Hayao Miyazaki's Howl's Moving Castle is so good that it shames virtually every animated film made since his last film, Spirited Away, graced movie screens in 2002.
If nothing else, it proves to Hollywood that its recent failure in the animated realm comes not from old-fashioned, hand-drawn animation but from its severe lack of imagination and overreliance on fart jokes and pop-culture references.
The first of Miyazaki's films based on a book, Howl's Moving Castle quickly establishes itself with Miyazaki's signature, bursting with enough ideas and imagination to make up half-a-dozen summer movies.
It begins with a shy young girl, Sophie (Emily Mortimer). She works in a hat shop and humbly watches as life passes her by. But one day a handsome fellow—whom she will come to know as Master Howl (Christian Bale)—rescues her from an alleyway altercation and accidentally steers her into all-new problems, involving several ghostly, globular things wearing porkpie hats.
Before she knows it, a witch (Lauren Bacall) has cursed Sophie and turned her into an old lady (Jean Simmons). Trying to find the witch, she stumbles upon Howl's moving castle, a rattletrap contraption that roils and jostles its way across the countryside on mechanical, camel-like feet.
The plot grows ever more complicated, and has something to do with lost hearts, a fire spirit named Calcifer (Billy Crystal) and more magic than you can shake a broomstick at.
Blessedly, Miyazaki doesn't bother to logically sort out the story. He instead goes with his instincts, like a child inventing a playtime universe and making up the rules in the moment. It's a purely visceral ride.
The filmmaker's most unique attribute, his uncanny sense of space, time and weight, is still here. When Sophie and the witch climb the endless stairs to a royal palace, you feel every straining step.
Unlike most animated films, which feel the need to move at a breakneck pace, Miyazaki loves to sit still from time to time, just listening or watching or waiting. It gives viewers a moment to rest and reflect, and it keeps the film from growing tedious.But when Miyazaki starts moving, it's best to hold on. If the characters fly through the air, we feel the height and the sensation of floating.
Pixar's Pete Docter and Rick Dempsey directed the English-language cast, and they've done a remarkable job. It's great to hear Jean Simmons again, a gorgeous young woman back in the 1940s in David Lean's Great Expectations, Michael Powell's Black Narcissus and Laurence Olivier's Hamlet. Her voice still sparkles today.