Customer Reviews

Cowboy Bebop - The Movie

5 star:		(183)
4 star:		(43)
3 star:		(16)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

Based on the very popular and successful TV series, "Cowboy Bebop: The Movie" is one entertaining thrill ride that really shows how effective anime can really be when it is done correctly. It's hard to think of a cartoon being so action-packed and involving, but this movie does a splendid job of doing just that. You're plunged right into the nail-biting action that will have you glued to your seat until it is well over.

The movie revolves around a bunch of outlaw bounty hunters. In Mars, there's a suspected terrorist running around with a virus that could very well wipe out the existence of human beings. Spike and company decide to take the case, as there is a large reward that will be given to the person or persons who catches the madman. The only trouble is that Spike and the gang have stumbled onto something that is much more than a simple bounty and end up discovering a big conspiracy that will throw their lives into ultimate danger. The action and excitement never ends until the shocking finale.

I watched the movie TWICE in one day. Right after I had seen it for the first time, I had to immediately watch it again. You know a movie is powerful when it has that kind of effect on you. Very rarely do I run into movies that make me want to watch it again right then and there. When you're watching "Cowboy Bebop," you really don't view it as an animated feature, but as a real living and breathing film. It is done that well. And, the great thing about this movie is that you do not have to have seen the show before. I watched this without seeing any of the shows and was able to follow it without any problems. Of course, chances are that you will want to watch the series after viewing the movie. The story is well thought out and appropriately structured. There isn't a single dull moment in the entire movie.

A little warning; although this is an animated feature, the movie is rated R. While it is certainly more mild than most anime, the movie does contain violence and language. I don't think this is anything for very young children, but I don't see a reason why older teens shouldn't be able to enjoy it.

The DVD has some nifty features to offer. First off, the picture quality is GORGEOUS. Even though it is an animated movie, the picture quality is fantastic and it really shows if you have great home theater system. The sound is also very good. Extras included are featurettes, music videos, storyboard comparisons, trailers and more. You can also watch it in the original Japanese audio track or the dubbed English one. I have to say, they do a great job of dubbing it in English. If you're not a fan of subtitles, then check it out in English. Overall, a very cool DVD package.

If you're looking for a wild and exciting trip filled with humor and thrills, "Cowboy Bebop: The Movie" is just for you. Again, you do not have to have seen the actual TV series to understand the characters or the story. The movie does a fine job of standing on its own. This is truly a great movie that shows you just how exciting anime can be. Definitely a favorite. -Michael Crane

Spike, Jet, Faye and Ed go after a Bio-terrorist worth a LOT of money. Good music from start to end (stay for the credits), with lots of humor and the characters are the same ones we love from the series, no changes like they do with other anime characters when they put them onto the big screen. Lovely camera shots, good quality work and you can tell they spent a lot of time working on the details. When the DVD comes out with lots of extras and both subtitles and dubbing in the English, you can BET your life I'm going to buy it. If you can't wait the DVD is already out from Japan (English subtitles only).
Try to see it on the big screen first. Not only does it seem to live, to reach out and touch you, but you're with other fans of Cowboy Bebop. How can you lose?
Even Ein has a few good scenes!!!
Go see it!

This movie has been described as an extended-length episode of the clever and well-shot Cowboy Bebop series; an unfair comparison. Knockin' On Heaven's Door, which assuredly takes place somewhere in the middle of the series, follows bounty hunters (or cowboys) Spike, Faye, Jet, Ed and Ein in pursuit of a tremendous 300,000,000 wooloong bounty by the name of Vincent, who has the capacity and drive to remove everyone from the face of the planet. It does sound like just another episode, with raised stakes, but the movie offers more than just that. The art and "camera" movement are much more polished than the series, and the fight scenes (which may be the among if not the best hand-to-hand-to-broom-to-coffee maker combat scenes caught in ink) also reach a higher level of activity and smoothness. The plot isn't convuluted; you'll enjoy it a lot more if you watch at least five or six episodes of the series, but the movie is easy enough to follow and self-supporting.
"_____ the Movie" efforts often take on their own lives, and offer nothing toward the originating series, but Heaven's Door is an exception. The tale perhaps provides some insight into Spike's invulnerability and willingness to enter death or death situations; gives some more color to the "Julia" storyline; and just provides more interaction among the main crew of the Bebop.
Expect many beautifully shot moments to appropriate music, similar to the first Vicious-Spike encounter in the series.

