Howl's Moving Castle: Movie & DVD Review

Directed by Hayao Miyazaki, Pete Docter and Rick Dempsey, written by Miyazaki, based on the novel by Diana Wynne Jones, 118 minutes, rated PG.

If it weren't for the stellar, 2005 appearance of "Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit," Hayao Miyazaki's "Howl's Moving Castle" would be your winner for this year's Academy Award for Best Animated Picture.

The movie is a richly conceived, vivid fantasy pic, and while the more structured, crowdpleasing "Gromit" will take the award, it's the risk-taking "Castle" that's fueled by a more daring, complex imagination.

It is, in fact, a movie liberated by its imagination, which somehow wasn't constrained by a studio's bottom line. How it escaped being tweaked to serve the largest possible audience is anyone's guess, particularly given Miyazaki's considerable distribution deal with Disney. Still, one has to assume it's because of the respect reserved for Miyazaki, the great Japanese anime artist whose "Princess Monoke," "Castle in the Sky" and the Academy Award-winning "Spirited Away" are all forces in the medium.

The film, which was revoiced by English-speaking actors and adapted into English by Pete Docter and Rick Dempsey, uses traditional 2-D animation layered over more technically advanced 3-D animation. The result is a movie that looks exactly as it should--a mix of old and new, which is fitting since the film is set in a bizarre universe of high-tech space ships roaring through an otherwise Edwardian society.

The film focuses on Sophie (voice of Emily Mortimer), an 18-year-old milliner unprepared for what it about to befall her when into her life storms the wicked Witch of the Waste (Lauren Bacall). With an avalanche of doughy fat suffocating her thick neck, this large, lumbering glob of a woman sails into Sophie's shop with barbed insults at the ready: "What tacky hats," she says. "And what a tacky girl in a tacky shop."

Before Sophie can tack this Waste woman to the pavement, the witch robs her of her youth and turns her into a 90-year-old woman for reasons that won't be revealed here.

Now bent and wrinkled with age, Sophie (now voiced by Jean Simmons) finds herself on a spellbinding path of self-discovery. Circumstances lead her to Howl (Christain Bale), the mysterious young wizard who lives in the film's most stunning creation--a giant, nuts-and-bolts castle that smacks of Monty Python by way of a junkyard. There, Sophie finds work as a cleaning lady while all around her corruption breeds and the war Howl secretly is fighting begins to ignite along an unseen reality.

Confusing? It can be. But as any fan of Miyazaki knows, entering into one of his worlds isn't without its share of risks. You go into his movies expecting anything but a linear plot, and he doesn't disappoint in not offering one here.
Describing what follows is pointless; on paper, it wouldn't make sense. Onscreen, the logic also struggles to hold up. Thing is, if you give yourself over to "Castle" as Miyazaki hopes you will, it can be an almost indescribably moving experience.

Along the film's periphery are a wealth of quirky characters--a fire demon named Calcifer (Billy Crystal), a grinning scarecrow with a surprise, an old dog who becomes Sophie's friend, a bitter wizardress (Blyth Danner) with an ax to grind, and a young chap (Josh Hutcherson) who apparently can grow hair at will. They all bolster the ethereal atmosphere, which is perfect since what "Howl's Moving Castle" amounts to is anyone's guess.

Grade: A-