A Visual Whirlwind of Humor and Magic, But a Bit Confusing

Rating: 8/10 (18 July 2005)

"Howl's Moving Castle (Hauru no ugoku shiro)" builds on the animation and special effects classics of the past to create a marvelous visual world, though I haven't read the Diana Wynne Jones novel to know how much is invented by adapter/director Hayao Miyazaki.
There's the scarecrow, magic meadow and shrinking witch from "The Wizard of Oz," the scary forest from "Sleeping Beauty," the spell on the hero from "Beauty and the Beast," the frightening, drunken nightmare from "Dumbo," the Cheshire Cat from "Alice in Wonderland," the battles from the Disney studio's anti-Nazi propaganda cartoons, the sad statue from Oscar Wilde's "The Happy Prince," the chicken-legged house from the Russian Babi-Yar legends, as well as visual references to the classic adaptations of "Yellow Submarine" and "Gulliver's Travels," while characters morph in and out of spells like the faces from a classic Michael Jackson video.
But this tale has unusual elements not seen before, as the tributes fly by. The spell by a spurned witch seems to have ironically turned the hero into a threatening woman-chaser, though, confusingly, as the spell progresses, and even more confusing when we travel to the past to see how he got enchanted, he becomes a peacemaker when the film suddenly changes to a war, causing him to fight off another physical transformation, like the demon-bitten hero of "Princess Mononoke (Mononoke-hime)," with a strong anti-war message.
The witch has also cast a spell on the heroine, turning her into an old woman, and much of the delightful humor is from her struggling with her infirmities even as gray power triumphs, such as a scene when she and her nemesis compete to get up the royal stairs.
Every inch of the screen is filled with a dazzling and quickly changing scene and climate and would make the sub-titled version a distraction. The English-language voices are mixed in effectiveness. Christian Bale is surprisingly bland with his Americanized accent, Emily Mortimer confusingly British as the young heroine. Lauren Bacall and Blythe Danner are marvelous as mature witches, and Jean Simmons as old Sophie is both touching and humorous. Billy Crystal is way over the top as Calcifer the fire, but brings to mind his small role in "The Princess Bride," and such sidekicks are usually done for broad humor.
This is the first Miyazaki film I've seen in a theater so I don't know if the detail in his previous works is quite so breathtaking. It is charmingly set in a Jules Verne-period Victoriana where technology can coexist with magic, such as in flying machines. A complex townscape with streetcars is trumped by lovely scenes of snow falling and rain slowly soaking a dress.
While the mother isn't dead as in most such films, just a bit pre-occupied, the occupants of the Castle re-create their own family, including caring for the apparently now senile witch -- wouldn't it be nice if we could all just add another bathroom to our houses.
The music is fairly corny, so the long patches of silence are a relief.
I don't know why this has been mostly distributed through art houses as children in the wider world of multiplexes would enjoy it, even if the story is a bit complicated and confusing.