Can't go wrong with it, and is at the least, worth your money.

My review is aimed primarily at those unfamiliar with Cowboy Bebop and of the world of anime itself, as Cowboy Bebop: The Movie represents my first baby step into a cinematic style I have been curious about for some time. Obviously, I can't compare this film to others of its kind, nor can I comment on how well this movie ties in to the original Cowboy Bebop series. I can only say how much I enjoyed the movie and offer my own comments, for whatever they are worth, about the format of the presentation.

This was a new kind of viewing experience for me, and while I enjoyed the movie a great deal, parts of the storyline took a while to sink in or missed me altogether; I'm sure this is because I have no familiarity with the original series. Spike Spiegel is certainly an interesting character; I would not call him an antihero, but he is certainly a hero of a different stripe, as is his whole gang of fellow bounty hunters. Spike can be cryptic at times, and he spends a lot of time sleeping. When the time for action comes, however, he is up and at 'em, doing superheroic things in spectacular fashion. Then there is Faye Valentine, a partner who pretty much does her own thing and looks good doing it. She and Spike almost seem to be working at cross purposes at times, but their own paths converge eventually; the relationship between the two is a mystery to me. Former policeman Jet Black is the general of the bunch, but his arguments for slow, methodical action are rarely acknowledged by Spike and Faye. The most unusual character, particularly for a Cowboy Bebop neophyte such as myself, is young Edward, apparently some kind of hacker savant who oftentimes speaks in a child-like language all her own. Lest I forget, I should also mention the wunderdog Ein.

When a tanker truck explodes in the middle of a crowded city, unleashing some type of unknown agent that kills everyone who comes into contact with it, a huge reward is promised to anyone who discovers the culprit and brings him to justice. This reward gets Spike and the gang right on the case, one in which they have a head start - Faye actually saw the man who drove the tanker. This is no regular old bounty hunt, though, as our intrepid heroes soon discover. The man behind the terrorism is planning to kill everyone on the planet with the unknown agent in his possession, and there is precious little time to stop him and save the world. Treating the tanker explosion as an act of bioterrorism, scientists work feverishly to identify what they think is a virus while both the cops and the military make moves to find and stop the terrorist from striking again. Spike and Faye wind their way into this seething world of mystery and hidden danger, only to find that identifying the culprit makes their job that much harder.

There is plenty of great action throughout the movie, including several fights and a number of spectacular chases by both land and air. I had a hard time getting a real grip on the story until I made it pretty far into the movie, but the story is a compelling one from the very beginning. Visually, the film is a joy to watch, exhibiting levels of incredible detail and fluidity of movement, really bringing to life every character in the story. More striking than the visuals, though, is the sound. The soundtrack of cutting edge music fits perfectly with the evolving story and stands out as one of the more memorable features of Cowboy Bebop: The Movie. Don't make the mistake of dismissing this film and others like it as mere fancy cartoons. Cowboy Bebop: The Movie is a marvelous, gritty, realistic presentation of a breathtaking world of serious intrigue and excitement.

I was lucky enough to live in a place where this movie got a nice wide release... Even though I had already imported the movie and watched it, I wanted to see how they did with the dubbing. In all honesty, I think this is one of the best dubbing jobs EVER done in any anime series. The movie is great, it plays out just like the series did... and keeping in mind that this plays between sessions... and is truly intended to be just a 2 hour long episode, I think it's great. I've seen a couple of reviews saying that they didn't like this movie... that's fine, but I don't think that should detract from the rating that this movie deserves. I loved this movie, so of course I think it deserves a 5/5. And I hated Akira... but I could still respect it enough to see that there was something really really good there... just not my thing. Even if this isn't for everybody, that doesn't mean that it isn't good.
And it IS good. It is very very good. If you're not a fan of cowboy bebop, you probably won't like the movie... but if you are a fan, I don't see how you could NOT like it.

I love this movie. It's a long Cowboy Bebop episode and as such it's just fine. It has the humor and drama that one can expect from Cowboy Bebop and our beloved bounty hunters are back and in fine form and the stakes are higher than ever.

