Visually Stunning

Rating: 10/10 (4 July 2012)

Hayao Miyazaki is clearly one of the best directors to this day. His best movie is, in my opinion, definitely Princess Mononoke. Being a fan of Miyazaki's work like Spirited Away, The Secret World of Arietty (which he only wrote), Castle in the Sky, and Porco Rosso (I could name more but back to the review) I had no little expectations for such an amazing film, boy was I wrong. My expectations were greatly surpassed and what we receive is one of the most visually stunning films of all time.
The story is about a young warrior who has a curse put upon him by a raging boar demon-god. He sets out on a journey to the western forests where he hopes to find a cure that would lift the curse from him. It's definitely like Hayao Miyazaki's style.
The characters are also pretty awesome. The film's main antagonist, Lady Eboshi, develops so nicely you have this real sort of hatred towards her, one that should be present in every film. She has a reason for it though, she wants success and wants the ability to survive. The protagonist, Ashitaka, is a cool character. He sees peace on both sides between the forest gods who want the humans dead, and the humans who want the gods dead. He can't find an ally on either side directly and he constantly is in a struggle for survival. There's a good romance story between San (the human who believes she is a wolf-god) and Ashitaka and over the course of the movie their relationship develops a ton. You actually get an emotional attachment to the characters, something that's very rare. While they aren't directly involved with one-another, you can see the love between them. It's rather heart-warming considering it's a film about death and stuff.
The voice acting is great, as expected. With an all-star cast that include Billy Crudup, Claire Danes, Billy Bob Thornton, Minnie Driver, John Di Maggio, Jada Pinkett-Smith, and Gillian Anderson, it's hard to believe that the voice acting wouldn't be good. It has a very good musical score that contains intense and emotional factors, never leaving the action bland or boring by complete silence.
There's much to enjoy about Princess Mononoke. It's just a film in general that's great to watch. Lots of colours are featured and leaves a stunning visual impact that really catches the eye. The animators all deserve recognition, as the animation blends in with the colours and nothing is absent. It gives the film industry a perfect reason why hand-drawn films are nearly always better than computer animation.
In all, Princess Mononoke is one amazing film. Definitely one of the all time best and it leaves nothing out. There were intense sequences that keep you on the edge of your seat while keeping the main attraction to the visual scenery. Everything was perfect and it's difficult to find any errors with such a masterpiece. Princess Mononoke is definitely an overlooked film. It also goes to show that special effects aren't the only thing to make a film look beautiful.