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DVD Steamboy - Director's Cut (DVD Gift Set)
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
Review(s): DVD Steamboy - Director's Cut (DVD Gift Set)
Better than Akira
This is a great movie, i loved every minute of it. It takes place in old times which makes it even better. The animation is a 10star, the voice acting is a 10star, and the Music is an 11star. It was all great and This is the best movie i have seen. I have seen Akira and it was a great movie, but Steamboy is a lot better. It is a movie you can watch with anybody. I dont understand the PG-13 rating since i caught no bad words or anything of the sort. There is also a feature where you can watch the end credits without the words, and an interview with Katsuhiro Otomo, Re-voicing the movie, and a few other great things. And it says mastered in High Definition!!! I will say it again this is the best movie i have seen in a while.
Remember, Steamboy's no Akira
Steamboy is no Akira, and for many fans I think this will end up as a crime. Akira was a complex, violent, and disturbing film. Steamboy seems more akin to Walt Disney. Unfortunately for me, I bought this movie expecting Akira and I was obviously disappointed. But then I watched it a second time; I forced myself to, with a mindset that didn't include Akira. I told myself that I've seen and enjoyed anime of this type before (Spirited Away), so it couldn't be all that bad.
I was right. The film was excellent the second time (and the first time as well, only I was of the mind to hate it because of it's less-mature themes). In the end, I realized it was actually very close to Akira in that it was a story of a young boy trying to save his family and friends from a technological catastrophe, and has to do all this with very mixed emotions of what is right and wrong (no more spoilers, I promise). When I realized how good this movie actually was, I also realized that, like Akira, it's a groundbreaker. It proves what Studio Ghibli has been attempting to prove on its own: that anime does not have to be violent, strange, or downright macabre to be good.
Pick this film up if you want to see a new side to anime. And remember, it's no Akira, Ghost in the Shell, or Ninja Scroll, but it still deserves its name among these anime greats.
Looks great, but the plot itself doesn't build up much steam
I'm still learning the ropes when it comes to anime, which means I can't compare Steamboy to Katsuhiro Otomo's legendary Akira. I can, however, say that I enjoyed Otomo's contribution to the film Memories more than I did Steamboy. Both share the same kind of heavily industrial world of the past, cast in sepia-like tones reflecting an atmosphere of gloom. That was more than okay for Memories' "Cannon Fodder," but the world of Steamboy eventually grew tiresome to me. The animation of this film is excellent, but it consisted of far too many scenes of exploding machinery, to the detriment of character development and storyline. Frankly, I just didn't care about this plot all that much.
You've got a young, inventive boy who finds himself in the middle of a conflict over the nature of science. It's an argument that will erupt in loud, frightening chaos over the city of London. The boy's name is Ray Steam, and steam is definitely the key word in all of this. Ray receives a parcel from his grandfather containing an ultra-powerful "steamball," and almost at once he's forced to honor his grandfather's request to keep it out of the hands of "the Foundation." His father, however, or at least a somewhat mechanized version of him, happens to be in cahoots with the Foundation, and he begins to win his son over to his own version of science. He has used the vast power of steam to take his own father's vision of a Steam Castle and turn it into a well-armed weapon, complete with steam-powered flyers, subs, and mechanized fighters. The grandfather, looking much the worse for wear, shows up to try and sabotage his evil son's efforts, and he confronts Ray with his own peaceful vision of science. Fortunately for the audience, there's a spoiled little rich girl (by the name of Scarlett O'Hara - I kid you not) to add some life to all this philosophizing and artificiality. The whole thing soon breaks down into a not-so-small war over London. If you like explosions and scenes of utter destruction in your anime, you'll definitely want to check out Steamboy. That's about all you'll find in the second half of the film.
To me, Steamboy is a case of style over substance. None of the characters are as fully developed as I would have liked, and the whole story never manages to take on very much depth. Motion pictures, even anime, cannot live on cinematography alone if they want to be truly successful. With its underdeveloped storyline, Steamboy just didn't prove satisfying to me.
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