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Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' on Heaven's Door or "The Movie" outside Japan is an underrated work of art only marred by a few narrative blemishes. The fact it doesn't appear in conversations about the series shouldn't be taken as a sign that the film was a disaster. While it doesn't hit the same emotional highs as the TV show's best episodes, the movie does deliver some of the best action scenes in animated history.

While it's easy to disregard the movie as a quick tie-in to bring in a few extra dollars out of the Cowboy Bebop anime, thinking it's sloppy or uninspired would be a disservice to both. The movie, created by staff from Sunrise, Bones, and Bandai Visual, is bursting with quality visuals. Its only weakness is a plot that lacks the same charisma and imagination that the original TV series had in spades.

Related: Cowboy Bebop Anime Studio Announces Surprise Sequel to a Classic Mech Series

From beginning to end, the movie is focused on capturing Bebop's Martian colony at its most sumptuous, starting with a photo-realistic opening credits capturing daily life. The creators knew that the viewers couldn't get enough of the anime's fight scenes, and cram in even more intricately choreographed sequences. The hand-to-hand sequences are easily some of the best ever committed to film, and the aerial chase in the last third of the movie, completely hand-drawn, remains unique in the anime industry. Even celebrated aircraft-focused shows like The Sky Crawlers or Yukikaze would sooner rely on CGI vehicles to perform airborne stunts.

Sadly, the plot of the film, while serviceable, doesn't leave much of an impression. The original anime's episodes possessed some truly outrageous sci-fi ideas; from monkey-creating viruses, clown-clad assassins, and a high stakes battle for a hyper-intelligent corgi. The movie's terrorist plot, by comparison, lacks any sort of eccentricities, and even feels out of place for how rote its killer gas is, simply dropping bodies without any usual Bebop fanfare. Vincent Volaju, meanwhile, is a lackluster villain: a brooding, rambling madman who mostly provides conflict for conflict's sake. While the anime's Vicious is similar, his seething hatred of Spike was still palpable enough to be memorable.

As a result, Cowboy Bebop: The Movie is an understated show of style over substance, with hundreds of frames of slick animation dedicated to a few jaw-dropping minutes of fights and long tours of Mars that isn't able to really sell its high-stakes plot as something signature to its world, or as something worth remembering. While the TV series could sell its low-key crime adventures, the movie's conspiracy-thriller feels generic. Nonetheless, as the last ride for Cowboy Bebop, its movie is well worth the experience of seeing; better still, its Halloween sequence makes watching it this October especially timely.

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Cowboy Bebop The Movie Review: A Monumental Achievement in ... - Screen Rant