Not upto his own standards.

Rating: 4/10 (1 October 2005)

'Incredibly disappointing' would be a short (if not sweet) summary. Or maybe just 'average', which is the worst thing you could possibly say about a film from a director who had previously sought to delight through imagination and vibrancy.
In Howl's Moving Castle, Miyazaki struggles to find original ground and ends up retreading now increasingly familiar ideas and motifs from his previous work, even the opening title sequence seems to reuse music from his breakout hit Spirited Away. We have a teenage girl (Sophie, the protagonist), a silent and ineffective partner (Turnip-head), a humorous sidekick (Calcifer), a collection of wishy-washy tag-alongs (Markl & co), vague enemies which are totally unexplored, and a mysterious and largely undeveloped male teenager, who here happens to be the titular Howl. All characters also suffer from abysmal phoned-in performances for the English dub (I can't comment on the original), in particular Christian Bale (Howl) who barely varies his delivery throughout, and Emily Mortimer (Sophie) who gives an appallingly flat performance for the lead. Only the ever-reliable Billy Crystal gives value for money as the fire daemon Calcifer, though it's nothing incredibly special - more accurately simply a cut-price Robin Williams.
Elsewhere there are more significant problems. The story is a mess both in terms of plotting and pacing and scripting. It begins well enough but falls into predictable buddy-buddy routines all too early, fails to head in any clear direction for a long time and then ends on a half-hearted note (which is to say ridiculously hokey) with a total non-conclusion. Whole ideas are thrown into the mix and left unexplained, like the war which is at the center of the action, the king (queen?), the other wizards. Miyazaki could arguably be even trying to say something about the Iraq war, with a myriad of none too subtle contemporary references, but even that didactic aspect is lost.
You will likely not leave the cinema satisfied, unless you are ten years old - and even the kids behind me were bored to tears long before the finishing line. A rethink is needed over at Ghibli studios..
4/10.