I still chuckle to myself about the fact that hen Cowboy Bebop was initially released in the West, I didn't have much interest in it. I blame it on the early trailers making it look like an action crime drama when Cowboy Bebop is actually more of a strange Tarantino style hodgepodge of U.S. culture with a comical bent and one of the greatest soundtracks to ever grace an anime. I had a hell of a time trying to watch this film, but this is actually one of only two films on this list I've actually seen in movie theaters since it had a limited run in the art house scene.
Knockin' on Heaven's Door is a feature length film set between the events of episode 23 and 24 or basically before the whole crew disbands and we get the tear jerker finale. It's not necessarily relevant to know this information but it does help a bit with Jet's own personal issues with the rest of the crew as it shows how dysfunctional this whole crew has become. While Faye is working on a routine small fry bounty involving a hacker, she ends up being one of the surviving witnesses of a terrorist attack involving an ex-soldier turned madman named Vincent and a mysterious virus that infects several people at the attack. Course a massive bounty lands on his head and the crew all split up to try and catch the guy on their own. Instead what they find is a conspiracy involving illegal weapons testing, a pharmaceutical company's shady deals with the government, and the revelation that Vincent might actually be a much bigger threat to Mars than anyone originally imagined.
The movie for the most part feels like an episode of the series with just a bigger budget and more fluid animation. Oddly enough, Vincent is actually a bigger deal than you would think but out quirky crew of misfits still treat this whole situation like a normal day on the job. There are some parallels here from the series as the film borrows concepts and character types from the main series. Obvious ones is how Vincent feels like a weird combination of Spike, Vicious, and Gren combining Spike's outlook with Vicious' personality, and a variation of Gren's backstory involving the War on Titan and illegal experimentation he has to live with. The conspiracy theory aspect also class forth the episode Bohemian Rhapsody where the "villain" is really a victim of the local government and their whole plot is partly to expose them for it. So the film has some nice recycling going on here, but has enough length to make it feel like it's own thing here.
Thankfully, each crew member gets their own moments to shine and classic running gags like Spike complaining about food, the shaman wiseman, and the three old men make their appearances. Vincent himself is a haunting figure and the side effects of the nano-virus gives him a strange philosophical bent to his madness. The fact he's the fourth character in the series to really just outright kick the trout out of Spike is also something to behold. Elektra is also one of the major figures in the story and serves as an interesting foil to Spike's own investigations. I do wish we could have learned a bit more about her and her relationship with Vincent.
As I mentioned before, the animation and production values for the film are better than the TV show which is saying something considering Bebop has aged pretty well. The locations have greater detail and the film crew's trip to Morocco certainly paid off with some of the set pieces. The lighting effects are probably the most stand out parts of the animation. The music... well I'm certainly going to be bias here. Yoko Kanno delivers us another powerful score with some absolutely great tracks ranging from Vincent's Theme "Is it Real?", the parade sequences "Pushing the Sky", the completely underrated "Dijurido", the haunting butterfly sequences accompanied by "Powder", and of course the film's two main themes: the toe tapping laid back "Ask DNA", and the powerful gospel inspired ending track "Gotta Knock a Little Louder". Kanno's compositions help to cement the Cowboy Bebop feel for the fans and she honestly produces some of her best work in the series with this film.
Overall, most fans of the series have probably seen it and loved it. For people who have never watched the series, the film isn't a bad test bed for you since it doesn't dwell too much on the backstories of the crew and spends more time really exploring more of the world the crew live in.
Coming up: Do you remember? The time when our eyes first met?
Do you remember? The time when our hands first touched?
That was the very first time I set out on the journey of love.
I love you so.
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