MovieChat Forums > Suchîmubôi (2005) Discussion > I almost fell asleep watching this crap....

I almost fell asleep watching this crap. (Spoilers?)

posted 16 years ago by vampyrebat666
7 replies | jump to latest

This movie is eye candy and nothing more. Much of it is beautiful to look at, but there is no story whatsoever. The sad thing is that I was really loving it up until they got to the Steam Castle, and then the whole thing turned into a total waste of time.
What the hell was the hero's father trying to achieve? He makes all these grandiose speeches about how the steam ball is this amazing source of limitless energy that will end human toil and suffering forever. But apparently all he can think to use it for is to make a giant mountain of iron fly through the air, then park it in the center of London and wait for it to explode. And boy did it ever take a long time to explode. It seemed like the last half of the movie is people running around inside the dark steam castle, opening or closing valves to make the boiler explode. Or not explode, it was hard to care after a while. At that point it became harder and harder to stifle my yawns and keep my eyes from closing. When the Steam Castle does finally explode, what are we supposed to feel? Are we supposed to think "Thank goodness the nineteenth century was spared the evils of steam power!"
Of course movies like this are dazzling to some people, in the same way a shiny pull-tab from an old beer can is dazzling to the common magpie. And like the common magpie, they will start screeching with rage if you try and take away their shiny thing. They will read my opinion and say
"Whaddaya mean it had no story? It had an amazing story, you just don't get it 'cause you only like Hollywood movies where everything is like all explained and stuff. Only sensitive geniuses like me and my internet friends can understand this kind of deep stuff, so you should just stick to movies like Dude Where's My Car? or Bowling for Columbine. Only sensitive geniuses can see the beauty of the Emperor's New Clothes!"
To that I can only say that I'm rather old fashioned, and I like to have at least a few scraps of plot and character development with my retina sugar.

[–] markjack2004 16 years ago

I have to sort of agree with you. I was disapointed with the story and character development. The animation was fantastic which is what i expect from Anime films but the story was confusing, did not develop into anything, the characters did not grow or make you feel for them, infact you end up hating most of the characters. You can't tell who is good and who is bad, and the ending! well i just wanted to scream i was annoyed at the ending, it just finished!

I think i may have been spoilt with Studio Ghibli films and was really let down with this.

Oh and the boys voice really annoyed me, infact a lot of the voices were weird.
It does seem strange when a japanese animation company does a feature film nearly all based in england, mainly london.

What was with the strange fight scene as well, that did not do anything to the story, just showed a lot of destruction and death. Infact that is what all the film was, destruction.

[–] no_more_scotch_eggs 16 years ago

PMSL... some pretty valid points there... it was a good try i though, some interesting bits, but as a whole they didnt pull it off

to be fair, there *was* some plot, and character development.. it just wasnt done very well..

cheers
NMSE

[–] jacksonwma 15 years ago

Have to agree with the rest of you.Beautiful animation.Horrible story.But to be fair,I feel that way about all anime.

[–] aniflightstriker 15 years ago

I agree and I'll up it one more, both my sister and I fell asleep watching this movie.

[–] singo_is 12 years ago

I have to disagree.

There's nothing wrong with your opinion, I just think you fail to see the level of depth that permeates the Steamboy world. Rei's father has gone mad, the grandiose speeches only justify in his mind the rationale of what he is doing.

You haven't understood why he feels the need to tantalise Rei into buying into his grandiose philosophy.

The Grandfather himself has created a monster out of his own son, but realises himself his own obsessions. The object is to now collude Rei into joining either side, as each male member of the Steam family is a genius in his own right, and a valuable asset to either side. Add to this the rise of the Industrial Revolution, Nation building and the genesis of weapons production, and you have a richly complex tale set around one of the most exciting and revolutionary times in the development of Western Culture.

The 'old fashioned' would embrace this tale completely, as you have to pop your thinking cap on from time to time, and embrace the idea that connecting a films dots is a personal experience and open to interpretation.

[–] vampyrebat666 12 years ago

You haven't understood why he feels the need to tantalise Rei into buying into his grandiose philosophy.

Ahh, the old "You're too stupid to get this movie" argument. How original, except that I predicted your response over four years ago when I watched this movie and wrote my original post.

[–] yamichik 12 years ago

I actually agree with OP, I like this movie and I've watched it from the beginning many times.. but I rarely ever make it to the end, it just gets too boring, lol.

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Hey Jin! You better not be cheating on me!!