CB is a movie which shows great promise, avoids some of the pitfalls of the TV series, but frustratingly creates a few new ones, which prevent it from being great.

The plot is outlined well in earlier reviews, and I find nothing major to disagree about. At least one of the reviewers hadn't seen the TV series, so that establishes it's not nescessary to have done so - although I would recommend having rented at least a couple of the series discs first, as there is nothing here in the way of character introduction, and you may find yourself a bit confused. Well, ok, watching the TV series probably won't make you any less confused about Ed, who is just a nutter. With my hearing problems I can only understand about 20 of what she says anyway, so I just kind of roll along with that.

Chronology-wise the film isn't a midquel as such, but it must take place somewhere at least half way through the TV series, as all four members of the bounty-hunting CB crew are together and seem well acquainted (well, 5 if you count the Corgi, Ein.)

For those who have never seem the series though, CB is a SF series about a crew of misfit bounty hunters, who (as this movie shows) are too broke to afford anything other than noodles (which they stole anyway), but can somehow afford to keep a decent size spaceship running. Their attention is seized when a huge bounty is put out, after a terrorist releases a deadly biotoxin on a Mars colony, and threatens to wipe out the whole planet. Why...? Well, I'm not completely sure, and neither is anyone else, apparently. And since he's your sort of crypto-Goth, death-obsessed, handsome, enigmatic and damaged weirdo, don't expect him to explain it except in proverbs or something.

Anyway, I'm going to assume you've seen some of the series. If you haven't, go read the reviews for 'Cowboy Bebop (TV Series)'.

The series had a couple of weaknesses IMO. Principally it's obsession with appearing uber-cool, to a sometimes annoying degree. Secondly it's tendency to become artsy, pretentious and obscure (mainly during particular episodes). When the worst of these tendencies collided, and you had an episode with characters being cool while they did things for incomprehnesible reasons, it could be quite annoying. When things fell more into line and the plot was a bit more straightforward, it was a hands-down classic.

The good news is that CB the movie for the most avoids both of these trappings. The film starts at a good pace; the plot unfolds in a linear manner which manages to be intelligent without having you scratching your head. Early on it plays like a kind of futuristic Dirty Harry movie, and I was thinking 3.5 stars. Unfortunately after the halfway point, two major problems emerge.

First, that halfway point arrives after far too long. This should have been an 80-90 minute movie. I think it's more like 2 hours. Secondly, in the latter half there is too little action and far too much sitting about talking and trying to expound on the imponderable notivations of the villain. This slows things down to a rather tiresome crawl, and you just wish that they'd shutup with their pseudo-intellectual gobledegook and let the thing be a plain action movie, which it was doing perfectly well for about an hour.

But let's step back a bit:

WHAT I LIKED: Fantastic music. Yoko Kanno is a genius. She can go from delta blues, to traditional Japanese Koto music, to something out of a 50's bebop club, to orchestral, to R&B. I honestly can't think of a film score composer in history that has her depth and breadth of talent.

The art direction and backgrounds are gorgeous. Pefectly evocative of their settings, down to a Ghibli-esque level.

It's a damn good action movie for the first half.

WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE: it's overlong. gets too slow, bloated and obscure in the second half.

VERDICT: could have been a classic. As it is, it's still good. The first half is very impressive. YMM, of course, V.

I agree with P.C. Unfunny in that the motivations of the villain are nonsensical. Also the main characters could seem too unfamiliar with someone who hasn't seen the series. I would only recommend this movie to someone who has watched the series or some anime freak. Other than that, this movie only has good animation.

Well if I can some it up in one word it was,good. The music was excellent and the Animation was good. The major problem I had was that it drags in the middle, and the movie turns incredibly boring until the end.

It goes off to a good start, it introduces all the characters and the main villain, Vicent. Now the problem I had with him is that his motivation to kill everyone on mars had nor real reason behind it. He was a victim of the government and then all of sudden, he wants to go on a killing spree ? that really dosne't make any sense. The excution of the movie went well at the begining by spliting up the characters so they can invesigate Vincent and they pretty much all get equal screentime, which I give the movie credit for because thats very hard to do with multiple main characters.

But then, right around Spike almost getting killed by Vincent, the movie started a painful drag, it was filled with all alot of drama witch didn't move the story along at all. Overall, its good, but that drag in the middle has prevented me from watching the movie again. Only real Cowboy bebop fans would probably watch this over and over again.

Good movie. Rent it, buy it, watch it. I would recommend doing so around Halloween, which best fits the film's plot, but regardless, whether or not you've seen the Cowboy Bebop series, this is an enjoyable film.

You are introduced to Spike, Jet, Faye, Ed, and a dog named Ein, who are revealed to be futuristic bounty-hunters but not the uber-powerful, invincible heroes you might expect. Rather, these characters are just a group of tired, hungry people with differing personalities and tastes, flying around in outdated spacecraft, looking to make some money so they can buy some food. Not much is revealed about their history in this film, but their personalities are made clear, and they soon find themselves involved in a sinister scheme on a scale much larger than they're used to or prepared for.

On a Martian colony, a mysterious tanker truck explosion releases an unknown substance into the air that causes brain damage and hallucinations, yet is impossible to detect. Investigations point to terrorism, and an enormous bounty is placed on the head of a criminal hacker. While the crew of the Cowboy Bebop pursue this target, a more dangerous mastermind develops a plan to spread the airborn substance across the entire colony. And while the Inter-Solar System Police (ISSP) work to unravel the mystery, the Martian Army works to keep a military secret from being revealed, and a military agent is forced to confront secrets of her own.

One thing I really like about this movie is the bad guy, Vincent. At first he seems like a rather stereotypical evil genius: Cool in a comic book kind of way, but not very deep or realistic. But keep watching, and you discover that everything he does has a cause. Now, whether or not he has a good reason is another story, but I'll get to that shortly. Another cool character in this movie who is new to the Bebop cast is Electra, the Martian military agent. Yeah, so maybe she doesn't have a whole lot of history behind her, but considering this film is her only cameo, and she's not a main character, she is pretty well developed and explained. And, well...she's cool! Or is it hot?

True to all Cowboy Bebop, the soundtrack is great both on its own and in the context of the film. So, the question becomes, why not four stars? I knocked it down half a star because there is one thing this film fails at, and that is a clear reason for the villain's evil schemes. Vincent's background is revealed, but what is still a little foggy to me is why he is so intent on slaying the entire population of the Martian colony in the first place. Seems like a bad thing to be foggy on. I guess it's pretty much just chalked up to insanity, but that always seemed like a bit of a cop-out to me.

So, take it as you will...I highly recommend the movie. Just don't blame me if you start dreaming about butterflies.

(Edit: Just edited the review a bit and raised the rating by half-a-star. That's because, oddly enough, one of my previous complaints for the movie has somehow become one of the things I LIKE about it.)