Howl's Moving Castle: Critic Reviews

The inhabitants of Miyazaki's enchanted universe understand that spirits are as much a part of everyday life as the fishmongers and soldiers and airplanes crowding the confines of the movie frame in set-piece scenes of spectacular detail.

The latest animated tour de force from the Japanese director Hayao Miyazak is a fitting introduction to one of modern cinema's great enchanters.

This movie often soars, blending a childlike sense of wonder with sophisticated emotions and motives.

There is no story, or rather, there's no force to the story, which meanders almost casually this way and that for no apparent reason.

Speaking of enchantment, that's the ultimate thing missing from Howl's Moving Castle. That and soul.

At its best, Howl's Moving Castle offers a rich fantasy of adolescent escape, of romance in the old and epic sense.

The film is an organic, childlike wonder, fabulously unpredictable and seethingly inventive.

It's magic.

So richly detailed and colorful that one almost aches from the beauty.

Choppy story lines and threadbare characterization often hamper live-action adventures, and Mr. Miyazaki's newest anime endeavor suffers from similar handicaps.

There is giggling, belly-laughing, and gasping to be done watching Howl's Moving Castle.

A parade of weird characters comes onstage to do their turns, but the underlying plot grows murky and, amazingly for a Miyazaki film, we grow impatient at spectacle without meaning.

Confirms that Miyazaki is one of the most brilliant practitioners of the cartoon feature form ever.

Miyazaki, now in his mid-60s, has a refreshing and persuasive way of relating youth to old age and callowness to wisdom. Rather than presenting them succeeding each other and fighting for supremacy, he shows them coexisting peacefully.

An eye-popping, mind-bending phantasmagoria from one of the greatest living film artists.

The visuals are stunning, bursting with vivid colors and surreal inventiveness.

The world it gives us to live in, for a couple of hours, is pure magic. It is one of those places we might wish never to leave.

The whole thing has the heavenly whimsy of Ludwig Bemelmans' illustrations from the classic French children's books.

The tireless volley of ideas and inventions make this a delight that should connect with kids and adults in both dubbed and original-language versions.

Another stunningly beautiful and beguiling work of animation from Japan's Hayao Miyazaki.

Howl's Moving Castle moves -- in short, choppy, jumpy jerks that will never make anyone forget how fluid the truly great hand-drawn cartoons look by comparison.

A feast of images and ideas for those who still cling to the idea that animation ought to be every bit as expressive as anything that begins with a blank page, a sharp pencil and an unharnessed imagination.

With its bold screen-filling imagery, this is definitely a movie to be relished on the big screen.

Meanders so listlessly that its details become less and less charming. Miyazaki's storytelling style resembles that of a breathless young tot who's fearlessly exercising his newfound powers of expression.

Miyazaki is like a soulful cartographer of the soul, mapping our inner landscape, leaving us bedazzled.