My review isn't so much about the movie itself but about the blu ray transfer. The video is very nice, better than the DVD, and the new font they used for the subtitles is very clean and I thought easy to read. The main menu is VASTLY different and does not use music from the movie like the DVD's menus do. It's rather nice and simple to navigate. Those are the positives.

Now for the negatives:

This blu ray only has 2 channel sound while the DVD has 5.1 surround.

This blu ray is missing all extras, not even trailers. If you want the interviews and the storyboard comparison, stick with the DVD.

In at least two places, the subtitles takes perfectly good translations and makes them wrong. I speak enough Japanese to be able to tell the difference, but one of them I verified with a native speaker. In several places near the beginning of the movie the subtitle is at the top of the screen. A couple of those relocations made sense, but the rest were inexplicable. If you watch it subtitled, stick with the DVD.

I only gave this 2 stars for my massive disappointment in the blu ray release. It would have been better if they charged a bit more for it and gave it parity with the DVD. The product description DOES say that there are no extras, but it doesn't tell you that the audio is only 2 channel.

I've watched this movie at LEAST a dozen times and I expect I'll watch it another dozen times, but it will be the DVD. The blu ray will gather dust if I don't sell it.

Being a big fan of the series and the movie, I was excited to see the movie hitting Blu-Ray (and at a budget price!)

The movie is back from 2001 and includes the same voice cast as the series -- it's a very fun and enjoyable film for fans of the series. The other reviews will go more into the story -- this is a review of the Blu-Ray.

The Blu-Ray comes in at a budget price, which isn't always a good sign, and at first glance it's easy to see where stuff is "missing". All of the original extras from the DVD are gone (the DVD included 6 Behind the Scenes features, music videos, art galleries, storyboard comparisons, character profiles and trailers). The Dolby 5.1 tracks (english/japanese) are also gone, replaced with LPCM Stereo (2.0) tracks instead. There is no 5.1 mix included on the Blu-Ray.

VIDEO: The clarity varies a bit throughout - some scenes look much better than others, but for a budget release it looks very nice. It does have a lot of grain (unlike newer Anime titles being released), which at least means they didn't use digital noise reduction on it (which affects the clarity as well). It doesn't "pop" like a lot of the newer TV series' and movies on Blu-Ray, but it does a good job.

AUDIO: While disappointing that the 5.1 mixes are gone, the 2.0 mix is good. It loses a lot of the surround effects you get with a dedicated 5.1 system, but it was better than I was expecting from a stereo mix.

EXTRAS: Nothing

Overall - It's a great movie at a great price. Video is improved over the DVD, while the audio is a bit questionable (it is lossless, but only 2 channel). The lack of any extras is disappointing, but somewhat acceptable considering it's a budget title. Even owning the DVD, I feel it's worth picking the blu-ray up.

To put it simply, this a must have for any movie buff, not to mention the legion of Cowboy Bebop fans who fell in love with the series like I have. I know that all of the loyal fans don't need a review to tell them that this is a great movie, but even with that I have to say this movie lives up to and surpasses the bar set by the series. The animation is crisp and beautiful; the soundtrack is quirky and rich in dept and style. When you watch the movie you'll be spellbound by the uniqueness of its visuals and how great everything looks and feels. There's never a dull moment, from action to suspense this movie delivers on every aspect.

The movie takes place around the 21st - 23rd (Just my guess!) episode of the series, and like the series it doesn't rely on you knowing what happen in previous episodes. It's self-contained and there is no reliance to the storylines of the series. Spike, Faye, Jet, Edward and Ein get themselves involved in another adventure that only leads to more trouble for the bebop crew. When a terrorist threatens the lives of all the planet's inhabitants the only ones that can save the day and prevent the disaster is of course the crew of the bebop. The movie keeps everything you loved in the series and expands it to a longer format, the same voice actors and the overall tone and setting of the series stays intact. The added length of a movie has given Watanabe the ability to explore more of Spike's personality, you get to see a different side of Spike and get a better sense of his feelings for Julia.

There are countless things to love about the movie and I hope that the casual moviegoer gives it a chance, because it deserves to be seen by more than just us anime lovers.

Do not get me wrong at all, you are not about to read a negative review, but all I'm saying is that while I enjoyed this movie and it had all the qualities of a Bebop episode...thats basically all it was. It was an hour and a half long episode. While that means its fun to watch, I was hoping it might offer some insight into the show's characters or their personality. Instead its fairly typical Bebop formula: there's a bad guy, Jet handles police corruption while Spike goes off on his own, gets beat up, vows vengeance, and has a showdown with the villain at the end.

