A confused mess

Rating: 5/10 (16 November 2006)

The animation is fine, the music is fine, but all in all this movie is simply a confused mess with no coherent plot.
You could've almost assembled the plot (such as it was) by drawing random elements out of a hat. In fact, I almost wonder if that's how it was all put together.
The one thing that I find really interesting is that you can take something which barely makes any sense at all and have it hailed as genius. I suppose that's because it's different from most other films. Well, it certainly is that.
Oh, and be sure to throw in a bit of an anti-war theme. It doesn't matter whether the war planes are ours or theirs, we're all morally equivalent here. No matter what our reasons for defending ourselves might be, we're automatically as evil as those who attack us.
Someone else commented that this film was "art." Well, it depends what kind of art. There is currently a movement that has begun to recognize that all of the feathers glued onto steel girders painted blue (and similar works of the 20th century) were just... feathers glued onto steel girders painted blue.
Just because something is different doesn't make it brilliant.
To be fair, Howl's Moving Castle wasn't the worst movie I've ever seen. Some kids will like it. For the animation and music, I give it about a 5 out of 10.
(And by the way, I don't know how people can find this comment not to be helpful. It's my honest opinion of the movie, and in my personal opinion it's an accurate view. The movie is simply rather incoherent. If you like incoherence in your movies, fine. I don't. On the other hand, my young teenage daughter liked it because "it had a strange plot line." My preteen daughter thought it was "fantastic." But I found it incoherent, and my wife thought it was just plain awful.)