Miyazaki's most confounding and least compelling film to date

Rating: 2/10 (19 March 2006)

I don't have much to say about the movie reiterating the points of the plot as already explained by comments below, other than the fact that I thought it cannot be possible to top or even equal the top-notch quality and subliminally emotional power of the magic fantasy hybrid of the Grimm Brothers, Lewis Carroll & Japanese folklore in Spirited Away.
Howl's Moving Castle retains some of Hayao Miyazaki's magic in storytelling and animation but it's not certainly his best. In fact, it's his worst since the embarrassingly contrived Kiki's Delivery Service.
It seems to me that the strange mess of Howl's Moving Castle confirms there is a theoretical pattern that Miyazaki does his best when he creates original stories inspired by the fantastic works of European & Asian literature and turn out fantastic animated films and manga, but his skills do not translate well in the attempted adaptation of previous published works.
Don't get me wrong; I have a great deal of admiration for Mr. Miyazaki. Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind comic book series is a worthy companion piece to C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien's famous epic literacy works. He has an incredibly imaginary mind with the penchant for telling outlandish stories reminiscent of Aesop and Hans Christian Anderson. That's the only positive compliment I have for Howl's Moving Castle in spite of its mind-bendingly glaring story and character development flaws.
The story as written by Mr. Miyazaki (I watched the Japanese version with English subtitles instead of awful-sounding English dub) starts all right. . .then it became a confounding mess leading to the bizarre ending that feels rushed as though the production schedule had to be fulfilled on time in time for a projected theatrical release. Tim Burton's horrible 2001 re-make of Planet of the Apes suffered the same "rushed production" effect and this lesson remains unlearned.
A further production delay with Miyazaki's storyboard revision to iron out the problems might have improved the ending and clarify some plot points and character development to keep the story consistent, but that wasn't the option. Studio Ghibli and its subcontractors came close to missing the production deadline for Spirited Away (as tensely explained in a documentary as an extra on Region 1 DVD) but miraculously turned out a masterpiece right on schedule.
So Howl's Moving Castle, however visually pleasant, falters in the second and third act in terms of marginal storytelling. The film resorts to Miyazaki's scenarios that border on the incomprehensibly bizarre towards the closing. Not to mention the fact the movie carry the sledgehammer approach to delivering the main theme. It's better to be subliminal than to be so screeningly obvious it becomes annoying that may inspire "who cares?" apathy at the end when the two-hour ordeal is over.
I get the point, Studio Ghibli. Try to be coherent and subtle in the next Miyazaki production, please.
The last third of the movie embodies the term "deus ex machina". Look the phrase up in a dictionary. That's why the movie is an abominable mess that render the plot incomprehensible that rely on overactive imagination to move the movie along to unsustainable and unnecessarily overlong length. The Neverending Story this movie ain't. It probably isn't faithful to the source material, either.
* out of four, courtesy of a very disappointed Miyazaki fan.