Steampunk, for you non-geeks out there, is that brass-and-wood science fiction subgenre beloved by everyone who thinks they look cool in a derby.

The recent Sherlock Holmes is pretty steampunky, for instance.

It's a fairly romantic genre, rejecting slick tech in favor of understandable machines you can fix by hand. And who wouldn't want to hearken back to a simpler time of child labor and arms lost in industrial accidents? After watching 2004's Steamboy, I might just be on board.

The brilliant Dr. Lloyd Steam has invented a new form of steam power that's going to revolutionize the 19th century. His partner and son, Eddie, is sure of it--but he's fallen in with an investment group that wants to use this power for machines of war. With all London caught in the crossfire, Eddie's young son Ray must decide his loyalties for himself.

Steamboy is director/cowriter Katsuhiro Otomo's long-awaited follow-up to Akira, which you might remember as that movie that made no dang sense even before that one guy turned into a throbbing mass of rainbow-colored rubber bands. (Its much more coherent re-release should have been marketed as "Now With 60% Less Confusion!")

This one's much more straightforward. I mean, other than the whole "steam-powered flying city blocks" thing. Juggling a backstory rife with political and family intrigue, the plot unfolds smoothly while steadily upping the stakes.

It's also a master course on how to make ugly things look beautiful, from rusty factories to the English (in your face, King George). Whether it's detailed citywide backdrops or pell-mell action scenes full of steam, churning iron, steam, steam-powered zeppelins and steam, Steamboy's animation is consistently gorgeous.

Speaking of steam, I usually watch foreign stuff with the subtitles on because I'm better than you, but with a voice cast of Patrick Stewart, Alfred Molina and Anna Paquin, the English dub is so strong you won't mind they use the word "steam" more than the Smurfs say "smurf."

But much of Steamboy needs no words at all. Filled with inventive, steampunky contraptions, the movie's alternate history speaks for itself. And if you aren't enthralled by yet another genius scientist blinded by his own ambition, you can pass the time counting out the Star Wars influences.

Not to say it's derivative — what Steamboy takes from other sources, it quickly makes its own. The rest of it is wild, new, and not to be missed.