Region: 1
Video: Enhanced Widescreen Letterbox for 16x9 TV
DVD Aspect Ratio: Theatre Wide-Screen (1.85:1)
Audio: Dolby Digital w/ sub-woofer channel
  Dolby Digital Surround
Language: English, japanese, French, Spanish, Portuguese
Subtitles: English, French, Spanish, Portuguese
Weight factor: 1 item(s)

Plot Synopsis

Katsuhiro Otomo, director of the groundbreaking anime feature Akira (1988), returns with this visually striking fusion of the past and the future. It's the Industrial Age in England, reimagined, and various and sundry inventors and scientists are arriving in Britain to hawk their products while capitalism rears its ugly head. A gadget-happy British lad named Ray (voice of Anna Paquin) receives a mysterious package from his grandfather Lloyd Steam (Patrick Stewart) -- a tiny ball that turns out to be an engine toting immense power. As it happens, several of these little balls run the O'Hara pavilion, a massive, mobile fortress. Ray later discovers that his dad and grandfather are located inside of the pavilion; his dad, Eddie, has become mesmerized by O'Hara and subject to their whims, while Lloyd suspects that O'Hara may want to use the balls for nefarious purposes, and tries to put a definitive end to those plans. Indeed, the O'Hara people soon take over the Great Exhibition and turn it into a veritable circus for weapons dealers. Meanwhile, Ray starts to develop feelings for a young girl named Scarlett O'Hara. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Editorial Reviews:

It's easy to see why Steamboy, the long-awaited film by Akira director Katsuhiro Otomo, took over ten years to come to fruition. The movie is positively bursting with words, images, opinions, characters, and sweeping gestures--elements that in their overabundance, all detract from each other. Steamboy takes a science fiction look at the birth of the steam age, heavy-handedly casting this revolutionary source of power in the light of today's conflict over nuclear energy. This controversy within the story ignites endless debate between its characters over the true purpose of science, often depicting the polarization with too much bluster to ring true. While it may be a drawback for the film's subtext to hit like a bag of hammers, there is little fault to find with its dauntless art direction. The movie is stylistically epic, sparing no expense with frame upon frame of ornately detailed imagery that frequently overshadows the film's high-minded commentary. Steamboy's aforementioned themes about scientific ethics generate a lot of dialogue, and it appears that Otomo tries to balance all this talk with lengthy action sequences. Unfortunately, more often than not this dichotomy of flashy movement vs. talky exposition has a herky-jerky, stop-start effect, leaving audiences alternately bored and over-stimulated. It's a shame, because Otomo remains an articulate filmmaker. Many of his narrative choices are clever and skillful, such as his use the pubescent character Ray to illustrate not just youthful idealism, but the inevitability of change. Sadly, even Ray's eloquence is swallowed up by Otomo's huge cinematic appetite, as the less than compelling secondary characters in Steamboy tend to steal focus. Ray's only peer, a little girl named Scarlett, is possibly the most gratingly irritating character to ever appear in an anime feature film, while his grandfather spends most of the movie wandering shirtless through the dark corridors of a power plant, raving in a Scottish accent and just begging to be made into a Saturday Night Live character. Perhaps Steamboy would be less of a disappointment if its creator wasn't considered by many to be one of the most important names in anime. Regardless, it's a film that reflects ambition more than achievement. ~ Cammila Albertson, All Movie Guide