Wonderful film poorly dubbed

Rating: 9/10 (13 December 2001)

Miyzaki thought he had learned his lesson after seeing his film "Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind" hacked to pieces and rearranged as "Warriors of the Wind." But, alas, he was to learn that a film could be damaged by a lousy dubbing job, too. (I suppose he hadn't known that Katsuhiro Ohtomo's "Akira" had suffered such a fate.)
Nonetheless, this is a wonderful movie, despite the voice-overs by Saturday-morning rejects. I was disappointed to hear Roger Ebert (who generally liked the film) characterize the children in the film as "saccharine sweet." It seems Americans have become so accustomed to smart-mouthed brats on TV and in movies that when they see children on the screen actually behaving like children, they seem "saccharine sweet." Anyway, Miyazaki finally really did learn his lesson, and now has films are handled exclusively by Disney, who naturally do a slick job. Now if they would just go back and restore "Nausicaa" to its original glory...