Overrated anime fare

Rating: 7/10 (7 February 2005)

Hayao Miyazaki has been getting a lot of praise recently as a result of the American release of his excellent 'Mononoke-Hime' and his somewhat less than excellent 'Spirited Away'. Castle in the Sky fits in between the two in terms of quality, but adds to the feeling that I got when the credits of 'Spirited Away' rolled that Hayao Miyazaki doesn't deserve such high praise as he's getting. Don't get me wrong, this certainly isn't a bad film (neither is Spirited Away), but it's hardly the work of a great master either. The substance on offer isn't much more than what you'd find in a Saturday morning cartoon, and the film takes itself way too seriously for an animated feature. Too much of the film is spent on characters delivering reams of heartfelt dialogue and it comes across as contrived and more than a little bit silly. However, this is matched by Miyazaki's inventiveness and attention to detail, which keeps the film away from the low end of the rating scale.
With this film, Miyazaki has created his own world for his character's to inhabit, and that is always going to garner praise for the auteur. The story follows a young girl that has a crystal that has the power to show the owner the way to a mythical and powerful city in the sky. After escaping from various evildoers that want the crystal for their own reasons, she finds herself on the run with a young boy that also wants to find the lost city. This creativity is both a help and a hindrance to the story. On the one hand it allows Miyazaki creative freedom over what goes on, and he makes best use of that on many occasions. However, on the other hand, because the world isn't a complete whole - it leaves many questions unanswered, and after an hour or so of being bombarded with goings on that don't make much sense; the film gets more than a little bit tiresome. The film follows the classic adventure structure, which is nice as it makes for an entertaining ride. Castle in the Sky also has a nice musical score, which fits the tone of the film excellently.
This film certainly isn't bad, but it's not great either and I suspect that more than a little of it's praise has come of a result of the popularity of Miyazaki's later works and the fact that Japanese things are very much in fashion of late. However, if anime is your bag, you'll find lots to like here.