Enjoyable fairtytale with some great graphics...

Rating: 7/10 (10 September 2008)

Saw this on SBS TV here in Australia the other week, where it was titled "Laputa: Castle in the sky". I had enabled subtitles and I think SBS provided their own for that, which, as usual, was of very good quality.
Just looked up "Laputa" on Wikipedia and it confirms what I suspected...the floating island of this tale is taken from the classic Jonathan Swift novel "Gulliver's travels", which was published in the early to mid 1700s.
Anyway, this is an engaging Japanese fairytale, which features an English speaking voice-cast. It's suitable for young children, I think, but it does run at just over two hours in length, so it may be too long for some, though not for an adult like me.
The story concerns two children who seek to find a legendary floating island which has a castle on it. The children are not the only ones looking for this island. They have pirates, the army and spies looking for the island too, and looking to capture the children (Sheeta, the girl, voiced by Anna Paquin, and Pazu, the boy, voiced by James Van Der Beek) in order to help them find it.
The graphics are magnificent...sort of photo-realistic at times, especially the scenes of stonework lit by torch-light, or the pretty scenes of bright, sunny days, with white clouds, or mist.
Recommended.