Review: Cowboy Bebop

Fans of the excellent Cowboy Bebop anime series have been eagerly awaiting the movie, released on Friday in major U.S. cities. The critics seem to like it overall, and, skimming through the reviews, the ones who dislike it seem to do so for the usual reason: it's a cartoon.

First impressions: It's quite good, good enough to show even non-anime fans. Visually very pretty, plot is perfectly adequate, entertaining yet moderately deep, it's about all I ask for in an anime movie: it's fun.

The movie is strongly reminiscent of the animated series - if you lengthened and filled out one of the standard episodes, boom, you've got a movie. All of the Bebop crew are present, which would put it, time-wise, roughly in the middle of the series. Each of them plays a significant part in tracking their latest target, a bio-terrorist who plans to unleash an unpleasant plague on the population of Mars, but as in the series, they work side-by-side but not necessarily as a team, rather as a loose affiliation of, err, cowboys. The plot is simple but reasonably compelling. The antagonist's motivations are laid out; I didn't find them particularly sensible, but, ignoring that, the actions of the characters make sense and everything pretty much holds together.

The movie is significantly prettier than the series. Instead of the computer-generated beauty of Spirited Away, there are quite a few exquisitely drawn backgrounds. Most of the action takes place in a city on Mars which bears a strong - very strong - resemblance to modern-day New York City. Shadows are rendered with great care, leading to a number of scenes where the shadows play as much of a part in the scene as the character casting them. Although the rendering of Martian daylight is not, perhaps, very realistic (Mars is going to get a lot less light than Earth, even if it's massively terraformed...), the artists do take the opportunity to show us several beautiful sunset shots. The movie is worth watching for the art alone, IMHO.

Fans of the series will know that it's known for its jazz (or maybe jazz-like is more descriptive) numbers. The movie still has some jazz, but there's a lot more rock, leading to a more fast-paced feel. The soundtrack is quite good without being overpowering and without losing the feel that "made" the series. The voice acting is as good as the series, which is not surprising.

At least two of the showings in the movie theater I saw it in were sold out. I imagine that won't continue, since this is a bit of a niche market and the movie hasn't been advertised at all that I've seen, but perhaps it will be enough to get a wider U.S. distribution for the movie, and Spirited Away picking up an Oscar shouldn't hurt either. It's worth seeing in the theaters, I think, assuming there's one near you. If you've ever wondered what sort of beating Spike can dish out when he's really upset at someone, this movie will answer that question. :)

Comments

And this is why....

[DisKurzion]

anime will NEVER become mainstream. As much as I would love to see it happen, I KNOW that the american culture is too pompous and ignorant to let it happen.

People have become way too dependent on what critics say about a movie. They go watch what other people tell them they should, possibly because it costs way to much to see a movie. Critics who diss the movie for poor animation and "Speed Racer" style action obviously never went to see the movie, and instead opted to read some online summary and diss what they do not understand.

So ignore (the vast majority of) the critics, and go see what is a GREAT action movie that actually has a plot.

Where's the anti-cartoon prejudice?

[bfields]

skimming through the reviews, the ones who dislike it seem to do so for the usual reason: it's a cartoon.

Here are some quotes from those critics:

Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail:

The dynamic use of the screen frame is exciting compared to the more tame North American animation fare, but it doesn't hold interest by itself. Unfortunately, the storyline -- a mixture of B-movie dialogue, supernaturalism and technological catastrophe -- feels dashed off and puerile.

Jan Stuart, Newsday:

the script wallows in the sort of solemn existential malaise borrowed from film noir that young people who wear black mistake for hip. The dialogue is blockheaded, and it is delivered by a retinue of bland soap opera voices that seem out of joint with their characters. At nearly two hours, this "Cowboy" is a very long and pretentious ride into the sunset.

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle

Were it replicated, shot for shot, as a live-action film, "Cowboy Bebop" would be just another unpleasant science-fiction thriller, with the usual mix of salaciousness and violent death. The Magritte sky and the laser-like colors will push this into the winning column for some, while others will be put off by a Speed Racer-like lack of detail in the characters' faces and find the animation novelty wearing thin after 10 minutes.

Maybe you could put down the end of that last quote to an "anti-cartoon" bias? But from the paragraph as a whole its clear that the reviewer thinks the animation is actually the only thing that the movie has going for it.

I don't mean to bash the movie. (In fact, I had to read through a lot of positive comments to get to the above quotes. Sounds like it might be a fun movie!) I just question the article's claim that the reviewers disliked the movie just because it's animated. Seems to me that does an injustice to the criticisms raised, criticisms which are actually repeated by a lot of reviewers, and which have less to do with the medium than with the dialog, the story, and the characters.

--Bruce F.