Legendary

Rating: 8/10 (2 June 2018)

'Princess Mononoke' is a beautifully animated and epic fantasy film by legendary Japanese filmmaker and animator Hayao Miyazaki.
This was the first film I got to view at the Celebrate Studio Ghibli film festival in Melbourne and I thoroughly enjoyed most aspects of this film.
The clear standout for the film is the breathtaking hand-drawn animation by Miyazaki. Everything from the painted forest, the Great Forest Spirit, and even the characters themselves are visually striking and shows that these films were well ahead of their time. There's a very good reason as to why Miyazaki is considered one of the best animators of this century.
The soundtrack by Joe Hisaishi is everything a good soundtrack should be, with epic numbers for the action sequences and then beautiful pieces for the emotional scenes.
The storyline of this film is epic and gripping, from the very first opening scene. What made it unique though, was its underlying themes of environmentalism that were quite powerful. The characters in this film were also very complex; the villains weren't really villains and the heroes weren't really heroes. Each character, even the supporting ones, had a depth in them that is absent in too many movies these days.
However, it's in the pacing where this movie fails to be a masterpiece. There are many scenes that a very drawn-out and difficult to maintain attention. With a running time over two hours, this film definitely has it's moments that seem to drag on. The main issue with these scenes is the fact that they're not particularly part of the main storyline, so there's no real need for them to be as long as they are. Fortunately, Miyazaki redeems himself with a fantastic ending that left me in awe and overall I was very pleased with this movie.