Howl's
Moving Castle (***)
review by Jon
Waterman
Sophie is a young hat maker who keeps to herself and does
what she’s told. Or, at least she was. That all changes
when she runs into a suave magician, and later, a witch. The
witch curses Sophie by turning her into a stocky, ugly old
woman overnight. Forced to give up the life she knew and to
hopefully find a cure, she goes in search of the wizard Howl.
After stumbling on his roaming palace, she befriends the residents
of his castle and quickly becomes a vital part of a team determined
to defeat the forces of evil and stop a burgeoning war.
This is the latest effort from Japanese animation master writer/director
Hayao Miyazaki. Like his other films, this one deals with a
largely fantasy based scenario. There’s usually a lot
of creativity and freshness to be found in the plots and storylines,
however this film doesn’t exhibit the same behavior.
Based on the novel by Diana Wynne Jones, the film just exudes
this feeling of “seen it all before.” After having
previously viewed “Princess Mononoke” and “Spirited
Away,” the majority of the characters from “Howl’s” could
easily blend into the other stories. Despite the similarities
in character design, the movies all deal with very similar
subject matter in magic, the appearance of roaming ominous
black blobs, breaking curses and so on. There are also a couple
parallels to “The
Wizard of Oz,” including a scarecrow,
a character called the Witch of the Waste, talking flames,
and doors that open into magical new locations. If you’ve
seen either of Miyazaki’s two other most recent films,
there won’t be much left here to blow you away.
Even the animation isn’t particularly stunning. Computers
are used too often to create the moving backgrounds and other
typically painstakingly difficult drawings. Although they are
in the same style, the background and foreground elements don’t
integrate well enough. To make things worse, maybe it was the
print, or something was wrong with the shutter on the projector
in the theatre, but the traditional animation looked like it
was jittery. The hand-drawn stuff appeared to be moving at
a different frame rate than the rest. The computer work moved
fluidly enough, but the main action staggered and looked slowed
down a bit.
To its credit, the movie is kind of funny. It gets to be more
so as the film goes on. There’s a surprisingly long sequence
where Sophie and the Witch have to climb a “Rocky”-esque
staircase, which made me crack up if only for the fact that
they stretched it out so much. Billy Crystal as Calcifer, the
castle’s fire and driving force, doesn’t really
provide much of the “comic relief.” I think the
Japanese voice actor would probably be better. But despite
the similarities and the predictability, “Howl’s
Moving Castle” does accomplish what it sets out to do.
The characters are easy to like (perhaps because of the familiarity),
and the story hits all the right spots at the right times.
Children should eat this up, and so might those adults unfamiliar
with the director’s history. Major fans of Miyazaki may
be disappointed in this seemingly lackluster outing, but he
has set the bar for himself extremely high.
respond to jon@filmbrats.com
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