Ponyo

As you're probably aware, I'm a big fan of Hayao Miyazaki's films, especially Spirited Away. With the addition of his most recent film Ponyo, I've now seen all but one of his nine films. In fact, Ponyo is the only Miyazaki film that I've been fortunate enough to see in the theatre.

Despite this, I didn't really like it all that much. The story is basically another version of the Little Mermaid fairytale, but apart from a few vague similarities to the Disney title, this one is totally different. My main reasons for not liking it all stem from it being another one of Miyazaki's films aimed largely at children (Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, and Nausicaä were more for adults)...as such, the weight of the story, the depth of the characters, and even the breadth of the imagination used to visualize the film's world seem like they were all filtered a fair amount. Sure, there was still a bit of Miyazaki's tendency towards socially-conscious message-making, and the visuals were still nice at times, but overall, the film just doesn't stack up to most of his other works.

That said, Tina Fey's character was easily the hottest character in any Miyazaki film I've seen (well, the hottest real-world character) and she did a great job delivering the part, and Liam Neeson's character was distinctly Liam Neeson-y, which is almost always a welcome addition to any film. Unfortunately, these roles weren't enough to save the film for me.

Oh well. I'll just stick to my faves and just chalk this up as another film seen in my growing Miyazaki collection.

Note: Sorry again about the video being off-center. I tried to find a smaller-sized clip to embed on Google Video, but alas, I failed.