Disney Ought to Be Ashamed...

Rating: 9/10 (2 November 2002)

Ya gotta wonder - Disney is the US distributor, Disney knows how to market animated features - why has this breathtaking animated feature not been promoted at all in this country?
It's a great movie, but really not for small children and it really doesn't have the toy/gadget possibilities of Disney flicks as most of the characters are not at all cute (except for Chihiro, of course). And, perhaps, since animated features are now eligible for an Oscar, perhaps Disney decided to dump this movie, keep it forgotten in America, so they can promote the amusing (but hardly great) Lilo and Stitch come Oscar time.
This movie has some of the most breathtaking backgrounds and animation I've ever seen. True, here and there it has the kind of stilted animation of '60s TV animation. But once Chihiro starts her adventures in the bathhouse, the animation practically leaps off the screen. The level of detail in the backgrounds, particularly in the "witch's lair" is unlike anything I've ever seen (even better than Beauty and the Beast, which set the bar pretty high for outstanding detail).
I don't know much about Japanese myth/legend, and I suspect that the Japanese moviegoers got much more out of this movie than I did. Still, it was great fun to watch. Chihiro is a genuinely annoying kid early in the film, and showed more character development during the course of the movie than some live actors I could mention. Early in the movie, her parents are enchanted by a witch, and the rest of the movie is about little Chihiro almost going through hell to bring them back.
This is probably not a good movie for sensitive children, but most kids much above six or seven should have a ball with it.