FILM IN REVIEW; 'Cowboy Bebop' -- 'The Movie'

Directed by Shinichiro Watanabe

R, 116 minutes

Question: What does life on Mars in Alba City in the year 2071 resemble?

Answer: nothing so much as life on Earth in New York City in the year 2003 -- New York, that is, if it also happened to have an Eiffel Tower and some trolley lines.

That is the impression left by the English-dubbed Japanese anime film ''Cowboy Bebop: The Movie.'' This feature-length adventure, derived from a television cartoon series about a team of disparate futuristic bounty hunters, is notable chiefly for its eye-catching urban backgrounds and an eclectic score that ranges from jazz and country to classical and choral.

Take away the wit of its setting and the liveliness of its music, and ''Cowboy Bebop: The Movie,'' which opens today nationwide, can take its place among animated films unexceptional in their depiction of humans and among a long line of B-movies about small bands of mercenary heroes who save a world or city or town as filmgoers know it.

Up-to-the-moment in its focus, ''Cowboy Bebop: The Movie,'' directed by Shinichiro Watanabe and written by Keiko Nobumoto, spins its familiar scenario out of bioterrorism, the sinister machinations of the military-industrial complex and a nanoweapon experiment gone awry, letting loose a highly trained former military officer to menace the city with mass death.

Attracted by the prospect of a huge reward for finding the villain responsible for a freeway tanker truck explosion and spill that results in more than 500 deaths in the area, the four heroes of the Bebop crew set out to solve the mystery. The team, which seldom pulls in tandem, consists of the dauntless Spike Spiegel, the imposing but uninteresting cyborg Jet Black, the tough and alluring Faye Valentine and the brilliant hacker Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivrusky IV, all aided and abetted by the even more brilliant Ein, a creature that gives every sign of being a Welsh corgi though actually a fount of data engineered by a laboratory.

Suffice it to say that amid continuing death, frequent chases and plenty of peril, some romance will flower, but not enough to divert Spike and the gang from their mission.

For all its frenetic cartoon fiction, ''Cowboy Bebop: The Movie'' pales beside the tense reality of current events.

''Cowboy Bebop: The Movie'' is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). Besides some coarse language, the film includes bloody violence and a suggestion of impending rape. LAWRENCE VAN GELDER