The live-action Cowboy Bebop works so shockingly well on those terms that ultimately I didn’t mind the series working a lot less well on the terms set by its own source material. It’s a rare style of TV these days: modest sets, goofy props, and stagy performances redeemed by great characters and thoughtful dialogue. But really-and rather unexpectedly-the live-action Cowboy Bebop more so resembles the 1980s and 1990s TV versions of Star Trek. Netflix hired Kanno to rerecord songs, produce new pieces for the score, and recapture the magic of the original series. And Cowboy Bebop is an exceptionally tall order given the sophistication in Shinichiro Watanabe’s animation, bolstered by a tremendous jazz soundtrack from the composer Yoko Kanno and her band, the Seatbelts. Typically live-action anime adaptations struggle to reconcile the cartoonish elements-the character styles, the exaggerated movement, the stark colors-with the practical constraints on real actors and real sets, CGI notwithstanding. It was never going to be easy for live actors to reimagine Cowboy Bebop. The live-action Cowboy Bebop gets good-dare I say, great-once Spike, Jet, and Faye have warmed up, Vicious has toned down, the choreography has smoothed out, and the story has branched from the familiar setup into its own alternative direction. It takes the series a while to hit its marks on other counts, too. The penultimate episode culminates in a one-man army massacre, captured in a long tracking shot, at last making good on Spike’s badass reputation and Cho’s painful training for the role. The early fights are badly staged, but later fights with higher stakes are much better. Cho’s Spike is strong but not especially graceful or clever in combat. By contrast, the fights in the live-action adaptation, especially in the first couple of episodes, are rather slow and stilted. He’s hard to hit and quick to contort his lanky profile out of harm’s way. But then there’s his choreography: In the original series, Spike moves through the world with a certain invulnerability. Cho, as the lead, balances the humor and melancholy in Spike rather capably. Cho, Shakir, and Pineda each excel in their respective roles, and they’ve got great, contentious chemistry together. Sometimes the live-action scenes track the original series beat for beat sometimes, for the better, the adaptation takes great liberties with the chronology and characterizations.
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