It's hard not to feel some affection for an extended Saturday morning cartoon with characters who speak in Moviefone voices and have long, metaphysical debates accompanied by music that careens from jazz to avant-garde classical to mock-pop songs with lines like, "could it be that I'm just dumb and horny?" But despite the enjoyable cheese factor and the stunning futuristic vistas, this anime import is destined only to please fans of the Cowboy Bebop television series, popular in both its original Japanese incarnation and its dubbed English counterpart, which is shown on the US Cartoon Network and is available on DVD.

The Cowboy Bebop crew are four bounty hunters who live in an impossibly futuristic 2071 AD where Mars has been colonized and the women all come with water-balloon breasts. This time out, Spike, the James Deanish leader, his partner Faye (who sports sexy butt suspenders in addition to the pendulous boobs), the elder Jet and their cloying teen-computer-geek sidekick Ed team up to thwart a bioterrorist who supposedly died long ago.

Some gory, Matrix-style mayhem ensues, but in between the action and the timid S/M are long stretches of dialogue that wouldn't be out of place in a coffee shop after a particularly tiresome philosophy lecture. These whiny discussions stretch the film to almost two hours and underscore how few times the plot actually twists therein.

If you can tune out the chit-chat, at least there's plenty to look at. The Cowboy Bebop universe is fleshed out with dazzling cityscapes and multicultural flourishes like the German-flavoured train station and the British-accented East Indian video-game addict who aspires to be a "real" terrorist. The filmmakers draw on interesting material here; too bad they don't go anywhere interesting with it.

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