Steamboy was a recommendation and likely not something I would have gotten round to otherwise.
Set in the 1860's it tells the story of two sides competing over steam power dominance and it's potential applications. Revolving around one boy and how he gets caught up in it all because of certain family ties.
The first thing you'll notice is that it's fantastically animated, it really looks the part and though Japanese made suffers with none of the usual anime tropes. Set in England it has a fitting and very competent British voice cast including veteran Patrick Stewart who delivers as he always does.
So it looks good, it sounds good, and this wonderful almost steampunk setting is great, so why the underwhelming rating?
The story (Though decent enough) isn't handled as well as it should have been, at two hours they could have paced it considerably better. To make matters worse you have a number of detestable characters (And not entirely intentionally) that really damaged the film for me.
I appreciate what they were trying to do here and entirely see the appeal, I get the impression that many will adore this. For me it was just well made but poorly constructed (If that makes any sense) and though not bad it's certainly not something I'd recommend myself.
The Good:
Beautifully animated
Solid voice work
Some great ideas
The Bad:
Doesn't flow very well
Annoying characters
Set in the 1860's it tells the story of two sides competing over steam power dominance and it's potential applications. Revolving around one boy and how he gets caught up in it all because of certain family ties.
The first thing you'll notice is that it's fantastically animated, it really looks the part and though Japanese made suffers with none of the usual anime tropes. Set in England it has a fitting and very competent British voice cast including veteran Patrick Stewart who delivers as he always does.
So it looks good, it sounds good, and this wonderful almost steampunk setting is great, so why the underwhelming rating?
The story (Though decent enough) isn't handled as well as it should have been, at two hours they could have paced it considerably better. To make matters worse you have a number of detestable characters (And not entirely intentionally) that really damaged the film for me.
I appreciate what they were trying to do here and entirely see the appeal, I get the impression that many will adore this. For me it was just well made but poorly constructed (If that makes any sense) and though not bad it's certainly not something I'd recommend myself.
The Good:
Beautifully animated
Solid voice work
Some great ideas
The Bad:
Doesn't flow very well
Annoying characters