visually stunning; spotty English-version voice talent

Rating: 6/10 (12 September 2005)

This is perhaps Miyazaki's most visually stunning artwork. The visuals alone are worth viewing. The Nightwalker is particularly magical. Unfortunately, that's the best part. The moral carried throughout the storyline focuses on the battle between the natural environment and human's development of the environment; good enough so far. However, some of the English-version voice talent is lacking to awful. Billy Bob Thornton, to put it flatly, sucks. His voice doesn't fit the character and his delivery is annoying from the get-go. Every time is character appears, I cringe. Almost as bad are the anonymous voice characterizations of evil creatures. Its as if the talent were taken off the street, paid $50, then in post-production some cheesy sound effects were added to make the voice sound "scary". Simply awful! The voice talent is nearly saved by Jada Pinkett Smith's London-inflected, accurate characterization (I hope I got the correct actress). In the end though, it's the visuals that make this a movie worth watching, at least once.