Capitán Harlock

Fans of the late 1970s Japanimation series Star Blazers will welcome Harlock: Space Pirate, an animated action feature rebooting yet another Japanese series of the same era, Space Pirate Harlock (see what they did there?).

In less than two hours of viewing, the audience receives thrilling depictions of steampunk-imagined spacecraft, visually arresting animated characters, and plenty of the action, turnabouts, and potboiling that anime is reputed to consistently supply.

This Harlock is rendered in 3D CG motion capture animation, leaving it occasionally astounding visually, occasionally off-putting in the way The Polar Express left us feeling, and occasionally looking like a coming attraction for PlayStation 5.

The backstory is interesting, but not much running time is given to fleshing it out.

After a brief expository sequence to open, followed by an election scene that puts the young leading man, Yama, onto the (badass) ship of the dread "space" "pirate" "Harlock," we're off and running into action sequences and (non) relationships as simple as a Chow Yun Fat crime film (the ones where Chow carries not one but two guns).

And it all works, because everything looks cool. Well, maybe not the bird resting on the pirate captain's shoulder, which to my tastes looks a little too Seussy to be acquainted with pirates.

The dialogue, more or less pedestrian, is the film's weak point. Perhaps after spending a reported $30 million on the 3D CG animation, the studio decided there weren't any doubloons left for rewrites or line polishing.