Cowboy Bebop: The Movie (2001)
Cowboy Bebop is one of the most well respected and liked anime series of all time with a unique style and attitude that would come to define Shinichirō Watanabe's career. Where many are familiar with the 1998 series, shockingly few know about 2001's Cowboy Bebop: The Movie. Spike Spiegel (Kōichi Yamadera) and the fellow crew members of the Bebop are on the hunt for the individual behind a mysterious pathogen that was released in a terrorist attack seriously harming hundreds of people. It is up to the Bebop crew to find the person behind this attack before more harm is done.
The biggest achievement within Cowboy Bebop: The Movie is the film's ability to translate the distinct style and energy of the series and translate it into a feature film. From the kickass soundtrack to the sci-fi world that feels lived in and well-realized, the things that made the Cowboy Bebop series so memorable and memorizing is easily transformed to fit the different cinematic style. There is such a distinct early 2000's voice which gives the film a unique identity, where some elements like the soundtrack which in the long run holds the threat of making the film feel dated, it undoubtedly makes it feel unique. Where the animation in the series was striking and even iconic at moments, with a bigger budget and more of a focus the animation in Cowboy Bebop: The Movie is even better. With striking uses of color, incredible detail in building the setting of Mars, and strong action sequences embracing unique shot composition and cinematography, Cowboy Bebop: The Movie is a perfect example of how visually strong this era in animation could be.
The story itself might not be the most emotional or impactful story that the Cowboy Bebop franchise would offer, it is engaging enough and has serious enough stakes to feel worthy of the feature runtime never suffering from a rough transition between short-form and long-form storytelling which plenty of films like this suffer from. Where the characters continue to be a well-crafted mixture of charisma and depth, one of the few flaws with the film is its structure. In an effort to give every character their moment, the majority is spent with each character following individual leads which causes the film to take on a strange pacing that is noticeably distracting and makes the film feel longer than it really is. Where in a 26-minute episode the story is focused enough that breaking the characters up never is given the time to feel overly drawn out, it doesn't work nearly as well with a feature runtime.
The easiest way to describe Cowboy Bebop: The Movie is that it simply is a longer episode of Cowboy Bebop. Where it might not be a top tier episode of Cowboy Bebop, it still has nearly every positive that the show has and one's relationship with the film is going to be nearly identical to their relationship with the show. It has an iconic style and well-realized world that sucks audiences and gives an action-filled mystery that keeps the film overall engaging despite some issues with the structure. As mentioned, it's not top tier Cowboy Bebop but at the end of the day it still is Cowboy Bebop which means it's worth checking out.
The easiest way to describe Cowboy Bebop: The Movie is that it simply is a longer episode of Cowboy Bebop. Where it might not be a top tier episode of Cowboy Bebop, it still has nearly every positive that the show has and one's relationship with the film is going to be nearly identical to their relationship with the show. It has an iconic style and well-realized world that sucks audiences and gives an action-filled mystery that keeps the film overall engaging despite some issues with the structure. As mentioned, it's not top tier Cowboy Bebop but at the end of the day it still is Cowboy Bebop which means it's worth checking out.