Review: Howl’s Moving Castle

A girl watches though a window as a castle on legs strolls over a hillside. Her feet are hooked over the rungs of her chair, and her fingers pause in the business of hat making while she observes. When he renders these scenes, animator Hayao Miyazaki is displaying a masterful understanding of a concept CGI experts are only starting to put into practice. A movie must nail these human details - the subtle 'tells' of our interior lives - to earn the patience of the audience. If this bargain is made successfully both young and old alike can visit the relentlessly strange parallel worlds presented in stories like Howl's Moving Castle.

A girl, a curse, and creatures both malevolent and benign that spring from some Jungian-eastern sub-consciousness - these are the common features of many of Miyazaki movies. Spirited Away, which won an Academy Award, was the perfect calibration of those elements in all his work to date. Howl's Moving Castle only falls short in a few areas. Billy Crystal and his New York twang seemed out of place as voice talent for one of the characters, but this was a decision made by Disney, the US distributor and translator. And there were some disorienting plot twists in the back half of the story. But the movie still preserves the ability to transport and amaze.

And the computer jockeys at Disney and Time Warner should recognize the chance to get vigorously schooled in how great art can still be done today.

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Howl is plying in Cincinnati at the Esquire. National movie times and information can be found at Moviefone.