Steamboy

Saw this at the Toronto International Film Festival, and I swooned with the massive audience in sheer awe at the absolutely astounding masterpiece that Otomo-san has created. 10 years in the making, the visual feast pays off with an incredible bang.

Although not as violent and complex as the powerhouse Akira, Steamboy is a straight-forward sci-fi-action-adventure story set in Victorian London, England that even strangers of the anime genre can follow with ease. I can see this film being another landmark hit in North America that will hopefully draw more people to appreciate anime. When this comes out in 2005, don't miss it for the world!

Admiring the gadgets, machines and all the insanely gorgeous animation you won't have enough time to wonder where the plot or character development went.

Steamboy is set in Victorian England, the age of inventions and the industrial revolution. Dr. Steam has developed a ball that contains an enormous amount of pressure, that can be used to power huge amounts of steam machines. However, Dr. Steam's son and grandson both have their own designs...

I've never been a huge anime fan, but I've enjoyed every film I've seen that Otomo has been involved in, and this one is no exception to the rule. Since I enjoyed it as a non-anime fan, I recommend to all others like me who are curious about anime.

This is a review of the English subtitled version of the film and not the English dubbed version A boys own adventure as our young hero fights to keep a steam ball out of the hands of evil corporate profiteers. Set in and around London in the late 1880's this is quite simply one of the most amazing animated films ever made. Odds are you have never seen anything like it on this scale.

As Otomo Katsuhiro pushed the field of animation with his Akira some twenty years ago, he does it again with Steamboy his long in production masterpiece. This is a film so rich and detailed you simply can not truly believe that anyone would have taken the time to do the animation. This is a film to shame most animators working in the field who keep things simple. Nothing is simple here as we get grand battle scenes in London, chases through the English country side, and huge clockwork machines that are mind boggling in their visual complexity. It has to be seen to believed.

The characters here all arc. No one is as they seem at first or second except perhaps for our hero, Roy, who tries desperately to do the right thing with the scientific marvels his father and grandfather have given him but instead finds no one is wholly good nor evil. There is a complexity to everyone that is uncommon for most animation, both Japanese and American.Its refreshing to see that we are given real people to root for and to hiss. What happens to them may move you to tears, it did me.

The film is constructed in essentially two half's. The first is a rollicking adventure as Roy is thrust int the fight against the aforementioned evil corporation, which, like the characters is not as clearly evil as first seems. It his here that there are several set pieces that are some of the finest things I've ever seen on film, in particular the initial chase by the bad guys to get the steam ball. It starts in Roys home, which is trashed and then continues on steam powered vehicles across the countryside before ending up intersecting with a speeding train. Spielberg could learn a great deal for the next Indiana Jones movie. This first half is near perfect in execution.

The second half of the film is a giant set piece that begins as a small scale fight during the London Exhibition and quickly expands into a full scale war in London. Its is here that the film falters, not because its bad, rather because its not fully clear whats happening. Its as if Otomo set in motion this huge machine and didn't know how to control it. I knew over all what was going on in the big picture but I was lost as to the details. This is a damaging flaw to the film that destroys many people ability to enjoy the film. If you can let yourself go and let the film wash over you then you will be more likely to truly appreciate this film for what it is- grand story telling on a huge scale.

I can't recommend this film enough. Certainly one of the best animated films ever made, I'm sure it will be near the top of my best films of the year.

Lastly Stay through the credits. If its not readily apparent the pictures under the credits take the story well past the ending of the film and show you quite clearly what happens to everyone we've come to know. One can only hope that we will one day be treated with the story those pictures tell.

The latest film from the director of Akira, Katsuhiro Ôtomo, is a pacy thriller anime set in an alternate 1850s London, in the middle of the industrial age. Rai Steam is the third in a line of engineer inventors who dreams of going to the first ever Great Exhibition – when his grandfather unexpectedly returns from the United States with an new invention, the steamball. About the size of a bowling ball, the steamball is a source of immense, self-renewing power and the people who funded the invention want it back at any price. Rai escapes on his steam-powered unicycle, and the race is on. On the way, he encounters a steam-powered cyborg, a giant steam-powered "Death Star" and a feisty, economic rationalist sidekick, the Gone With The Wind-inspired Miss Scarlett (Manami Konishi).

