Retrospective: Cowboy Bebop – The Movie (2001)

[Kam-Hung Soh]

The crew of the spaceship Bebop, cowboys (bounty hunters) Spike Spiegel, 
Jet Black and Faye Valentine, and their companions computer hacker 
Edward and enhanced dog Ein, who previously appeared in a TV series that 
ran from 1998 to 1999, return for another adventure in this animated 
film. This time, an ex-soldier, Vincent Volajo, threatens to unleash a 
biological weapon to wipe out the people of Alpha, a Martian city. As 
the police and Spike hunt down Vincent, Spike meets Electra, an army 
investigator and Vincent's ex-lover.

The film takes place somewhere mid-series but the back story doesn't 
matter much, though newcomers might wonder why the future looks like a 
mashup of high-tech metropolises and the wild west. Director Shinichirô 
Watanabe has a bigger budget for this film than in the TV series, and 
the higher art, animation and production values are obvious. The fight 
sequences between Spike and Vincent are quite amazing without the motion 
capture technology available for later anime films. The series is well 
known for its strong jazz soundtrack, and in this film, the jazz-pop 
music by Yôko Kanno doesn't disappoint.

Too bad that the screenplay by Keiko Nobumoto, based on a story by 
Hajime Yatate, doesn't actually make sense. The film also suffers, just 
a little though, from the dreaded anime mid-film sag when characters 
ruminate on life in the most boring way possible for minutes.

For fans of the series, it's fun to watch the characters in action again.

3 out of 5 stars.
28 February 2009
Kam-Hung Soh
http://morvahouse.blogspot.com