Cowboy Bebop

I saw “Cowboy Bebop: The Movie” today. Let me add a small warning. Seeing this on opening day was probably not the best idea. The 99% adolescent male audience had dull, insipid comments to make throughout. They were only mediocre fanboys at best as true fans would have sat in shock and awe. I really don’t care if they have a crush on Edward, but every time she shows up on screen I heard “Ed is awesome.”

Let me get this out of the way. I had high hopes for Yako Kanno’s score. What she did with the TV series is great. She has a thorough understanding of musical styles and rearranges them together in clever and inventive ways. Unfortunately the movie soundtrack is mostly perfunctory with little of the vigor and excitement of the TV series score.

Ordinarily foreign language movies are poorly dubbed leaving me with a preference for subtitles. That is not the case with this one. The voice acting is really good. Even when reading slightly corny spirituality dialogue it isn’t over the top. A problem that even some good actors have as they try to overcompensate for their lack of physical presence by channeling as much as “acting” as possible through their mouth.

The animation is every bit as good as the TV series, and is a blend of 2d and 3d techniques. Anime “production design” exceeds just about anything you see in a live action movie. I suppose this is one of the ways in which animation can trounce live action since they don’t have the same budget constraints. In the TV series and the movie the details about the world of Cowboy Bebop are rich and full of nuance.

If you never watched the TV series you should still enjoy the movie. A couple of scenes are enhanced if you know the back-story: the shaman who helps Spike and the three old guys playing cards. Also the movie clearly didn’t feel the need to explain the relationship between the four main characters as the story settles in right away. I was disappointed to see Jet get so little screen time. His methodical, Sun Tzu quoting ways provide a nice counterbalance to Spike’s action. Listening: Ghost-Neutral Milk Hotel-In The Aeroplane Over The Sea