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User Reviews for: Howl's Moving Castle

enry_cami
/10  3 years ago
DISCLAIMER: I did not see this movie in its original language(Japanese), but in a dubbed version(Italian). I may have missed some nuances.

What attracted me to _Howl's Moving Castle_ is without a doubt the steampunk-ish vibe of the castle itself. It looked very interesting from every picture I saw online and it seemed like it could be a great setting for a story.

But when it actually come down to the movie itself, it was a bit of a letdown. For starters, the castle itself doesn't feature nearly as much as I'd hoped, but I won't hold that against the movie. Let's go in order.

First, the good stuff.

The animation is top notch, as it's norm for a Studio Ghibli movie. Everything feels "alive", in a way. Not only that, but the drawings are absolutely beautiful. You could take a still from any point of the movie and it would probably look great hung on a wall.

I enjoy the score as well, but I don't have much else to say.

Now for the not-so-good aspects.

The story was full of holes. That's inexcusable. It barely made sense overall. If you've ever played with children, it's like when they start making up a story. At first it makes sense then, as it goes on longer, weird things start popping up with little relation to the story or an explanation. If that is acceptable from a kid, it absolutely isn't from a studio such as this.

The world building was another aspect were they missed the mark, in my opinion. It started out great, I was very intrigued about the mix of technology we see at the start (which had a steampunk/dieselpunk vibe) and the magic of Howl and of the Witch. But then it started becoming messier and messier. You couldn't tell what the rules where in that world and so the whole thing started to crumble for me.

In the end, _Howl's Moving Castle_ is neither a bad or a good movie. It's a missed occasion for something much greater that could have been. I would only recommend it to fans of Studio Ghibli and even then with some reservations.

6/10

P.S.: Calcifer is the shining star of the whole thing
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