Not on par with Spirited Away- but still an amazing film.

Rating: 9/10 (1 March 2006)

I have and always will love Hayao Miyazaki's films. I first descovered him when I saw もののけ姫(US "Princess Mononoke") when it first hit the cinema. Howl's moving castle is his second adaptation of a novel by the same writer (The first being "Castle in the sky") and his latest film. It opens fairly quickly with not a lot of time to establish the characters, but then after a few other goes-by-fast events, the movie starts into an acceptable pace. Sophie is a young girl working for a hat-shop in a witch and wizard version of Europe. One of the most well known Wizards- Howl lives inside a giant legged castle, and is commonly believed to come down and steal the hearts (literally) of young and beautiful women. When the watch of the waste comes into the hat shop, after a brief argument of sorts, curses Sophie and turns her into an old woman. She then flees her town to the wastes in hope of finding a way to have the spell broken, and along the way finds a cursed scarecrow whom she asks to find a place to stay- and finds Sophie Howl's castle. When inside she meets Calcifur, a demon of flame who promises her he would break her curse if she freed him from Howl, he uses him as a slave. I do not know how close this adaptation is to the novel, as I have never read it, or even heard of the authors name until recently. This movie is extremely well done, as with Miyazaki's other films, but when it comes to Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, or any of his other films, Howl's moving castle falls short. It's lacking some of what made his original films so unique (Not to say it doesn't have some of that style) and doesn't feel as fresh or interesting as his others.