Howl's Moving Castle

Hayao Miyazaki
2004

I never caught this one in the theater because the preview made it look nearly identical to Miyazaki's prior "Spirited Away" (2001). Upon viewing this seems to be mostly true, but surprisingly the similarity does little to dampen one's enjoyment of the expectedly gorgeous animation and delightful story. Frumpy milliner Sofi is transformed from elegant young lady to withered hag thanks to a witch's curse, she soon finds herself in cahoots with Howl, a capricious man-child magician, and his entourage trucking around in the eponymous castle. Besides the stunning visuals the film's greatest strength is it's disinterest in over-explaining (or even explaining, in some cases) the unfolding events. Too much analysis would rob the picture of it's sense of complete unpredictability as Miyazki moves from lysergic setpiece to setpiece. Unfortunately I saw this one dubbed in English. I say unfortunately because Billy Crystal's voicing of Calcifer the fire demon becomes a touch grating after a while.