christian nutt (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} ferricide) wrote,@ 2008-07-20 17:31:00 |
|
スチームボーイ
i just finished watching steamboy for the first time.
last night after i got home from the airport, tired as hell, i decided to watch akira to unwind. i hadn't watched it for a couple of years. something about the dark knight made me want to watch it, though i am hard-pressed to come up with any sort of elegant theory as to what that is; something about the tone.
i really enjoyed akira, of course, again, and found myself able to observe it with something of a fresh perspective and notice a few little things. but i don't have any exciting insights, there, either.
this afternoon i decided i wanted to watch a DVD and, really, i wanted to watch akira again, almost. but i decided instead to finally throw in steamboy.
steamboy came out in 2005 in the US, and i missed it in its brief theatrical run. rumors about its production problems culminated in a lack of hype or positive reviews, and it didn't last long. i ended up buying the DVD, which came out in 2005 as well -- july 26, according to amazon -- and never watched it. it was hard to get excited about a movie from otomo that nobody seemed to like. i guess i didn't want to find out for myself that it wasn't that good.
well, it's got problems. i am not sure what to even say about it. it shares a number of themes with akira but doesn't seem to present them in a particularly compelling way; it's a bit more difficult to wrap your head around a completely fictionalized take on victorian england than it is on futuristic tokyo -- or it is for me, anyway. i'm just sat there going "but this isn't possible" most of the time.
from a production standpoint, it's a pretty astounding film, with great production design, animation, and artwork. there's nothing to impugn in that regard. but the story is overlong, falls flat, has weak characterization and takes a really long time to get up to steam (ha ha.) somehow steamboy crosses some lines; it's boring about its presentation of its main themes, it's dissatisfying from an action or visual perspective despite being pretty amazingly well-produced, and it's just not compelling from a story perspective.
it's sad to say, but in the end, it defines a rental. metropolis, which otomo wrote and which was directed by rintaro, is much tighter and more satisfying.
i just finished watching steamboy for the first time.
last night after i got home from the airport, tired as hell, i decided to watch akira to unwind. i hadn't watched it for a couple of years. something about the dark knight made me want to watch it, though i am hard-pressed to come up with any sort of elegant theory as to what that is; something about the tone.
i really enjoyed akira, of course, again, and found myself able to observe it with something of a fresh perspective and notice a few little things. but i don't have any exciting insights, there, either.
this afternoon i decided i wanted to watch a DVD and, really, i wanted to watch akira again, almost. but i decided instead to finally throw in steamboy.
steamboy came out in 2005 in the US, and i missed it in its brief theatrical run. rumors about its production problems culminated in a lack of hype or positive reviews, and it didn't last long. i ended up buying the DVD, which came out in 2005 as well -- july 26, according to amazon -- and never watched it. it was hard to get excited about a movie from otomo that nobody seemed to like. i guess i didn't want to find out for myself that it wasn't that good.
well, it's got problems. i am not sure what to even say about it. it shares a number of themes with akira but doesn't seem to present them in a particularly compelling way; it's a bit more difficult to wrap your head around a completely fictionalized take on victorian england than it is on futuristic tokyo -- or it is for me, anyway. i'm just sat there going "but this isn't possible" most of the time.
from a production standpoint, it's a pretty astounding film, with great production design, animation, and artwork. there's nothing to impugn in that regard. but the story is overlong, falls flat, has weak characterization and takes a really long time to get up to steam (ha ha.) somehow steamboy crosses some lines; it's boring about its presentation of its main themes, it's dissatisfying from an action or visual perspective despite being pretty amazingly well-produced, and it's just not compelling from a story perspective.
it's sad to say, but in the end, it defines a rental. metropolis, which otomo wrote and which was directed by rintaro, is much tighter and more satisfying.
