Not just a great animated movie; a great movie, period!

Rating: 10/10 (4 January 2001)

"Princess Mononoke" (Mononoke Hime) is supposed to be Hayao Miyazaki's last movie ever; may all film creators complete their careers with such a high note! "Mononoke" is a visually-impressive film, with smooth animation, superb attention to lifelike movement and detail, and sympathetic characters who are never reduced to chest-beating heroes or cackling villains, but three-dimensional people with both good and bad qualities and believable motivations. Like much of Miyazaki's better-known works, it's an engaging story about Man's struggle against Nature, with a poignant message that shines through the plot rather than becoming preachy. This movie has all the technical excellence of movies such as "Akira" and "Ghost In The Shell," but also has the soul that those two movies lack. While the original Japanese-language version is excellent on its own, the English dub is one of the best treatments I've heard in translated anime. All of the big-name voice actors do wonderful jobs - even Billy Bob Thornton's rendition of the monk, while completely different from the tone of the original Japanese casting, is well-done and fitting for the character. This is a movie to own on DVD; it deserves the best treatment!