It wants to be different, and it does exactly that. It wants to entertain, and it does exactly that.
So overall this movie is very self-aware. You will not see one piece of product placement in this whole film. Speed knows that corporations corrupt art, and so does this movie. He is very dedicated to his craft, and does not want to sell out. A big corporation wants to sponsor Speed, but Speed knows that corporations are evil and are only looking to make more money. This movie portrays Speed as more of an artist than a race car driver. I feel above all the message of this movie is that money corrupts art. Also the politics in this movie were excellent as well. Probably the only time I will hear "Freebird" without being annoyed. The music is also very fitting and tasteful. The sounds of the race cars were explosive and loud and if you see this movie in a good theater, it will make it that much better. I can understand why this film made the race tracks so crazy, because who would really want to see two hours of regular race tracks with cars going around and around? The sound was also really impressive in this film. If real racing was this exciting, I would watch it all the time. The tracks are very creative, and I can only imagine how fun they were to design. Lots of the racing sequences are very over the top, but the movie knows it and does it well. It can be funny, and then be heartwarming. The acting is somewhat campy, but can also turn that gear into more serious acting.
After all, it is based on a Japanese TV show. Only someone who has been to Tokyo will know exactly what the Wachowskis were going for in this film. It is like they took Shibuya and made it a hundred times as big and colorful. A lot of the visuals really are beautiful bursts of color similar to what you find on the busy streets of Tokyo, and this movie is aware of that. I can safely say that I have never seen another movie like this one, and I feel that so many movies are going to try to do what this movie did. I think it is really unfortunate that so many critics are complaining about the visuals in this movie, because I think that they are truly fantastic. With every episode of Cowboy Bebop nearly running an hour, in stark contrast to the anime's 20-minute episode runtime, it feels like the live-action show is all dressed up with nowhere to go at times.Above everything else, this movie is a visual feast that stays true to the cartoon. Netflix's Cowboy Bebop plays its hand far too early in comparison to its anime counterpart - revealing secrets about backstories antagonists too soon. Cowboy Bebop leans more towards Western sensibilities in its visuals and storytelling approach too. The 2008 film was laboriously faithful to the aesthetic of the source material but, while having its fair share of fans, was certainly not everybody's cup of tea. Stylistically, it's reminiscent of the Wachowskis' live-action feature film adaptation of Speed Racer.
But it all just feels a bit off the mark. The art department has lavishly recreated environments and costumes straight out of the classic vision of the future from the anime series. Yoko Kanno returns to provide the new show's score, bringing the same sonic swagger that made the anime's soundtrack so memorable. The cast is all game and pulling out the stops to bring the anime characters to life.
The most heartbreaking thing about the live-action Cowboy Bebop is that all the ingredients for an impressive adaptation are there.
RELATED: Cowboy Bebop Video Takes Us Behind the Scenes of the Music and Set As Spike and his friends scrape by in their action-packed profession, nefarious figures from Spike's bloody past resurface to make his and the crew of the Bebop's lives absolute hell. Protagonist Spike Spiegel works with Jet Black to track down bounties on deadly criminals across the cosmos, putting them on a collision course with multiple dangerous characters, including fellow bounty hunter Faye Valentine. Much of the solar system has been settled on by humanity after Earth was devastated by a cataclysmic event. Like the original series, Cowboy Bebop follows the spacefaring crew of the Bebop in a neon future.
Created by Hajime Yatate, a pseudonym for Sunrise Entertainment's animation staff, the original Cowboy Bebop is revered as one of the greatest anime properties of all time. While Netflix's Cowboy Bebop certainly brings high production value, ambition, and respect for the source material, it ultimately results in a show that can't balance finding its identity with evoking the beloved anime.
One of the most buzzed-about Netflix original television series for some time has been its live-action adaptation of the classic anime series Cowboy Bebop.