Science of huh?!? : Steamboy

You know, some movies just aren't meant to be understood. Yeah there's a concept sometimes, but it usually gets buried under piles of oohs and aahs of special effects, or so dense that it seems to be really smart and esoteric, but in the end is just a head scratcher. Steamboy certainly qualifies as a head scratcher, and an enjoyable one. Let me explain. The centerpiece is science, that science will lift civilization (in the movie it is around mid 19th century) out of its sludgey working class pathos and bring them wonder and what one assumes is clean living. But hey, who pays the bills on this project is a quirky research fund headed by the granddaughter's daughter named Scarlett, who is a pain in the ass adolescent who beats her poor dog one to many times to be likeable, and that's all I have to say about her. On the other end is another science firm headed by Robert Stevenson, who presumably is backed by the British government and the royalty. What both want is a little metal ball that packs an insanely high concentration of steam, enough to power London, if London was wired in any which sort of way. It was invented by this eccentric old man, who with his son, was involved in an accident in Alaska as they were perfecting this power source. Somehow, both survive and take opposite sides -- the old man now wants to prevent anyone from obtaining this metal ball, and he sends it to Manchester to the custody of his grandson (in his teens, also a science whiz) with orders not to give it to anyone till he arrives. The father sees this as evidence that science can triumph over all, yadda yadda yadda, and is sort of power hungry. That's right, sort of. Don't really know how hungry, except he has an ego trip to feed and something has to pay the bills to feed it! So after a pretty damn exciting beginning, in which there are a lot of booms, crashes and bangs, and a locomotive chase, the boy ends up in the father's castle which is also cleverly disguised as a science building in the London Exhibition!!!! Are you following any of this? It gets better -- after a lot of yadda yadda talk to the son about how science "makes people happy" (I kid you not), and the grandfather (who is held prisoner in the place somehow) yadda yadda yaddading about power corrupts and mix that with science and military funding you have a recipe for modern warfare, we have one hell of a battle between Scotland Yard, with the Royal Guard and the navy, versus the "evil" father and a kick ass army of "steamtroopers," air watchamacallits and Snidely Whiplash. I know some friends who would appreciate an alternate history where there was a Battle of the Great London Exposition, but damn, this is getting ridiculous! I don't remember the ending of the movie too much, because the drugs were kicking in -- either that or I could have sworn that the science building became a big steam metal floating city, complete with carousels, ferris wheels and fireworks, growing legs and steaming half of London and destroying the rest. How the hell did I miss this in my history books? It ends with the boy rescuing the girl, who after this experience becomes a founder of Greenpeace and is hopefully nicer to her dog! Both pa and grandpa bite the big steam shovel and hopefully we have learned a lesson here, though I have no idea what it is. Science is fun? I give this a thumbs up and some aspirin.