Hey folks, Harry here - well - I really need to see this movie. Otomo is a genius. Every image from this film and it's trailers looks beautiful. I can not wait to see it. Here's another review that will just ya wanna see it more. Here's J_D...
Yo Harry, talkbacker J_D here, I managed to catch Steamboy yesterday at the Toronto Film Festival. Thought I’d let you all know about the show. It began with one of the organizers informing us that Katsushiro Otomo wasn’t able to make it, so we’d have to settle with someone from Sony Pictures. A pretty cool chap… he informed us that Otomo was a shy man, and he’s especially terrified of facing the audience now because he’s worried about how his film will be accepted since he’s not made anything else in quite awhile. And it’s understandable, if I was him, I’d be worried too about how the film I’ve been spending the last 10 years of my life on, and coming off of the success of Akira, with fans eagerly anticipating some masterpiece would be received. Nevertheless the audience was excited, the Sony man took some pictures on his digital camera of the audience cheering to send in to Otomo to show eve! ryone in there loved him.
The curtains rolled and after about two commercials the film began. It opened with a scene of some men collecting purified water from some underground cave. We then find ourselves in Alaska where a team lead by two scientists who are trying to fit in an enormous amount of pressure into a little ball when an accident seems to take place and then we’re treated to the title ‘Steamboy’ in letters coming out of some machinery. The opening has that ‘simplicity’ to it, much like the opening of Akira, where we see Tokyo exploding and then the title of the film in plain letters. The next thing you know we find ourselves in Manchester, inside of a cloth/wool spinning fabric factory. There’s some commotion over a malfunction, and after much chaos ensues, a boy emerges from below having stopped the machinery from going completely haywire. This boy we’re introduced to is Ray, our protagonist. Ray is an exceptional talented young boy who aspires to be an inventor like his father and grandfather. After being scolded by the owner for breaking some parts, despite that it was necessary and that he risked his life, he heads home with a prize, some kind of part that he managed to salvage from the damage. We are introduced to some of his family and later he receives a package in the mail from his grandfather who was working in America along with his father. Upon opening it, they discover inside, some documents, and a large cylindrical container. After puzzling over it for a bit, there is a knock on the door, and two rough tall well dressed men come in looking for his grandfather. Inviting themselves in they search the house when they come across Ray and the Steamball in his hands. They try to win his trust stating that they’re from a foundation that his father and grandfather work for and attempt to take the ball from him. But he refuses claiming the letter included in the box by his grandfather explicitly told him not to give it to the foundation, an d to seek the help of another man named Stephenson. He manages to escape, using one of his own inventions. A cool motorized unicycle and speeds off, but on his tail is some kind of specialized tractor/tank that chases after him. Ray must attempt to get to Stephenson, and solve the mystery behind the foundation, his father and grandfather, and what makes the mysterious steamball so important that men are willing to go to great lengths and risks to secure it.
That’s the basic idea behind the film. You can expect a lot of fantastic action pieces, fascinating machinery and a world completely borne out of the mind of Otomo. The characters are all lovable, the old/futuristic England looks like an extremely interesting place for its time. The designs and the various gadgets and gizmos all over the place are lively and functional! Just the amount of detail and animation of the various gears and cogs really speaks of Otomo’s obsession to fit in as much in a scene as he can. You will really discover why this is the most expensive anime to come out of Japan recently. It isn’t as glittery and flashy as GITS2, where the style of the CG standing out from the 2-D appears to be emphasized, the CG is extremely well blended with the traditional animation that a lot of the time it looks and feels like it was all hand drawn, but impossibly well given that a lot of the camera angles and pans, zooming and stuff just go crazy at any given moment. The action in this film is very exciting, original and completely epic in scope! Just the various things of bombs falling, glass shattering, smoke and clouds and ah… steam and lots of it, in fact so much so and at so high a pressure or something that it freezes practically half the city along its path, much like in Day after Tomorrow, except more scientifically believable. There’s just so much stuff that happens, the gears in my mind will need some serious oiling to try and remember everything that happened. Crazy armored soldiers, flying machines, derigibles, trains, it’s practically all there! Anime mecha nuts will go crazy over the various old fashioned designs of various weaponry and stuff. If you remember Akira as most of you would, once the action starts, it get bigger and bigger, once Tetsuo gets a grip of his powers and runs amok on Neo-Tokyo, neither the Matrix and LOTR combined could m! atch the sequence of events that follow in sheer craziness. Steamboy i s just like that, with practically an entire hour of the movie taking place amongst a huge conflict between the British forces and the foundation which considered the battle that unfolds to be a demonstration to their prospective customers from around the world. But unlike Akira, Steamboy is more family friendly, without the blood and extreme violence, but still with plenty of destruction and imagination to behold.
Also unlike Akira, the plot, drama etc. are much more PG fare. But that’s not a bad thing, this movie still kicks a lot of ass! Normally I’m one for more ‘intelligent’ films like GITS2 who’s concepts were still stuck reeling in my mind before watching this, but once I got into it, I was completely lost in the world that Otomo created here! It has some interesting things to say about science as the characters debate over the ethics of it, but more free flowing well written dialogue and not some heavy philosophy quote session like GITS2 was. The characters are stereotypical, but like I said earlier, very likable. There are moment of god comedy, with Otomo even poking quote a bit of fun at scenes that are supposed to be dramatic and cool in the Hollywood sense. In fact I’d say Steamboy is more like a Hollywood film than any other anime I’ve ever seen. It’s like those classic Disney adventures, ex! cept with the Japanese style, language and more intelligent than any other piece of dribble North America’s released these years, Pixar films aside… Steamboy is both classic lighthearted adventure and serious ‘moral of the story’ film-making, that both adults and kids will enjoy the hell out of.
The Sony peep said this movie can be expected to release early 2005, and that they were thinking of releasing the subtitled version along with the dub in select theaters. I saw the original subtitled version, though I’m curious to see how the dub will be handled and how it will sound with authentic British accents that just might add so much more. The sound quality was excellent, the floor beneath my seat as shaking during the rumbling of Steam-Tower coming to life and I had a balcony seat too, front center! The BGM Score was so-so, nothing spectacular that I recall, but it worked well. No Japanese lyrics or anything, just instrumental. All that said, the visuals were not as artsy as GITS2, but the detail of London and animation in general are excellent, the dramatic shots will amaze and you’ll leave the theater feeling pumped! Not as good as Akira in my opinion, but still damn good! When you ! think about films the whole family can enjoy, Steamboy will definitely become one of them! This film is award worthy and if accepted, definitely would be the Best Animated feature in my opinion, its only forseeable threat coming from Miyazaki, who’s film I hear is doing well in Venice. But I’m seriously doubting Howl’s Moving Castle can stand up to the might that is Steam Tower! Well, we’ll see… Otomo fans… the long wait is gonna be well worth it! Oh, and a word of advice, you might want to wait through the credits to see the images on screen, it takes a look into the future of Steamboy, and quite giddly possible, what could be a sequel that looks crazier than this one! See for yourself!
J_D
