I really can't sit here and suggest that "Steamboy" is anything more than an enjoyable and generally entertaining adventure-romp. It's really not. But part of the reason I genuinely love it is that it's not really trying to be anything more than an enjoyable and entertaining adventure. It knows exactly what it is, and it knows precisely what buttons to press and what scenes to play out to make it work. As a follow-up to director Katsuhiro Otomo's iconic and near-legendary feature-film "Akira", "Steamboy" does have a lot to live up to, and it was never going to reach the same great heights and universal acclaim set by its predecessor. But thanks to being true to itself and having the best of intentions, it comes highly recommended from this satisfied fan.We follow young Ray Steam (voiced in the English dub by Anna Paquin), a child-inventor living in 1800's England. His life is thrown into adventure when he inadvertently intercepts a package from his grandfather (Patrick Stewart) containing a mysterious mechanical sphere with untold power that is being sought after by various conflicting forces. Now, Ray is brought into the heart of a conflict between his idealistic grandfather, enigmatic and troubled father Dr. Edward (Alfred Molina) and the dark and opportunistic O'Hara Foundation.This is most certainly a charming and engaging film. In many ways, it hearkens back to what made classic adventures and swashbucklers so much fun. We have strong but archetypal characters that we instantly identify and sympathize with, plenty of twists and turns and treachery to keep the audience guessing and lots of well- choreographed and well thought- out action to keep us consistently thrilled with the proceedings. I also found the steampunk imagery and expert mixture of classic 2D hand- drawn animation and stylized 3D computer animation absolutely stunning to behold. It's never anything less than thoroughly striking and left me wowed with its complex palette.I've only seen the film with the English dubbing, but I thought everyone involved did a remarkable job bringing their respective characters to life. Paquin makes for a wonderfully charismatic lead, with Molina and Stewart both giving more-than-adequate pathos in their performances. I also highly admired supporting voice-over artists like Oliver Cotten and Kari Wahlgren in secondary roles, and their compliment the main cast quite nicely.Really, the only thing I can say to the film's detriment is that there are some pretty big problems with the pacing in the second act. It does very much begin to drag, which was a shame given the fast-moving narrative in the first act and the thrilling and climactic final half-hour. There's just a few too many scenes of droning conversation and a few too many needless sub-plots that ultimately bog the movie down for a good half-hour or so, that it did detract some major points for me. Thankfully, the film is able to quickly recover and finish strong after this decidedly dead period.In the end, I think your enjoyment of "Steamboy" really comes down to expectation. If you go in knowing that this isn't another masterpiece and is merely a good, fun film... I can't imagine you wouldn't enjoy just about every second of it. But if you've built it up in your mind because the prestige of Otomo's previous work, you're just setting yourself up for disappointment.To me, it's a very strong 8 out of 10, and I'd highly recommend it to not only fans of anime, but fans of adventure and excitement in general. It's a blast!

This was actually better than all the Studio Ghibli movies I've watched in the last few months combined! Sure, the story is a little light and it's strangely structured, but at least it makes sense! There's no random characters or plot points present that serve no purpose to the story except to show off (take note Studio Ghibli!). The story itself is pretty straightforward - set in an alternate reality where the world has gone all steampunk, boy genius suddenly finds himself being pursued by agents of a strange organisation when he receives a package from this grandfather. He must use all his wits and inventiveness to find out the truth and save the world. Simple enough. The female characters are still annoying as hell though.

Possible the worst Japanamation of all time. It had some good to very good animation, beginning threads of a plot worth the animation, but it fizzled. Admiditly, part of the issue is they do not really bring the viewer to the world, that is the underlying feelings of a era gone by.It is so far away in our collective consciousness it does not work well. My grandfather was born in 1896, he outlived everyone he knew everyone. He told me stories of his childhood. They were depressing on a scale that staggers the imagination at times. Could you imagine being so poor and hungry that you bought HALF of a raw egg?? They did that on streets of new york with a board and a pastry cutter. His job at age 4 was to walk along Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn and pick up coal bits that fell off the coal cars behind the engine, very dangerous. Lotsa kids got killed like that. Steam boilers popped and people were horrible burned and died of infection. Disease and stink and filth were everywhere. This was downtown brooklyn or chicago or manchester etc. They gave you a taste of that, just a tad, not enough. When the Brooklyn Bridge opened on May 24,1883, 2:00 PM . People closed buisinesses, they came out to walk over the bridge in total awe, BECAUSE THEY COULD. For a number of years people would do just that. They walked over water, that was unheard of. The achievement of man over water was beyond expectation. People would come and make a day of walking the bridge. Because it was mind boggling.If that was lost on many, well when they opened the Verizzano Narrows Bridge between Static island and Brooklyn, my dad loaded us into the car and we drove to NJ to visit relatives , just to go on it, we did upper roadway one way and lower roadway back, just to feel it. That is one thing they needed to give the viewer and they tried they really did but, they did not, well, not me. Next up they needed to fill you with the horror and disgust and hatred like that which was felt and directed at:Alfred Nobel, Merchant of DeathHe invented dynamite and became in todays money, a multibillionaire. He was so reviled by many as his invention just brought mo'better ways to destroy people. And the various anti capitalists of the day went at him full throttle. He eventually funded the Nobel Peace price, since he needed a way to have his name held in reverence, NOT revulsion. But the name "Merchant of Death" is well known even to this day.Unfortunately that persona and the inquests senate committees investigating where the money went, who got rich on various wars, while addressed amply I think, wasn't enough to carry the plot since the other things they did not have were too much to overcome. Since I studied euro/American history I can see the parallels, but the average person can not so it is boring. They could not/did not (for me) convey the awesomeness of New technologies for the time.Up to WWII the average person, was born grew up raised kids and died within 25 miles of their parents house. Only the destitute/starving/persecuted and the adventurous tried new things like "America". But that is only an opinion, my own. Japanamation is OK , but this one was as another gent felt, BLAH ciao chris

I heard so much about this film, even though it didn't seem to good to me I decided to watch it because I heard so many good things about it.. I was just disappointed by the whole thing. I even fell asleep somewhere between the.. explosions and the explosions, don't know how long I slept but when I woke up I just didn't seemed to have missed anything. To me it seems like most of the story took place in the after-texts and the rest of the film could have been shortened to a 30 min movie. The animation was nice, but so are paintings, they are beautiful to watch and they also lack a plot. I'd rather spend my time at a museum than watch this film.