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Steamboy Press Screening ReviewThe Invite The screening itself wasn't at a regular theater, but at a viewing room in downtown SF. The whole thing was arranged by Landmark Theatres. (We'd like to thank Steve Indig over at Landmark for sending us the invite and making this possible.) So how was the movie? That's what you really want to know, right? Okay, it's not much further to the review, but first a little background info. (My apologies for a rushed review, but Real Life has been busy lately) Steamboy is the latest movie from Katsuhiro Otomo, whom most people will remember for Akira. Since Akira came out 17 years ago, Otomo has worked on various things, including the anthology film Memories a few years ago. But this is the first big movie he's really done since then. It's taken him this long because, according to the press release, this movie has been a 10-year effort. The amount of time and money spent on it is obvious, and definitely pays off. The Story  To summarize without giving away too much,
Steamboy is an action/science fiction film in the steampunk genre, taking place around
the time of the Industrial Revolution in England. Steam is obviously the main power source at this time,
and everyone has high hopes for the future of industrialization. The main character is
Ray Steam, a young boy who's obviously inherited the penchant for tinkering with machines
and inventing from his father Eddy and grandfather Lloyd. The film begins with a quick montage
of scenes showing what the elder Steam men are doing that lead to the rest of the story.
Then, one day, Ray gets a package containing a "steam ball". Immediately, men show up from
the O'Hara Foundation to take it from him, and from there, he's launched into a desperate attempt
to escape the men, try to find out what the steam ball does, and decide what to do with it.The struggle moves from the railroad tracks, in a scene reminiscent of Laputa, eventually to the Great Exhibition, where the O'Hara Foundation will help one of the Steam family show off the true power of the steam ball. Various other characters, such as the spoiled Scarlet, the dignified Robert Stevenson, weave in and out of the story. Someone who initially appears to be helpful and good may turn out to be nothing of the sort. And some of the villains aren't necessarily what they seem, either. It's never clearly explained how the steam ball actually works, or what really powers it. But that doesn't really matter. The steam ball represents any new form of power, to be used for good or evil, and the attendant struggles that will ensure as various groups try to gain control of it. The Review (by Warner Young, with contributions from Andy Kim) First things first. Is this a good film, and should you go see it? The simple answer: Yes! This is a spectacular film, and you should catch it if you can. It wouldn't be exaggerating to say this was the best anime film I've seen in quite some time. The Dub  If you attend No-Name meetings, or if you're familiar with us, you'll know that we always
show everything subtitled, partly to keep the original "feel" of the show, and partly because
there are still some shows that just aren't dubbed very well. In this case, however, the dub
was as good as I've ever heard. Money was definitely spent on the dubbing cast, with talents
like Anna Paquin (people are probably most familiar with her as Rogue in the X-Men movies)
as Ray Steam, Alfred Molina (Doc Ock in Spider-Man 2) as Eddy Steam, and Patrick Stewart
(if you don't know this name, it won't help for me to explain) as the oldest Steam. Another voice
that may be familiar if you watch any dubbed anime is Kari Wahlgren, the English voice for
Robin in Witch Hunter Robin and Haruko in FLCL.The Cut The dubbed version of the film is 14 minutes shorter than the subbed. Aside from one too-abrupt scene change, I couldn't really tell where material was cut from the version I saw. The Homages  Comparisons to Akira are probably inevitable. Compared to Akira,
this is a vastly better film in many ways. The story is more coherent; partly, this is
because Otomo isn't making a movie from a manga that he's still writing. Part of it is
the advance in technology, allowing the film simply to look much better in every way.
Finally, the struggle between struggle between the various factions (sort of the
"good vs evil" part of the plot) is played out less overtly, but is
easily condensed into the 3 generations of the Steam family, with Ray's father
representing one side, his grandfather the other side,
and Ray himself the one who has to choose.There are a number of scenes that will immediately make you think of a similar scene from Laputa or Nausicaa. I suspect these are homages to Miyazaki, though in a movie with interesting flying contraptions, it may be hard to avoid some similarities. The Graphics Simply put, it's a wonderful looking film. Although much of the industry is turning to pure CG, with great and sometimes not-so-great results, Otomo elected to use hand animation in parts of this film. Basically, the film uses computer rendering to help with really complex 3D scenes, but mostly uses hand painted animation for the rest. It's really the best of both worlds. The Score Warner: I give this a solid 9 out of 10. Andy: I give this an 8 out of 10, for a slightly weak story. The Plug If you live in the Bay Area, Steamboy is supposed to hit local theaters (Camera 7 at the Pruneyard, the Lumiere in San Francisco and Landmark's Act 1 and 2 in Berkeley) on March 18th. Supposedly, the dub will play at the Camera, while the sub will be at the Lumiere. |
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