Review: Cowboy Bebop: The movie

Also known as Cowboy Bebop the Movie: Knockin' on Heaven's Door

staring
English:
Steven Blum Beau Billingslea Wendee Lee Melissa Fahn Jennifer Hale
Daran Norris Nicholas Guest Dave Wittenberg

Release date: September 1, 2001
Running time 116 minutes
English Box office $150,671,348

Early in the last decade, when I really started being interested in Anime, One of the series that really caught my interest was the series Cowboy Bebop. It was not cut of the mill. Not easy to figure out. What was a bebop....why such a fascination with the blues. Figure it out as you go, very little back story.

Not many chances were taken with the movie. You will recognize all the characters of the bounty hunter crew of the spaceship Bebop; Spike, Faye, Jet, Ed and Ein. In the movies as in the series, everyone is down to their last resources so the bounty hunters take the job offered by the Martian government to find out who is the government with a viral attack and eliminating the threat.

Those that are familiar with the series will be familiar with the progression...Ed invariably finds a computer solution, Faye finds that her “femininity” gets her into more trouble than helping, Spike is constantly laid back and sarcastic but rises to a threat quickly, Jet is the group’s glue, holding down the fort and a foil to Spikes humor. I always considered Jet the one true adult in the group.

So as you can see...Bebop the movie is a series fan’s movie. Not really a good introduction to the Bebop universe and more a treat for fans.

The animation is good, the acting is dead on and the overall plot certainly knows where it’s roots are. But it IS a fan’s movie and would not be for those that have not experienced the series to some extent, so maybe a bit off for lack of general appeal and for as much as the animation was touted by today’s standards is is a bit flat, but that is nit picking. Movie would get an easy 7.

Extras ABOUND!! and it’s a DVD!! Brings home just how cheap and lazy some disk purveyors are! How many blu-ray have we seen with bupkis for extras?! This has interviews, featurettes but lacks a directors audio track, but no great loss there. 9 for extras which gives the movie an overall good solid 8