Film Review: Howl's Moving Castle

[da]

I'm not quite sleepy yet, so another film review.

Howl's Moving Castle is... probably better cinematically than Castle in the Sky and not quite as good as Spirited Away. In my opinion, at least. Miyazaki is a visual genius. The war scenes in particular... were clearly by someone who had lived through air raids. And the flowingly organic machinery were just beautiful.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. HMC is a romance fantasy, along the vague lines of Beauty and the Beast except most of the characters are cursed at one point or another with different needs to be met in order to be freed. At the same time it's the story of an adopted family running from a warring Wizard Queen. Running in a castle on spindly stick legs. Lots of fun, that castle.

In addition to really fun visuals, it has very well done voices by Jean Simmons (Grandma Sophie), Christian Bale (Howl), Lauren Bacall (Witch of the Waste), and Billy Crystal (as Calcifer, the incredibly cute but powerful fire-demon). I don't usually note who does voies for an animated film, but these actors seemed particularly well-suited.

So, why didn't I like this as much as Spirited Away? The plot, in the last third, seemed to unravel, and the last 5 minutes felt like a letdown. It was particularly a frustrating to me because the story seems to fall apart relatively shortly after a breathtaking scene involving tiny shooting stars falling and skittering across the waves... Dunno, maybe if I see it again, it will be less frustrating.

Yes, worth seeing if you like anime.

Comments

[mynatt.livejournal.com]

I really love Miyazaki. I'm glad he secured a deal with Disney to have his films released unaltered in English, even if they are moving through his back catalogue a little slowly. (For example, this (http://imdb.com/title/tt0113824/) movie, one of my favourites, was released in Japan in 1995 but just came out here this spring.) For reasons which are unclear to me I have yet to get around to seeing HMC, though, so thanks for sparing me the spoilers. :)

[dawn-guy.livejournal.com]

We've watched Howl only the once so far, with the original soundtrack and subtitles. I was the odd man out who'd already read the book, and it was interesting to see the changes Miyazaki made to transform an excellent children's novel into a good movie.

My opinion is that Spirited Away was more satisfying because it had been conceived from the beginning as a motion picture, while Howl had to be adapted and, while it gained something in the translation from page to screen, it lost something as well.

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

Hope you like it! I try to make reviews spoiler-free, though I've caught myself a few times just after posting. ;)

I like that Disney can afford some good actors for the voices. Although I've heard that all Disney movies have an annoying feature that they force-show the previews, it didn't seem to happen on my DVD player. (oops, wrote that as VCR the first time; my age is showing)

Hm, or that might just be on "Disney" Disney movies. Shrug.

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

That makes a lot of sense, about the adaptations.

Maybe I will check out the novel; I usually like back-story on something I liked the front-story of, and the first sentence has potential.

In the land of Ingary, where such things as seven-league boots and cloaks of invisibility really exist, it is quite a misfortune to be born the eldest of three.

[ng-nighthawk.livejournal.com]

My new rule for how to judge whether I will like a book is to read the first paragraph. (OK, not that new, but within the last 2-3 years.) I realized that I don't read for plot, I read for style and tone. If the author didn't bother to put a significant example of the style and tone he is going for into the first paragraph, he's not trying hard enough. So almost universally, after I started trying this, I found my first paragraph test to work.

This only applies to fiction. Non-fiction can easily be interesting just for the information it passes on.

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

Hm; I do that, but not rigourously. I occasionally go by whether I "think I should read this" and then it sits on my nightstand for a long while before I give up. :)

I've found counter-examples where the style and tone weren't enough for me; Connie Willis/"To Say Nothing of the Dog" is one. I couldn't keep reading it, though I liked the premise and the first few pages. The dialog and plot (holes) made me very frustrated. :)

However, I did like her novel "Bellwether," which also had plot problems. I think ultimately it's whether I can suspend disbelief long enough to get into the story. If the author introduces something idiotic (to me) near the beginning, I'm not going to get into it because I start critiquing.

You've reminded me I should review a non-fiction book which met this test also: "Iran Awakening." Stay tuned. ;)

[ng-nighthawk.livejournal.com]

I have this thing for mediocre sci-fi on TV and movies. It used to be even bad stuff, but I just don't have time for that anymore.

However, one show displayed an image fractal and the expert mathematician said, "Hmm... I'm going to have to analyze this for a while." I yelled, "It's a fractal," at the screen. I mean, I basically have calc 102 and that's the extent of my math background. This guy is supposed to be a genius. 15 minutes later he comes back, with the information, "This is a fractal."

They could have at least used a less recognizable image. I couldn't stand to watch the show after that. So I totally understand how some things just eliminate any possibility for respect for the characters and/or the world they live in.