Steamboy Reviews
Common Sense Media
Animated film is too violent for younger kids.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
Film Journal International
The film's extended debates on the ethics of science, government and personal responsibility would recommend it to critics of a medium that too often panders to audiences.
Top CriticIt's a sensationally designed piece of work.
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
While Steamboy lacks the emotional resonance and psychological complexity of Akira, it is state-of-the-art anime made by one of the masters.
Full Review
| Original Score: A-
Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN)
When massive bursts of steam are frozen into giant flowers of jagged ice, Otomo gives us a literal Cold War, to remind us of the folly of the arms race.
| Original Score: 2.5/4
Until it careers into cacophony ... it's a lot of fun.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/4
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
The talky debate over scientific morality is simplistic to say the least, but there is a sneaky undercurrent of social satire and a retro glory to the animation...
Full Review
| Original Score: B-
Groucho Reviews
Masculine brooding [fuels] Steamboy, with its monolithic, steam-spewing tower, powered by balls, constantly rumbling out of control.
| Original Score: 3/4
Boxoffice Magazine
Though it falls short of the crossover standard set by Hayao Miyazaki's Oscar-winning Spirited Away, the attempt is far too accomplished and inventive to dismiss.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
Steamboy, ultimately, shares deep-seated themes with the futuristic Akira. Both offer cautionary tales about scientific responsibility and the evils of war. And both look pretty cool, too.
| Original Score: 3/4
Reel.com
With its stunning visuals, exciting set pieces and larger-than-life characters, Steamboy often succeeds as a ripping good yarn -- but only in fits and starts.
| Original Score: 2.5/4
Orlando Weekly
You'll see things in this film you have never seen anywhere else.
Full Review
| Original Score: 5/5
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
The result is a welcome and exhilarating steam-powered flight of fancy.
| Original Score: 3/4
It's nifty to behold, but about the only drama in Steamboy lies in waiting for this colossal hovering machine-monster to blow a gasket.
Full Review
| Original Score: B-
Los Angeles Alternative
In spite of...obvious and unfortunate flaws, if you're going to see Steamboy do so on the big screen so as to be reminded of the marvels of hand-drawn animation
| Original Score: 3/5
FilmStew.com
By being less talky, Steamboy could've achieved a surreal, dreamlike narrative flow instead of a lurching, unsteady one.
Like cinematic Pop Rocks: it's eye candy filled with explosion after explosion after explosion.
Austin Chronicle
As ever, Otomo's attention to the most minute details of setting and character are beyond reproach.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
Boston Herald
Visually, the movie is a gearhead's fever dream, a mesmerizing fantasy rooted in the industrial revolution, combining traditional animation and computer effects.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
