Steamboy

Steamboy is one of the most expensive Japanese animated movies made to date and was in production for nearly ten years. Sadly, they should have put more effort into perfecting the script for this ambitious anime.

The attention to detail sets this anime apart from all others. Each cog and gear are intricately animated in the many inventions in the movie. The architecture of Victorian London is duplicated perfectly. The CGI used was so seamless, I didn't notice. The sound track is grand and befitting of the time period.

The anime has no clear message and is clouded by characters whose purpose is ambiguous. The ... protagonist is faced with a situation where he must side with either the word of his father or grandfather. No evidence is presented to the viewer as to which character is more credible besides the father looking more diabolical as he was disfigured in an accident. Next enters Miss Scarlet, a young, spoiled heiress. Is her character supposed to be comic relief or an analogy about society being blissfully ignorant to scientific advancement used to further war as long as profits are made? Finally, during the second half of the movie, massive destruction of property occurs, and you would assume loss of life. The movie takes the "no one ever dies in a children's movie" philosophy. I feel that if there had been consequences in the movie, the message of the anime might have shown through instead of being buried in the interpersonal struggles.

While Steamboy offers breathtaking animation and the voice acting of Patrick Stewart, the story telling definitely runs out of steam.

Rate a 6
English Dubbed


There are 5 types of thinkers:Concrete, Analytical, Logical, Imaginative, Creative. I happen to be more analytical. This movie is for those that are creative and Imaginative. The movie progresses in a path taking adventure. Each path has its pros and cons. While the main character has his path already marked the anime forces the viewer to reflect themselves to see where they stand. In my view both sides were the same with slightly different agendas, making the siding choice hard. I am an adult i can only imagine it would be harder to make as a child(the main character). If that wasn't ... hard enough a loved one was on both sides.

Would i change anything if given the chance? No. Sure, this movie wasn't always riveting in excitement it did a good job at illustrating their main points. From cover art down to the ending. In the cover art for example the main character is basically begging the viewer to partake in his adventure. To see if he could do a better job. As for the color choice of red it perfect as well. Red represents fire which can be seen as frustration and passion. Both of which have a heavy impact in the show.

Although, while no 'pipe' or 'valve' was in the red zone this movie failed to get an emotional rise from me. For each character had an evil side to them. How is a good moral person like myself expected to side with a character who doesn't abide to what he sets out to do? In other words the character is not dedicated but hypocritical.

If this movie was meant for deep thinking and debating. Well done. The more i think about where i stand for this review the more 'heated' i become.

p.s. This movie unlike most anime is told in many forms of languages.

My Family Is Full Of Steam

Steamboy Is the movie with a lot of energy, just like a steam engine, but it gets lost in its themes and animated spectacle.

The anime is absolutely master fully animated. has some amazing backgrounds and steampunk technical design. character design is also distinct and really wall animated, with some weight behind every motion.

Where it suffers ultimately is in its pacing. It's action segments Just go on for way too long, so it becomes tiring instead of energidrik. It feels like a way too big story, slim down to 2 hours, and it is jarring.

That's what a noise me about the ... movie. It has such a great potential behind it, but it's just lost in the steam.

But it's such a unique mess with such great themes behind, it so I will recommend it.

The good first. The cgi and animation hold up almost 20 years later. It really is a beautifully shot and designed movie. The compositing basically seamless and the effects animation is gorgeous and had me gasping as you can feel the weight of giant machines fly and fall apart. This all pains me to rate this movie so low given the technical prowess.

The Bad. Everything else. The story, the plot is mid, the pacing is slow. There are no redeeming characters, they are all frustratingly incompetent and either terrible humans or too stupid to still be alive. There are several scenes where our hero is ... cornered and the villains take 20 secs to walk 10ft to snatch them, giving the hero enough time to come up with a way out. Motivations are confusing and the message is clunky.


SPOILERS?




Nobody gets what they deserve besides a few goons.
The main bad dude gets to walk away after destroying millions of lives.
Scarlett, the blonde, dog beating, capitalist hell spawn never had a redeemable moment, despite her suppose to be the love interest. She's dumb as rocks and doesn't realize that her company is building weapons of war despite living in the weapon castle and having free travel around it.
She beats her dog and nobody calls her out for it and never atoned.

ART:
I felt like I was seeing a Disney animation, 100 Dalmatians.
The details behind every gear must have made the animators spend a lot of time.
The scenes inside the moving tower, with those elaborate doorways, full of gears, deserve a 10.
I liked the camera following the characters like a dolly rather than the usual right-left transitions

SCRIPT:
1866 quarrel between father and son, two scientists with different ideas. On the one hand, science seen as progress for the well-being of humanity, on the other, science used as the destruction of the enemy for a utopian equality of the human species. Who will be ... able to put an end to this quarrel?... The nephew. The future of the world in the hands of young people is what I have always believed in, and still believe in. Those who watch anime should feel like heroes of their own lives, like Ray, even if I think this anime didn't convey this message in the best possible way. It's not inspiring enough.

