Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

This is ultimately a movie about the very bad things that can happen when we don't address our unease, when we just try to brush it off, whether that's to fit in or to preserve our self-image.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Blistering performances.

I bought this Steampunk Anime movie expecting an alternate time line story. What showed up (when I could see it after turning up the LCD TV's brightness and contrast) was a version of Jules Verne's "Captain Nemo and the Steam Tower That Refused To Die." Inventive? Yes, the world of the Steam family, menaced by different tribes of would-be venture capitalists for a steam ball was different. Family members at war with each other over SCIENCE or COMMERCE made things as murky as the elevator ride to the Steam Tower's control tower level. The action level varied from "Hold on to your hat!" to "Snooze warning: justification lectures and ethics arguments galore!" to "It's time for 'War of the Corporate Scum!" All in all, "Akira" was more coherent, but I'd like to see what Otomo is up to next. By the way, I watched the Japanese language version with English subtitles.

A film by the same director of the popular anime film "Akira", but I liked this better.A steam-punk tale set in London at the time when steam was discovered as a source of energy, in some slightly different and parallel history than the one we live in. London during the Industrial Revolution is recreated in detail ... and more. This is not a Ghibli production, but it is just as good, and visually amazing: the natural and architectural settings are eye-popping. And I dare to say that the human characters are better drawn than in Ghibli anime films. In a way it is better than most "real" films, because anything, and I mean anything, can be drawn, even things you could not shoot on film or video, and this is the demonstration. One of those movies you are glad you lived to watch them.

I'd heard good things about this film but was somewhat disappointed as soon as I put the disc in and found it didn't include the original Japanese language sound track as I prefer to watch my anime subbed rather than dubbed. When the film started I soon put that out of my mind and settled down to enjoy the story.The Steam family live up to their name by inventing a variety of steam powered devices, the most impressive of which is the steam-ball a metal ball the size of a football that can contain enough compressed steam to power huge machines for a long period of time. After an accident at a research centre in Alaska Lloyd and his son Eddie have a falling out and Lloyd sends the ball to his grandson James Ray Steam. Soon after the package arrives in Manchester members of the sinister O'Hara Foundation turn up claiming that it was meant to be sent to them so it could feature in the Great Exhibition in London. James flees on an exotic looking single wheel vehicle and is chased by thugs on a large traction engine... this exciting chase goes on for a while and includes trains and a Zeppelin. Ray is caught and taken to London along with the steam ball, he is shocked to discover that his father, who he believed was dead, is working for the O'Hara Foundation. Eddie explains how grandfather Lloyd went a bit mad and stole the ball, at this point Ray doesn't know who to believe.It turns out that the steam ball is one of three required to power a huge steam castle where the Foundation is hoping to sell their various steam powered weapons to anybody who has the money to but them. When word gets out and the authorities seek to search the castle the foundation deploys a wide range of steam powered weapons against them including steam-armour, tanks and even aircraft, finally the castle itself takes off leaving a swathe of destruction through London. Ray, his grandfather and the O'Hara's daughter Scarlett must stop them before London is destroyed.I thought the story was pretty good and the animation was pretty stunning throughout. I really liked the vast array of imaginative steam powered devices that appeared. The dub wasn't bad and I wouldn't have guessed that Ray was being voiced by a woman if I hadn't read it here first. The accents did seem to be the sort only had by the generic Northerners who feature in period dramas, I was half expecting somebody to say, "Ay oop, there's trouble up t' mill". If you insist on watching anime in Japanese get the directors cut, if it isn't essential this English version is still enjoyable.

Possible the worst Japanamation of all time. It had some good to very good animation, beginning threads of a plot worth the animation, but it fizzled. Admiditly, part of the issue is they do not really bring the viewer to the world, that is the underlying feelings of a era gone by.It is so far away in our collective consciousness it does not work well. My grandfather was born in 1896, he outlived everyone he knew everyone. He told me stories of his childhood. They were depressing on a scale that staggers the imagination at times. Could you imagine being so poor and hungry that you bought HALF of a raw egg?? They did that on streets of new york with a board and a pastry cutter. His job at age 4 was to walk along Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn and pick up coal bits that fell off the coal cars behind the engine, very dangerous. Lotsa kids got killed like that. Steam boilers popped and people were horrible burned and died of infection. Disease and stink and filth were everywhere. This was downtown brooklyn or chicago or manchester etc. They gave you a taste of that, just a tad, not enough. When the Brooklyn Bridge opened on May 24,1883, 2:00 PM . People closed buisinesses, they came out to walk over the bridge in total awe, BECAUSE THEY COULD. For a number of years people would do just that. They walked over water, that was unheard of. The achievement of man over water was beyond expectation. People would come and make a day of walking the bridge. Because it was mind boggling.If that was lost on many, well when they opened the Verizzano Narrows Bridge between Static island and Brooklyn, my dad loaded us into the car and we drove to NJ to visit relatives , just to go on it, we did upper roadway one way and lower roadway back, just to feel it. That is one thing they needed to give the viewer and they tried they really did but, they did not, well, not me. Next up they needed to fill you with the horror and disgust and hatred like that which was felt and directed at:Alfred Nobel, Merchant of DeathHe invented dynamite and became in todays money, a multibillionaire. He was so reviled by many as his invention just brought mo'better ways to destroy people. And the various anti capitalists of the day went at him full throttle. He eventually funded the Nobel Peace price, since he needed a way to have his name held in reverence, NOT revulsion. But the name "Merchant of Death" is well known even to this day.Unfortunately that persona and the inquests senate committees investigating where the money went, who got rich on various wars, while addressed amply I think, wasn't enough to carry the plot since the other things they did not have were too much to overcome. Since I studied euro/American history I can see the parallels, but the average person can not so it is boring. They could not/did not (for me) convey the awesomeness of New technologies for the time.Up to WWII the average person, was born grew up raised kids and died within 25 miles of their parents house. Only the destitute/starving/persecuted and the adventurous tried new things like "America". But that is only an opinion, my own. Japanamation is OK , but this one was as another gent felt, BLAH ciao chris