the first "act" of the movie, the pace was good, exciting; interesting things happened; the story moved along and kept you interested. The characters were interesting and we didn't get bogged down in exposition. The chases were superb, and that steam bike-wheel invention of Ray's was, I have to say, awesome. I'm sad that I can't say the same for the rest of the movie. In the second "act", we are introduced to Scarlett and wonder why Otomo ditched Emma for this loser; Ray's dad and grandfather spout endless, stock philosophy; and Ray pretty much sits around and listens. There was only character fattening here for the father and grandfather, not fleshing out. And every time you think, "Hey, Scarlett might be okay after all," she contradicts herself and makes you hate her even more. Finally, there's the third act of the movie, where things pick up again--not quite to the level of the first act, but SO much better in comparison to the second act that it looks like a gift from heaven. Ray and the others actually do some useful, good things (even Scarlett! *shock and amazement*), and (better yet) there's only minimal philosophy-spouting! Yayness! There are a couple of pretty annoying things there (like not getting to see Ray catch Scarlett), but overall it was good. Not great, but good. Then there's the end credits--and I guess they're okay for some people, but I thought that they really didn't need any of them but seeing his house rebuilt and him coming home. That would be the fairy tale moment to end it at. I guess I'm just an old-fashioned romantic, but the rest of them seem unnessecary to me. So, bottom line: Rent it, don't buy it. Not unless you REALLY love animation. I mean really, REALLY love it. |
