Steamboy

AKIRA writer-director Katsuhiro Otomo's boy's own steam-punk adventure simultaneously celebrates scientific invention and deplores its perversion by venal men. Alaska, 1866: A team led by father-and-son scientists Lloyd and Edward Steam (voices of Patrick Stewart and Alfred Molina) experiments with steam power, ratcheting up the pressure until an accident unleashes a scalding cloud. Later, in industrial Manchester, preteen inventor Ray Steam (Anna Paquin) receives a mysterious package from his grandfather. It contains a small, black metal "steam ball" capable of concentrating previously unimaginable power, and instructions to guard it until it can be delivered to a m...