This is your pointless review of the month...
I saw Howl's Moving Castle last night, and it was odd. The story was largely charming, the imagery was very interesting... but the animation was extremely erratic, and some of the plot just didn't make much sense. Not "not much sense" in a kind of fairy-tale vagueness, but "not much sense" as in "NOT MUCH SENSE". I can only presume the English dub skips a lot of the Japanese plot, because I've never seen a Ghibli movie make so little sense.
Who was that little kid living with Howl? WHY IS HE LIVING WITH HOWL? What's up with the prince? "Hi, I came out of nowhere! I'm in true love with you!" "Oh, I'm in love with someone else." "Oh, that's okay, I'll just come back in a few weeks." WTF?
Probably my least favorite Ghibli film (some of the animation was just flat-out BAD), but it's still better than most things out there.
4 comments:
The main problem I had with Howl's Moving Castle is the inevitable 5 minute happy ending. Just when tension is really building up and things are happening, there's this fast series of events that make everything all better. The scarecrow turning into a prince just folds into the general "throwing stuff in at the last minute" syndrome.
Apparently it was based on a novel, and the impression I got is that they tried to cram a lot of elements from the novel in without giving them the proper time to develop naturally.
That said, I have a soft spot for vain wizards living in strange abodes.
Yes, me too. But... I prefer it when a book's adaptation goes ahead and drops anything that doesn't fit. It upsets purists, but the movie doesn't suck.
I agree, though I liked it better the second time around. The soundtrack is phenomenal. I like that Miyazaki mixed his formula up a bit and focused on an "old woman."
Ah, I liked it. Actually this is my favorite Miyazaki.
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