Fantastic art, beautifully rendered animations that feel very fluid. For a movie titled "Steamboy" I strongly expected steam punk aesthetics throughout the movie and was met higher than my expectations. Character designs and artwork regarding its historical setting was contextually very accurate, and made for a very swift immersion for audiences into the world and beginning of the plot. Easily the strongest aspect of enjoy-ability from this movie.

The several chase and action scenes of the movie involving lots and lots of Steam powered machinery was very fun.

Most flaws lie in the writing of this movie, and it is rare for me to rate a movie ... above a 5 with lacking writing as it is arguably the heart of any movie.

Firstly, the introduction, usage, and portrayal of the MacGuffin of the movie, the Steam Ball - was very uninspired and bland. The movie never really goes into the whys and hows of the Steam Ball, which would've made it more interesting/easier for audiences to consciously care about. However its just shrugged off as this "important thing" which has insane amounts of steam power and is juggled between the several parties for the remainder of the film. It's very easy for writers to use any form of MacGuffin as a shortcut to avoid detailed exposition, but the Steam Ball was a clear example of how NOT to use it.

Scarlett's role, in the context of the story is very VERY important. As a literary character in the movie however, was severely lacking. She didn't really serve a purpose and fell into the sad trap hole of forgettable supporting female characters.

The Steamboy himself. I felt as though his most important scenes were all done and dusted by the starting half of the film, and towards the end he simply served as a "fetchboy" of the Steam Ball without having any influence whatsoever in the events that occurred, despite the heavy foreshadowing and possible implications. Of course him carrying the Steam Ball around and stopping the antagonistic powers of the movie from abusing it was what he ultimately did, BUT it doesn't mean that the way he did it was interesting or clever.

An enjoyable movie for first time watchers, and the animation and art throughout is very satisfying to the eyes. People who love steampunk will really enjoy this film. People who don't like steampunk, will still gain interest through this film. However, the aforementioned flaws are too apparent to enjoy this movie for a second or third time.

Final Wording: GEARLTY PLEASURE

The most British anime with an alternative Victorian-era war setting and surprisingly, it's by far the best steampunk-related “animation” I've ever watched. Well, kind of.

At first, Steamboy seems promising with its philosophy of science versus science as the nation's military forefront plot, whereby scientific achievement is acknowledged as a scale to maximizes power. Those two very distinctive beliefs are stimulated by Dr. Eddie and Dr. Lloyd which also happened to be the main character Ray's dad and grandpa. Dr. Eddie believes that science as mankind's modern God should have been used for military purposes while at the same time, Dr. Lloyd believes that science should ... be used for the greater good and not for the greedy shareholders in the capitalist world.

But as time progresses, the debate between those two characters is getting really really reaaaallly boring. It felt like the film is suffocating me with its never ending midpoint plus their lack of emotional build ups, and to be honest if its not for their highly detailed “animation” i’ve mentioned earlier, i would for sure click the stop button cuz holy schnitzel i legit wanted to punch my laptop screen. To think that at first i thought Dr. Eddie is the antagonist made me wanted to punch both my face and my laptop screen (again) simultaneously cuz in the end it doesn't matter, both Dr. Eddie and Dr. Lloyd is just a bunch of sick delusional boomers that are blinded by their judgments. And when it finally gets better in their "rising action" act, the film somehow shifts its attention into a hero concept film by using Ray’s child innocence, sigh. But oh wait it gets worse when you hit the climax. The only way i can explain it into words without giving any spoilers is basically like listening to Vivaldi's The Four Seasons Summer in Presto opening that goes on and on but twice the speed with no ending at all.

The only interesting part i find from this film is their character placements. By placing three very different generations as their main focus and Ray as the center, it perfectly explained of how different their own generation view science can give a huge impact to mankind during the Victorian-era war. But to be honest that's it. I really tried to like this film tho, my expectations were very high specially this was Katsuhiro Otomo's film after Akira and Memories, which for me are two of his Magnum Opus.

So to sum it up, in the end im dissapointed and i don't think i'll ever try to rewatch it. It's suffocating and tiring, really.

Well, here's the good thing I can say about Steamboy: it's gorgeously animated and has great character designs. It's stuff like this that makes me feel that anime is the true successor to classic Disney animation, not this 3D animation garbage that's so popular now.

Okay, the bad news: the story starts off well and explores a very interesting theme of how inventions in the wrong hands can be used for evil, especially by the military. Everything goes swimmingly halfway into the movie, and then things get very confusing and hectic by the time we get to the Crystal Palace. Things go from bad to worse ... in the last act--it just goes on and on and on and on and on and on...and just when you think it's over, goes on and on and on some more until your eyes glaze over or you start looking at your watch.

Also, the grandfather character, who had started off being so cool, becomes a ridiculous figure. He spends the last half of the movie running around in rags like the Wild Man of Borneo.

So, verdict--an okay anime, just not a great one.