The music is good, the action's good, the series' characters are all in there (including the three old guys that are always popping in randomly), but it didn't break any new grounds. Its basically your typical Series-to-Film movie. I don't really call this a "classic," although its certainly worth your time.

Full disclosure: I am not an anime fan. I think most of it is overrated, pointlessly weird and annoying. My girlfriend, however, is a big otaku (that's the word, isn't it?) who watches everything from Akira to Hellsing to Yu Yu Hakusho to Escaflowne to Inuyasha (another disclosure: I'm reading these titles off of her shelf right now). She's always asking me to watch something or other, and I always beg my way out of it by offering to do something, ANYTHING else. I can't remember the number of nights I've ended up washing the dishes when it was her turn just because I wanted to avoid some goofy anime. However, that changed a few years back I was introduced to Cowboy Bebop. After discovering that I was a die-hard Browncoat (i.e., "Firefly" fan), my girlfriend said she had the perfect anime for me to try (for reasons that soon became obvious), and threw Cowboy Bebop into the DVD player. All it took was one viewing of that iconic series opener with silent glimpses of the shooting; by the time that rose fell onto that wet, glistening street, I was hooked. I've since taken further tentative steps into the anime genre, but nothing has been as purely satisfying on a storytelling level as "Cowboy Bebop", nor have I come across a more compelling group of characters than down-and-out bounty hunter Spike, ex-cop Jet, con woman Faye, and goofy Ed with canine genius Ein. Later, I tried out the movie (having bought it for her as a birthday present some months before) and found that great as well, if a bit hard to follow for noobs like myself. We've been waiting for the series and the movie to come out on Blu-Ray in the US. After several years of waiting, the movie is finally out, albeit from Image instead of Sony. So how does it stack up?

The Cowboy Bebop movie was originally released on Region 1 DVD in the US by Columbia TriStar. It came with a generous (maybe too generous) slate of extras, 5.1 Dolby mixes for English and Japanese languages and easy-to-read subtitles. My girlfriend was in heaven with all the featurettes and interviews with the likes of Yoko Kanno (the woman who did all of the great music for the show) and the English-version voice cast. Honestly, I was exhausted trying to get through it all at the time.

I won't be exhausted by this Blu-Ray, though, because it doesn't even have any special features. Most likely, the special features on the original DVD were either produced or licensed exclusively by Sony. I don't particularly mind that Image was unable or unwilling to acquire all of the features (it helps keep the overall price down, for one thing), but not even a measly featurette? This Blu-Ray, like many of Image's releases over the years, is strictly a no-frills affair that has one thing going for it: the audio/video presentation. On that basis, the Blu-Ray scores big points over the DVD, with one major exception. Video is crisp and clean, a noticeable improvement over the DVD. The audio is where it gets a little tricky. As I said, the original DVD had English and Japanese 5.1 audio tracks. The new Blu-Ray has PCM 2.0 audio. Really, I couldn't tell a difference when comparing them as far as sonic detail. The PCM audio really kicked out of my speakers, but if you're used to the original audio or just love the full surround experience (compressed sound and all), stick with the DVD.

A previous reviewer mentioned that there are some mistakes (and at least two flat-out unnecessary changes) in the subtitle translation on this release. I spotted one by comparing with the DVD and my girlfriend noticed at least three. Being a fan of Asian action movies, one thing I am a stickler about is subtitle accuracy. To me, it's not as egregious as, say, anything Dragon Dynasty has done with their catalog (stupid Weinsteins), but it may bother you.

Overall, I think the video is a decent enough upgrade over the DVD that it should be an easy purchase for most fans. As others have said, though, hold on to your DVDs if the bonus content is a big deal for you. Just don't hold out for a better version any time soon, though. With rights issues being what they are, and with every big media company buying up beloved small properties only to sit on them for years and years (as Sony and others have done in the past), there's no telling when another version will come down the pipe. That's how it's been for Asian action movies, and I don't imagine anime is much different, from a business standpoint.

Watch the movie on Blu, keep the DVD for the features.

Movie: 4.5
Blu-Ray: 3.5
Overall: 4