Steamboy | | Cast : | Anna Paquin, Patrick Stewart, Alfred Molina | | Director : | Katsuhiro Ôtomo | | Studio : | Columbia Tristar Hom | | Format : | Animated, Color, Widescreen | | Released Date : | March 18, 2005 | | DVD Released Date : | July 26, 2005 | | Language : | English (Dubbed), French (Subtitled), German (Dubbed) | | Audience Rating : | PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | August 05, 2005 | | Summary | Good Movie | Content
 | I really enjoyed this movie and I really can't add much that hasn't been covered in other positive reviews. I found the movie to be entertaining and technically well done. The animation and audio quality of the movie are pretty good. I thought the music score was outstanding. Perhaps more than any other animated film I have ever seen this movie feels like a live action film and not an animated film. Some may see that as a problem. I personally do not. This is the kind of movie I could show to people not familiar with anime without feeling embarassed. The movie does have its problems. The story is perhaps average and there is little character development. Don't expect this movie to be Akira II or Son of Akira. This movie is more like the Rocketeer than anything. This movie does have a message (or messages). This is a "message" movie about the nature of technology and its use (or possible misuse). Messages are subtle though. Otomo doesn't feel the need in this movie beat you over the head with his point. I personally like it that way.
I should mention that both the subtitled and english dubbed versions run the same length (126 minutes). There are no cuts to the dubbed version. That of course has been a worry to some since the theatrical dubbed version had a number of big cuts to its running time. You do not have to worry about that with the R1 DVDs. BTW, I found the dub to be pretty good. |
| Rating | | | Date | August 01, 2005 | | Summary | The Ending | Content
| Steamboy was a great movie throughout. As a anime lover, i have never seen the director's last movie Akira. But after seeing this i definatly wanted to watch Akira. The Ending was probably the best ending to a movie i have ever seen. All movies should end like Steamboy. A good memorable cool ending. |
| Rating | | | Date | July 31, 2005 | | Summary | Very good | Content
| My biggest problem with this movie is the boy, Ray, is voiced by a woman. And it sounds like he's voiced by a woman. They should have gotten a child actor to do the voice if that's what they were going for. Not a female actress.
That said, the story is great but it drags on a bit long. The animation is just beautiful and everything is top notch. |
| Rating | | | Date | July 31, 2005 | | Summary | Interesting but overlong | Content
| I will not repeat the details of the plot here. As the film starts, you're drawn into its alternate world where everything is powered by steam. The machines are fascinating!
There's no clear delineation of good and evil - apart, perhaps, from the armaments companies, who turn London into a disaster area for demo purposes. Unless, of course, you have the naive view that we'll all live in peace if people would just stop inventing and selling weapons ... which, unfortunately, might be the message some will take away from this movie, never having learned the lessons of history.
Anyway. The animation and scenery and creativity are superb. However, once the destruction starts, you lose all possibility of belief, since the scale of destruction is so vast. No arms dealers would dare put on such a show in such a location. It's supposed to show the destructive power of science in the wrong hands, but it reaches ridiculous proportions.
After about the halfway mark, you sense that it's gone on long enough, and you're just waiting for it to be over. Too many shots of steam pipes leaking and exploding, etc., too long to wrap up. If you have the patience, a lot of the imagery is awe-inspiring, though. But at the end you don't really care any more. |
| Rating | | | Date | July 29, 2005 | | Summary | Worthy successor to Akira | Content
| In Steamboy, Director Otomo turns his attention to the Steampunk genre, and the result is a gripping Victorian era techno-thriller. The macguffin of the plot is a ball that is supposedly able to store steam at enormous pressure and density. It doesn't make much sense, but it manages to drive a plot with a lot of action, engaging steam-puffing war machines, and some moderately sophisticated debate about the uses of science and technology.
The characters are engaging, although hero Ray is the usual somewhat generic plucky adolescent. The spoiled adolescent aristocrat Scarlett is considerably more interesting, as are Ray's father and grandfather, who personify conflicting ideas about the uses of technology.
The animation is, of course, wonderful, as expected from the director of Akira. The film is full of strikingly original action scenes, which are both well conceived and well executed. Destruction abounds. Reputedly, the film used quite a bit of computer graphics, but it is extraordinarily well integrated. The hand-drawn characters do not have the "pasted in" look that has characterized most previous attempts to combine hand drawn and computer generated art, and I was hard put to tell where the traditional animation ended and the computer animation began.
The DVD includes both the original Japanese version (with English subtitles available) as well as an English dubbed version. The English dubbing is extremely well done, with top notch talent including Anna Paquin (Rogue from the XMen movies) as the adolescent boy hero, Patrick Stewart as his grandfather, and Alfred Molina as his father. The English dubbing was overseen by Otomo himself, and is arguably better suited to the story than the original Japanese, as it is set in Victorian England. There are, however, a few moments where the words do not quite mesh with the mouth movements--which is a bit of a testament to the quality of the animation; in most animated films, you can't tell what language the characters are supposed to be speaking, anyway.
Although this is an animated film, it is not a kid's movie, and some parents will probably find some scenes inappropriate for small children. There is a lot of violence and destruction, at least as much as in a typical theatrical action thriller, but relatively little gore or overt killing--less than in Akira. There is, however, a moment when young Scarlett comes face-to-face with a dead soldier. It is an important and necessary scene, but might be troubling to some children. |
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