As if in answer to the psychic urgings of the Mid-South's ever-increasing ranks of anime enthusiasts, Cowboy Bebop: The Movie has arrived in a Memphis theater, almost two years after its premiere in Japan and some nine months after its New York debut.

The movie is a feature-length version of the Japanese animated series currently broadcast on The Cartoon Network. And as with the X Files and Star Trek: The Next Generation features, aficionados say the big-screen Cowboy Bebop is not quite as good as the better episodes on TV.

Still, like a lot of anime aimed at mature audiences, it's more sophisticated than most live-action science-fiction. What's more, the movie is a model of visual storytelling. The cutting, the action choreography, the establishing shots, the "sets," the evocation of a futuristic, multicultural environment that mixes high tech with underground funk - all this is handled with such panache and intelligence that Cowboy Bebop would be accepted as an instant Blade Runner-style classic if not for its somewhat flat character animation.

Set in the year 2071, Cowboy Bebop: The Movie is almost preternaturally topical, suggesting both the ongoing SARS scare and the 9/11 attacks as it focuses on the depredations of a bio-terrorist seeking to wipe out all human life on the colonized, urban Mars of the future.

Of course, the terrorist is challenged by the heroes of the TV series, the bounty hunter "cowboys" of the spaceship Bebop ("bebop" also refers to the music sometimes heard on the soundtrack, and to the quick-reaction, improvisational style of the bounty hunters). These "cowboys" include Spike, a cool, sometimes indolent martial artist; hulking Jet, a cyborg; efficient, no-nonsense Faye, and Edward, a kid computer hacker with an annoying sing-song baby voice. Also present is the ship's Welsh Corgi mascot, Ein (for Einstein).

Scripted by Keiko Nobu moto and directed by Shinichiro Watanabe, Cowboy Bebop is informed with a wealth of detail that is typical of literary science-fiction and some anime but would have critics singing hosannas if it appeared in a live-action film. One scene takes place at a drive-in, where people in futuristic vehicles watch old black-and-white Westerns. The skies of Mars are shown to be crowded with hovering advertising billboards. The planet is home to so many bounty hunters that they have their own television program, Big Shot, on Channel 227, which provides updates on fugitives. Cartoon or not, the world of Cowboy Bebop: The Movie feels as convincingly "lived-in" as any onscreen in ages.

Cowboy Bebop contains a couple of bloody moments and fleeting instances of teasing near-nudity, but the R rating is undeserved, especially in comparison to such violent PG-13 films as The Italian Job. No doubt the ratings board chose to restrict the movie so parents wouldn't confuse it with one of the more family-friendly animations of Disney or DreamWorks.

Cowboy Bebop is playing exclusively at The Paradiso. The print is English-dubbed.

Star ratings: Zero stars - stay home. One star - only if you're desperate. Two stars - a mild entertainment. Three stars - good stuff. Four stars - don't miss it.

- John Beifuss: 529-2394