*Steamboy

Directed by Katsuhiro Otomo
Written by Sadayuki Murai, Katsuhiro Otomo

A scrappy young boy in industrial Victorian England is entrusted with an all-powerful artifact and, along with a young princess, is relentlessly pursued by mysterious MIB-types intent on possessing said artifact (which they view as the key to powering the ultimate weapon), eventually journeying far from his provincial home where he dramatically battles for control of a flying fortress and, by extension, the fate of the entire human race.

The story of which I speak is, of course, Hayao Miyazaki's wonderful 1986 fantasy adventure epic, Laputa (that's Castle in the Sky to all you Vanderbeekers out there). But, Steamboy is no slouch, either. It's gorgeous. It's just that the dork-boy in me couldn't get past the parallels. Both take place in an incredibly sumptuous Jules Verne-ish, H.G. Wells-ian world. The Scrappy Boy here is Ray Steam, who we see in an early scene beating a boy about the head with a brass pipe (now that's scrappy!). The Young Princess here is a girl named Scarlett O'Hara (no joke, and don't even get me started on the guy named Robert Stephenson), of the enigmatic O'Hara Foundation, which funds the invention by Ray's father and grandfather of the All-Powerful Artifact, the titular Steamboy, a surprisingly light iron ball that, through a combination of pure water and incredibly high pressure, provides limitless steam energy.

There are two marked ways in which Steamboy differs from Laputa: philosophy and tone. While Laputa's philosophy was limited to the decidedly Disneyesque be-nice-to-animals-and-the-environment, Steamboy is concerned with a discussion of technology itself - its purposes, the responsibility of its creators, its users. The answers, as in life, are ambiguous - it's in the questioning that humanity is found.

Fittingly, Steamboy retains an appropriately dark tone throughout. Almost the entire second act (which felt drawn out to me, and maybe this is why) takes place in the dark confines of the abovementioned fortress - all pipes and, of course, steam. The entire third act (again, a bit drawn out) is an extended action sequence where lots of people die. I mean, people died in Laputa, but never quite on-screen. Things exploded and people fell of cliffs, but you never really saw any bodies or blood. Not so here. Corpses, both innocent and guilty, bleed and fly all over the extended third act of Steamboy.

One smaller side-difference from Laputa is that, while Miyazaki's hero and heroine play Disneyesque ideals, Otomo makes the daring miscalculation (and make no mistake, it is a miscalculation, albeit a daring one) of having his female lead unrelenting in her snobbish brattiness to the very end (speaking of which, don't be fooled when the credits start rolling, as the story is very much continuing behind the silhouettes of ignorant theatergoers and, in my case, no less than three custodians who felt the need to sweep the row directly in front of me).

No written description of Steamboy could ever do it justice, as its main strengths are in its visuals and the steam-technology presented (the CG cuts, though extensive, are pretty low key until almost the very end, where the appearance of carousel horses and other carnival rides seemed designed specifically to annoy me. Well, good job). Steamboy's many cogs, wheels, zeppelins, and steam-powered suits of armor were certainly enough to make the otakus sitting in front of me cream their pants, repeatedly (is this why the custodians kept coming back?). And in the end, isn't that what a good cinematic experience is all about? And so, for this, Steamboy gets the coveted asterisk from moviesofmike. But I'm going to be watching Laputa again. Tonight.

Please to note that this film is being shown in theaters in both English and Japanese. The undubbed, subtitled Japanese cut runs roughly 26 minutes longer than the English dub, which features the voices of Anna Paquin, Patrick Stewart, and Alfred Molina. While I can't personally vouch for the English version, it is possible that the edits could help with some of the pacing issues I mentioned, and I generally find dubs performed by actual actors to be more nuanced than the generally histrionic and overenunciated performances of most American voice actors. No dub, however, can solve the biggest problem of having to add extra words just so the actors have some noises to make while the character's mouths keep moving (e.g. "What have you done with my father?" invariable becomes "What have you done with my father? Tell me now! I need to know right now! Tell me, tell me what have you done with him?") Just my thoughts. Didn't see the dub, can't vouch for it. Check with your theater before leaving the house.

P.S. I get bonus points for writing this whole thing without once mentioning the word "steampunk" (ugh).