While the plot is nothing new – and very much in the Hollywood thriller style, the inventiveness of the world Steamboy is set in is exhilarating. Imagine steam-powered individual submarines, flying machines and more, all drawn in painstaking detail – with thousands of cogs and wheels all impacting on each other. Although some CGI is used, most of the film's made in the traditional anime style – around 180 000 individual pictures were used to make Steamboy, and it shows.

Steamboy's a rip-roaring 'steampunk' piece of entertainment, complete with an insane despot who plans to take over the world. Although it's strange to see a film set in London where all the (Anglo) characters are speaking Japanese, it's best not to take Steamboy too seriously. Comic relief is provided by Miss Scarlett and Rai's grandfather, Loyd Steam (Katsuo Nakamura). Loyd Steam also speaks for the natural order, something that's often found in Japanese anime and was inspired by both the animist former national religion, Shinto, and the WWII atomic bombings. Unlike Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke, however, it's barely touched on here. Steamboy succeeds because of the fantastic imagination behind the animation, not for its philosophy. ***½/***** stars.

A lavish anime production that did it mean a new record for the most expensive Japanese animated movie . This is one of the smartest, most overwhelming animations ever . The yarn takes place in an alternative universe , where some modern inventions where never discovered or made available for the advancement of our societies. In the middle of the 19th century, in the midst of the Industrial Revolution, the young inventor Ray, raised in a family of scientists, awaits the return of his father and grandfather to America where they continue their research. However, the only news that Ray receives about them is a mysterious metal ball sent by his grandfather. From the moment that comes into his hands, Ray finds himself involved in a world of incredible intrigues , being relentlessly pursued by the the nefarious O'Hara Foundation . As the steam-engine inventor Lloyd Steam and his son Edward discover a pure mineral water source . The axis of the film is a strange ball , in fact, it's an extraordinary ball of steam, the secret key to an incomparable force that various powerful organizations are eager to capture. Ray must discover which of these organizations represents good and which represents evil. Then an experiment goes wrong and a ball-like machine appears from the destruction.

Japanese animation set in 1860s Britain, directed by Katsuhiro Ôtomo one of the masters of the genre , author of the science fiction classic ¨Akira¨. It is a literary playground for non-stop action , nail-biting chases , spectacle , drama , escapism and scientific exploration . But most of all it is fun This movie Steamboy is an excellent Anime, made in the purest catastrophic and futuristic style by the master Otomo with animated scenes in a clear line , containing great spectacularity and a story that combines the past and future common mastery. An interesting an engaging plot about a teen calle Ray who has to choose sides when his father and his grandfather at odds over the progress and meaning of science, Ray must try to determine for himself what he believes in and whom he can trust, as the future lies in his young hands. As the boy inventor finds himself caught in the middle of a deadly conflict over a revolutionary advance in steam power. There're also historical characters as Robert Stephenson who was the son of George Stephenson, known as the Father of the Railway , in 1829, they built a locomotive "Rocket" in the Rainhill Trials and won and Robert built lots of steam locomotives in England. ¨Steamboy" is definitely a perfect example of Steampunk fiction sub-genre , as it takes a historical setting : Industrial Revolution, and adding the element of Sci-fi super science and whose main representation was ¨April and the Extraordinary World¨ by Christian Desmares, Franck Ekinci based on Jaques Tati's drawings , the latter creator of the imaginative stories of Adèle Blanc-Sec .

Lavishly financed by Production companies Production I. G. and Sunrise , being efficiently directed by master animator Katsuhiro Ôtomo (Akira, Memories ,Mushishi , World Apartment Horror, Spriggan, Robot Carnival) who used one hundred ninety thousand individual drawings . It had a budget of 22 million dollars, being the most expensive Japanese animation production up to that time. Steamboy won the animation award at the Sitges Festival 2004 . Rating : 7/10 . Better than average . Well woorth seeing.