Cowboy Bebop the movie is a sci-fi,space western,neo noir movie that is part of the Cowboy Bebop tv series.
It takes place between session 23 and 24 during the late part of the series before it leads up to the final two episodes The Real Folk Blues part 1 and 2.
The story of Cowboy Bebop tv series is the misadventures of 4 bounty hunters. Spike Spiegel a laid back easy going bounty hunter with a deadly mysterious past as a ex gangster for the tv series bad guys the Red Dragon Syndicate. Faye Valentine the femme fatale who loves to gamble,shop,and scam her way throughout her life. Jet Black A former ISSP cop who left after losing his arm during a incident and due to the corruption of the world around him. Edward is a child prodigy hacker who is highly eccentric. And genius dog Ein who is a welsh promboke corgi who helps the team out during bounties.
The tv series in particular was a gateway anime during the late 1990's during toonami where anime was being introduced to America such as Dragon Ball Z. This movie was released after the series was aired as a form of "continuation" of the story in Cowboy Bebop. Due to the demand.
The film is directed the same director of the series Shinchiro Wantanabe. And it has the same team who worked on it as well Sunrise Studios.
The main characters are the bebop team are voiced by. Spike Spiegel voiced by Steve Blum,Faye Valentine voiced by Wendee Lee, Edward, Voiced by Melissa Fahn, and Jet Black voiced by Beau Bilengsea.
The voice acting is great and each voice actor captures the character remarkably. Especially Steve Blum as Spike.
The action in this film. It's as good as the series. I enjoyed the part where Spike and Elektra encounter each other while they were both looking for Vincent. And Spike uses his martial arts Jeet Kune Doo and he holds a broom like a staff fighting Elektra as she has to hunt down anyone involved looking for Vincent as this is a corporate product the Nanomachines that is used to spread a virus in the film.
The animation of the film as the film is shot in a bigger budget then the series it looks just as great as the series.
The themes familiar in Cowboy Bebop is there.
The Tv series for example uses the past quite heavily. And it's themes such as Spike's fatalistic view of the world and how he is dreaming.
One of the series trademarks is it's music. The jazz and score done by Yoko Kanno and the Seatbelts is there and they added a Arabian influence to this film as instead of New York and Hong Kong this film uses the middle east as a aesthetic influence. I should point this out this was released in September 1st 2001 10 days before 9/11 and this movie is banned in Iraq and Iran. As terrorism and violence is part of this film.
Story wise the team goes after a major bounty worth 300 million woo longs the currency of the series. After a huge terrorist attack happens on Mars. Whats the best part of the story is even if you didn’t see the show it's accessible to newcomers and friendly to those who watch the show as the show uses a stand alone plot for most of the episodes. And it doesn’t contain of the current storylines.
The team goes after Vincent voiced by Darran Norris. In the series if you kill a bounty head the bounty is off which is why the team can't kill him as the bounty would be invalid.
Also hunting for Vincent is Elektra Olvirio voiced by Jennifer Hale who has to cover up the entire mess as she is working for security for a corporation in the film.
Vincent is a amnesiac ex soldier who is hellbent on destroying mars through a virus and its up to the team to stop him. He uses Nanomachines by spreading it all over mars to infect people.
His goal albeit simple and seen before he is quite a dark villain. He can hold up his own against Spike and he's also ex-military where he fought in the war on titan a war taking place in one of Saturn's moon's in cowboy bebop.
The Movie opens with Jet and Spike going after a group of robbers holding up a convenience store.
Spike and Jet manages to take the robbers down and receive their paychecks in order to survive the crime ridden world of cowboy bebop.
We get to see more of Mars in the story. As Mars is a fully living breathing world filled with animated people and busy streets and the whether it’s a alleyway or a building the design is impressive.
The high quality audio sounded really good and there was a fair amount of extras for you to look at.
There is alot of impressive camera angles and many action scenes in the film are really over the top and exciting.
Many easter eggs like the tv show are included.
I found the save the world kind of thing to be been there done that and seen a lot in other action movies. And the story is not particularly stand out really. And I wished they could showed the other main characters more such as Faye,Jet,Ed and Ein. And there are scenes that drag on for quite a bit of time and it's not particularly interesting to watch.
But the story over is decent it has the style of the tv series and I enjoyed seeing Electra and Vincent and I enjoyed seeing the bebop crew going after their biggest bounty.
The rating I give for this film is 4 stars.
It's a fun movie and you check it out if you love cowboy bebop like I do and get into the story of cowboy bebop if you are new.