"Bang." (Cowboy Bebop (DVD))

Member Name: thegoldencat

Product:	Cowboy Bebop (DVD)
Date:	22/11/08 (65 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Funny, exciting and entertaining jazzy fun.

Disadvantages: Essentially a long episode, but you guessed that right?

Overview
The "Cowboy bebop" movie is based on the short running but massively popular anime series of the same name. Therefore to fans of the series this an essential purchase. To non-fans the plot is self explanatory and doesn't require any specialist series knowledge to follow.

Review
Most people looking to buy this film will be so fond of the series that I could write that it was worse than Son of the Mask and Battlefield Earth put together and they still woudn't care, they'd buy it anyway. Well happily it isn't, but unfortunately it just isn't as good as it could have been.

The reason for such devout fans is that Cowboy Bebop is an outstanding series that everyone should try to see at some point. Style is the name of the game. Cowboy Bebop drips style from every pore. And like some sort of anime Fawlty Towers they only made 26 episodes but each: a superbly crafted story of its own with the main plot line arcing hap-hazardly with lugubrious mysteriousness in and out as the series progresses. Cowboy Bebop sure as hell leaves you wanting more. And that 'more' could constitute this film.

Somewhat dissapointingly Cowboy Bebop does not take up after the series finishes but seems to take place somewhere in the middle so you can watch it wherever you're up to or as I said even if you have no knowledge of the series. It could then function as an introduction.

Cowboy Bebop takes place in the year 2071. Humanity has left Earth, spread out and colonised numerous planets all connected by hyperspace gates. Crime has soared and is far beyond the control of the ISSP, the police of the galaxy. Officially sanctioned bounty hunters known as cowboys are relied upon to capture criminals with the bounty ranging higher or lower dependant on the dangerousness of the criminal(s). While technology has advanced in terms of space travel, elsewhere things have stalled. Cowboys still rely on current technology such as pistols. That and their wits, of course.

The crew of the Bebop are bounty hunters and each is skilled in their own way. They're a dispirate and oddball bunch. Spike the main character is one cool cat; a martial arts specialist and former gangster, he has something of a troubled past. Jet owns the Bebop and struggles, often vainly, to hold the rest together. A solitary soul he is a former member of the aformentioned ISSP. Faye Valentine is a beautiful amnesiac and seemingly a good bounty hunter but generally just a burden to the others. Edward is female despite androgynous appearances and acts as though slightly insane most of the time, she is a hacker prodigy though and seemingly the most intelligent of the crew as well as the most annoying.

A long running theme and source of humour in the series is that however hard they try the crew of the Bebop never seem to end up getting their big payday bounty and live in relative poverty, for much of the time surviving on very little food. Much to Spike's obvious disgust, for like many main characters in anime he is obsessed with food. Prosperity functions as the long-term unreachable aim in the series, without which it would be nothing. If they actually got rich there would be no reason to watch any more. (Remember Only fools and Horses.)

The plot of the movie revolves around a sinister and mysterious airborne contagion that wipes out everyone in range of its exposure. As the conspiracy deepens I was reminded of The Constant Gardener in the sense of that film's portrayal of evil and desperate pharmeceutical companies, which seems to be some sort of recurring modern theme of late. Its interesting enough. The trouble is it all feels a bit insubstantial and incongruous. The threat never seems overly formidable and at one point Spike engages in a thoroughly entertaining and spectacular but utterly irrelevent aerial battle with army jets. It just felt crowbarred in. Its not really made clear why the army come after him in the first place. The line in the film is something like:
"Oh great a bored army."
What? So the army try to shoot down aerial traffic without warning because they're bored? I don't get it.

Spike is required to use his fists more often than his firearms. This is good as unarmed combat is ever a highlight of Cowboy Bebop.
The martial arts combat in the movie is fast, frenzied and frenetic. Often to the accompaniment of, and synchronised perfectly with jazz music; the fight scenes in this film are simply a triumph and a joy to behold. Spike manages to make even Jason Bourne look slow and clumsy with his curious long-limbed style.

Cowboy Bebop the movie is essentially an extended episode. A lot of the self contained episodes in the series were so successful because they gave the impression of a larger story contracted into a smaller tighter 20 minute period. The result is the edgy and singular Cowboy Bebop. Unfortunately for this film we have the converse effect; a smaller story stretched out into a longer running time. Cowboy Bebop the movie doesn't quite seem to know what to do with this extra time and can drag slightly as a result.

That gripe aside, the main problem with Cowboy Bebop is that there are a whole lot of better episodes. When you make a film of a series, the most important thing you have to do is raise the stakes higher than they have ever been before. The choice of doing a self contained story for the film rather than continuing the main story arc would have been fine if this had been achieved. But even though the whole world is threatened (when isn't it?) you never really feel that sense of high stakes danger and intrigue which the series has so effortlessly evoked with much smaller scale threats.

Although this has mostly been a negative review, that ire has been targetted exclusively to some specifics of this film. The inner core of Cowboy Bebop; the interplay between the main players, the snappy dialogue, the joyously edgy but beautiful set-pieces remain untarnished and that alone makes this film worth watching. And as for the jazz soundtrack, well thats the heartbeat of Bebop, it gives life and rythm to all that takes place and renders everything effortlessly stylish and cool.

I am very much aware of the fact that I've used the word 'style' and its variants a lot in this review. And I'll use it again. Cowboy Bebop is stylish as hell. Get into it, see this film when you do. Its alright.

Summary: A solid, well made film of a superior anime series.