Huievest Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Sienna-Rose Mclaughlin The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Jerrie It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

MaximumMadness 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!

Rectangular_businessman A film by the same director of the popular anime film "Akira", but I liked this better.A steam-punk tale set in London at the time when steam was discovered as a source of energy, in some slightly different and parallel history than the one we live in. London during the Industrial Revolution is recreated in detail ... and more. This is not a Ghibli production, but it is just as good, and visually amazing: the natural and architectural settings are eye-popping. And I dare to say that the human characters are better drawn than in Ghibli anime films. In a way it is better than most "real" films, because anything, and I mean anything, can be drawn, even things you could not shoot on film or video, and this is the demonstration. One of those movies you are glad you lived to watch them.

phantom_pixie 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.

arthera09 Not a great movie, but it looked fantastic. That would be the saving grace of this movie. In terms of story it is not what I am used to when it comes to my Japanese Anime. I think they did a pretty good job keeping the technology pretty centered and not totally out of the question. That must sound stupid but as I was watching it I believed the world was real. The characters dynamic was not the greatest and no one really seemed to grow at all during the movie. Relationships were not given any background so I never really cared what happened between the characters. The big fight at the end was really cool and the flying machine gave rise to some of the best animation sequences of the movie. It terms of the look of the movie it was flawless, but the story and characters were lacking so it just was not a great movie. I am probably jaded when it comes to my Anime and expect great things. After watching movies like Paprika and Mind Game I expect more craziness or more beauty like any of Miyazaki's films.