Made me feel like a kid again

Rating: 10/10 (16 June 2005)

I saw the commercial for the movie a few days before the premiere and it just grabbed me - I had to go see it. Howl's Moving Castle is pure magic.
First, it has an entertaining and charming storyline, but not something that I would consider deep. That's okay though because I didn't go in expecting to find a profound message hidden in there somewhere. There's plenty of humor, including commentary on old age that even my mother chuckled at. Secondly, the animation is amazing. The settings, the people, the vehicles - all are detailed and interesting. I'm told there is 3-D sneaked into it as well and I didn't see anything painfully obvious so bravo on incorporating it successfully.
I said it makes me feel like a kid because it didn't rely on logic. I mean, it has a castle that walks on little stick legs and looks like a pile of junk held together with who-knows-what. But the sheer weirdness of it fit the movie. I didn't once sit there and try to puzzle out how it could move - I accepted its ability to walk. I think we too often expect something as illogical as magic to work by rules.
Not that there weren't things that couldn't be improved upon. The characters were a bit flat: they didn't really develop a great deal as time went on, but again this wasn't a deep movie. Bale's voice for Howl might not have been the best choice as it sounded a bit too deep and forceful for the slender wizard. The rest of the character voices were more or less fine. Jean Simmons did a great job and Billy Crystal's always good with the funny lines. The ending was a bit rushed as if they realized they only had a couple of minutes to wrap things up so a few things happened so quickly that they seemed more like an afterthought.
All in all, it was an enjoyable experience and I was really happy to see it and come out with the feeling that magic still does exist somewhere out there.