Katsuhiro Otomo's Steamboy in Theaters

echocharlie writes "Steamboy is rolling into US theaters on March 18. The movie features the notable return of Katsuhiro Otomo, who hasn't directed an animated film since Akira, so big things can be expected. The film opened in Japan earlier to mostly rave reviews. The english cast features Anna Paquin, Alfred Molina, and Patrick Stewart. That's interesting casting since all three have had prominent roles in comic book movie adapatations (X-men, Spider-Man 2, and X-men respectively), not to mention Mr. Stewart's famous sci-fi ties. Anime films without Pokémon in their titles haven't fared well at the US Box office (see Appleseed, Tokyo Godfathers, Ghost in the Shell 2, et al.). Hopefully with an adequate number of theaters carrying the film, Katsuhiro Otomo's latest opus will gain the exposure it deserves."

Comments

Midnight Eye has a review

[abucior]

Here. The quick summary: Beautiful. Too bad they didn't spend more time on the script.

Re:I can already see it

[icebrrrg]

why would he get steamed? gillian anderson, clair danes and the rest of the cast who worked on princess mononoke didn't get steamed about its performance in the US box offices. they took the roles because they either believed in the material, loved the script, liked the medium, respected the director, or some combination thereof.

check out this interview with her, about her participation in mononoke.

"I've always been a fan of animation, period. It's always been a big part of my life."

Saw it on an ANA flight...

[EvilMagnus]

...last November.

Short version: starts strong, fades towards the end.

It's very pretty. It has some wonderful set-pieces and amusing character ideas (Stephenson-sama, for example. And Scarlett.) but boy does the Grand Finale go on for far too long.

It's not *quite* "TETSUO!" "KANEDA!", but it's close. Ah, well. At least the steamball doesn't turn out to be a Dragonball with Supa-Seijin powers.

Re:Box office scores...

[UWC]

I was surprised that Nashville's only real arthouse type theater had GitS2 on its US opening week, on the larger of the two screens at said theater. The same theater also had Tokyo Godfathers, but that was significantly after the US premiere. I'm hoping the Otomo name will be enough to get Steamboy at least to that theater, maybe a bigger one or two, and hopefully soon. The Cowboy Bebop movie was at a particular Regal Cinemas theater that tends to get the slightly better known little-known movies for a week, but that was only like the week before it came out on DVD.

All that said, the only anime I've seen playing on more than one screen in middle Tennessee was Spirited Away, and that was after all the Oscar rumblings; it was only at that Regal theater previously. Spirited Away is also the only one I've seen play for more than one week around here.

Oh, hey, that arthouse theater will be showing Appleseed for a week starting Friday! Whee! And Sky Blue for a couple of days in April... though Sky Blue is Korean. No mention of Steamboy on their site (http://www.belcourt.org/). I guess I can hope that's because it will be at the Regal...