howl's moving castle
Jun. 23rd, 2005 11:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
verbminxWent to the movies for the third time in less than a week tonight (I saw Batman Begins for the second time - different group of people - on Tuesday). We saw Howl's Moving Castle, which I've been waiting for pretty anxiously ever since it was announced.
I read the book by Diana Wynne Jones in 7th grade, when I was 12 years old. I remember some basic plot outlines but nothing deep or detailed; I remember that I was reading Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams at the same time, and that I loved both books. I went to a junior high school that was right next to the high school that it fed into, and they shared a large library, or "media center", which is what they call a library to make it sound more sexy to students. And Howl's Moving Castle was the first book I got to check out once I had access to that library.
As far as the movie... I don't remember the book well enough to tell you how far it deviates from the plot, but I'm pretty sure all the basic elements are there, the most important events. I'm also pretty sure that Miyazaki added a lot, and in many ways, the movie is very derivative of Spirited Away - similar design to a lot of characters, similar concepts, a few similar events, a lot of the basic structure. However, you can say that between most of Miyazaki's movies - for example, how different does Chihiro really look from Kiki?
It's good, and it's funny, but it's a little more on the Kiki level than the Mononoke or Spirited Away level: not quite as great, but still better than most animated or family movies you'll see. I especially liked Christian Bale's voice work as Howl; Billy Crystal as Calcifer didn't bother me the way that a handful of reviews suggested he might, and I thought he was pretty good. The end is rapid and the lines at that point are a little trite. A- is about right, I think, but I'd like to see Miyazaki do something more new next time, and less something that felt like it was using leftover sets and effects from his previous film.
Still, I am VERY happy that I got to see it... and in the theater, too!
I read the book by Diana Wynne Jones in 7th grade, when I was 12 years old. I remember some basic plot outlines but nothing deep or detailed; I remember that I was reading Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams at the same time, and that I loved both books. I went to a junior high school that was right next to the high school that it fed into, and they shared a large library, or "media center", which is what they call a library to make it sound more sexy to students. And Howl's Moving Castle was the first book I got to check out once I had access to that library.
As far as the movie... I don't remember the book well enough to tell you how far it deviates from the plot, but I'm pretty sure all the basic elements are there, the most important events. I'm also pretty sure that Miyazaki added a lot, and in many ways, the movie is very derivative of Spirited Away - similar design to a lot of characters, similar concepts, a few similar events, a lot of the basic structure. However, you can say that between most of Miyazaki's movies - for example, how different does Chihiro really look from Kiki?
It's good, and it's funny, but it's a little more on the Kiki level than the Mononoke or Spirited Away level: not quite as great, but still better than most animated or family movies you'll see. I especially liked Christian Bale's voice work as Howl; Billy Crystal as Calcifer didn't bother me the way that a handful of reviews suggested he might, and I thought he was pretty good. The end is rapid and the lines at that point are a little trite. A- is about right, I think, but I'd like to see Miyazaki do something more new next time, and less something that felt like it was using leftover sets and effects from his previous film.
Still, I am VERY happy that I got to see it... and in the theater, too!
