May 25, 2017
Cowboy Bebop: The Movie/Cowboy bebop: Tengoku no Tobira is a film by Shinichirō Watanabe, and a great reference to highlight the faults of television film adaptations.
Cowboy Bebop: The Movie falls into the common pitfall of feature film television adaptations. It essentially takes what could have been a 24 minute episode of the original show, and stretches it into a 2 hour film. This results in severe pacing issues and an excessive amount of narrative padding. This alone would be enough to severely weaken a film, but Cowboy Bebop: The Movie's problems stretch beyond that. Pretentious, pseudo-philosophical dialogue and a terribly weak supporting cast result in
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a film with a frankly crippled story that would've been better left untold.
The plot itself is fairly solid on paper. It's fairly cohesive and easy to follow. The first act starts off well, with the main cast going through the motions and setting the tone of the film to mirror that of the TV show. However by the second act, it becomes very obvious that it wasn't written with 2 hours of storytelling in mind, and this is the fundamental reason why the film doesn't work. In order to fill the two hour run-time, the second act is padded with unnecessary scenes of exposition. Worse still is that much of the same information is reiterated over and over multiple times. When you aren't watching Jet get spoon-fed information, you're watching Spike get spoon-fed the same information instead. This results in a very dull 2nd act, which unfortunately has repercussions on the third act. The action ramps up suddenly and the tone has several odd shifts. You're juggling an intense dogfight between space ships and a comedic sequence involving old fashioned aircraft, followed by a sombre gun-fu fight to finish the film. All of which comes out of nowhere and, thanks to the poor pacing, fails to engage the discerning audience member.
The art is, as you would expect from a high budget animated film, excellent. I read that the Director attempted to employ live-action Cinema camera techniques into the film, and you can tell. The shot composition is excellent, particularly in the fight sequences. It's almost like watching a Bruce Lee film at times. The art style of the show is perfectly replicated and the shift to the cinematic 1.85:1 aspect ratio instead of the series' 4:3 means there's a lot more picture for the audience to enjoy this time around. The celluloid shots ooze with detail not often seen in today's digital animation. Certainly a great improvement to the show's already excellent visuals.
The sound design is decent although I noticed a slight drop in quality in the English dub of my Blu-Ray copy compared to the original TV series, particularly noticeable in Jet's (Beau Billingslea) lines. The music, produced by series composer Yoko Kanno, is of a high standard, although there's a notable lack of Big Band or Bebop tracks this time. The film's best track "What Planet is This?", being the sole exception. Performed by The Seatbelts, the same outrageously skilled band that recorded many of the show's best tracks, and it ranks among the best pieces of music the franchise has to offer. It's a real shame that this track is the only one that bears semblance to the classic Bebop sound that defined the show. The other tracks are relatively forgettable, and none of them wow me the way that the show's Tank, Rush, Space Lion, Road to the West and even Ave Maria did.
The characters are unfortunately one of the show's weakest elements. As stated before, the film runs for 2 hours, and a lot of the responsibility for keeping things entertaining falls to the primary cast, who return from the TV series. Spike, Jet, Faye, Ed and Ein are present and are just as they were during the early third act of the show. Unfortunately, they lack some the charisma and energy they possessed in the show. I suppose it's to be expected. No cast, regardless of how strong, can hold a film up on its own. Things only get worse when you look at the film's original characters. Most of them are bland archetypes and not worth the time it would take to discuss them. Only one is important to the plot; Elektra. Elektra is a secondary protagonist, initially introduced as a obstacle in the way of our heroes. She ends up fighting alongside them by the end of the show and she plays an important part in deciphering the nature of the film's villain, a menacing terrorist known only as Vincent.
Vincent is a complicated character to talk about, but certainly not for the reasons Watanabe likely intended. He's frankly a bit of a mess. His dialogue is baffling. He speaks in lofty pseudo-philosophical prose. This would be bad enough, but many of his lines are also written rather inelegantly. At one point he compares the notion of dying to "dreaming in silence". I can't help but wonder if it's the result of a bad translation from the original Japanese. It sticks out a lot, especially when compared to the TV show's excellently localized script. Another odd choice is his character design. He bears an extremely strong facial resemblance to protagonist Spike Spiegel. So much so that I initially assumed it would be a major plot point. Think about it. This is the Cowboy Bebop movie! Of course there was going to be a great villain! What better opponent could there be for Spike to face than a member of his own family? Or even a clone? The possibilities are endless! Overall, Vincent is a very underwhelming villain. He doesn't compare to the TV show's Vicious, who while also being rather 2 dimensional, had an elegant menace to him that made him a joy to watch. He was a perfect mirror to Spike's unkempt charm.
Overall, the film is a passable watch the first time through, but it holds very little rewatch value and the enjoyment factor fades before the halfway mark on repeat viewings. As a fan, all the film really managed to do was make me sad and bitter that we hadn't gotten a better film. It's not bad enough that I actively dislike it, but it doesn't entertain me anywhere near as much as the show does. On it's own it's a decent enough film, but it pales so much in comparison to the show that I can't encourage any series veterans to seek it out.
If you're looking for a good action flick, you'll do better looking elsewhere.
If you're looking for a good Cowboy Bebop experience, you're better off rewatching the series, and saving yourself the disappointment of seeing how this franchise went out.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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