A fantastic epic with a problematic second half

Rating: 8/10 (16 November 2012)

If Studio Ghibli's fantasy films were a menu, Nausicaä and Laputa would serve as appetizers for the main course which is Mononoke. It is a grim, adult fantasy epic which deals with heavy themes in a mature way. It doesn't ask simple questions, nor does it give simple answers and its only moral shades are of grey. It is fantasy fiction at its finest, and magnificently realized.
Which sadly makes the few flaws it has all the more apparent.
Mononoke has a theme of man vs. nature. However, instead of going the Avatar route, Mononoke presents both sides as fully fleshed out, and neither of them seems better or worse than the other. This is perhaps Mononoke's greatest strength: real-feeling moral ambiguity where wrong and right are shady at best.
Mononoke has also a multitude of other things going for it: the animation and art are gorgeous, and don't seem dated in any way. The music is among Joe Hisaishi's best, and that is not something you can say lightly. The action scenes are perhaps the most visceral and thrilling in all of the Ghibli films, and Miyazaki's imagination outdoes 99% of mainstream cinema.
Mononoke has only two major flaws, but sadly they can't be ignored. The first is the main characters: they're believable and well developed, but there's an odd lack of emotion to them. Ashitaka, for example, doesn't seem to display much else than cold indifference or steely determination. I also would have liked the hinted romance to have been explored a bit more. It clearly is there, why not go for it?
The second, and biggest, problem with the film are its around last 45 minutes. In short, the whole story and all plot threads are solved in one long, intense action sequence which takes up most of the film's second half. The intensity is kept high for the whole time with little pause for breath, and eventually it does get tiring. I think it could have been done better. Also the ending feels quite abrupt after the long action sequence, as the "what happened next?" question is answered with only a few short scenes, and then we cut to the credits. There could at least have been an image montage during the credits like in Totoro.
Recommendation: Despite my criticisms, Mononoke is in the end a great film and practically obligatory to see for any who consider themselves anime fans. Must-see for Ghibli fans, heartily recommended for anyone else