After years of waiting, anticipating, and quite a lot of "what happened to that Otomo Katsuhiro guy?" - talk, Otomo finally finishes his long (it has been ten years in production) awaited film. The film is a traditional mad scientist story about the son of inventor Eddie steam that tries to stop is fathers invention destroying Victorian London. As mentioned before, the film has been in production for ten years, and unfortunately it shows. During the first half-hour the computer generated shots are so crude it becomes almost laughable, and the editing and pacing is choppy. Fortunately, after the rough start the film finds it's pace, and it delivers some incredible set-pieces (well, one 90 minute long set-piece really) with a fascinating mix of cell animation and 3d shots, of which the latter, as mentioned, are somewhat dated, though that is quickly forgotten in the action. What is lacking from Otomo's earlier films is the deep plot and characterization. The main points of the story are the usual mad-scientist babble about science corrupting humans, and some typical Otomo rubbish about the evils of capitalism which make the film seem like something from the mid-eighties. Perhaps Otomo has decided to listen to his critics (who accuse him of cramming too much plot into his films) and make something simple, or perhaps (more likely) he has simply decided to make a film for the younger audience. 10-12 year olds will definitely like this film, while older viewers will marvel at the animation while weeping inside at how computer animation is overtaking cell animation. I wouldn't worry about Otomo though - he could make great films no matter what media he works with. Let's just hope he doesn't take ten years making his next film...
