2183

I love this movie. I have watched it many times. The voices are perfect. The story is exciting and meaningful and the love story within it makes me happy. Both Howl and Sophie grow up within the story and truly discover what it means to be human. ( )

Brilliant. It takes a while to get the hang of the story, but the kids love it. Reading the book makes things clearer.
I found some images problematic for young children.

Watched again in 2018. ( )

A beautifully animated film which stays quite faithful to the book about two thirds of the way through, and then diverges rather a lot. These changes mostly make the film a more adult, but perhaps less subtle, tale than the novel, moving the external focus over to warfare rather than traiditonal fairy tale tropes, and the plot over to a more traditional romance rather than the internal growth of the protagonist and her influence on the title character. But that's not a problem in and of itself. My only real complaint is rather more specific: In a gorgeous movie with lovely animation that brings a huge sense of scale to what felt a relatively small and cosy book, the perhaps most memorable and epic character in the book (the fire demon Calcifer) is drawn as a cutesy and underwhelming critter, without any of the implied threat or pathos he possesses in the novel. This really steals a lot of the sense of danger and stakes out of otherwise faithfully adapted plots and sequences. That, and some minor trouble (for me personally, at least) following some character changes and behaviours towards the end, costs it half a star, but even so this remains one of my absolute favourites from Studio Ghibli. ( )

Even for a children's book, this one failed to move me. I get the simple language - that's what I found charming. What I didn't like one little bit was the string of insults Howl hurled at old Sophie. Yes, in the end, the loose ends are tied up, but continued phrases like Miss Nosey" coupled with Sophie's constant berating of herself as the eldest, and thus not in line to have any success in life, make me wonder what message Ms. Jones is giving to young boys and girls.

It started off as a good re-telling of fairy tales, explaining first-born and second-born, charms and apprenticeships, but then it falls off when Sophie gets stuck at Howl's castle.

Maybe there's something I'm missing here, but I truly wonder what it is." ( )