Princess Mononoke

This is a movie that's been sitting in my collection unwatched for some time.  I decided to finally sit down and watch it.  It's good, but not great.

The story concerns a young prince named Ashitaka who, after saving his village from a demon, gets cursed and ventures West to try and find a cure.  This journey lands him in the middle of a brewing conflict between the people of a small iron mining town and the forest gods.

At first, I rolled my eyes at this.  I figured it was going to be another movie that makes some "profound statement about the human condition" by showing mankind as the real evil.  It seems this is the case when Ashitaka turns on Lady Eboshi, but by the end of the film it isn't so much that man is evil, but that it must co-exist with nature.

Speaking of the evil of men, I really disliked the women of Iron Town.  I know, they're strong and independent so we should laud them for their behavior, but truth be told, as misogynistic as the men got, the women were equally (if not more) misandric.  In the fight for equality, that attitude does a lot more harm than it does good.

I watched the dubbed version and if any one doubts the merits of a dub, I suggest you watch this as the voice acting is superb.  A part of this is due to the all star cast that features Gillian Anderson, Minnie Driver, John DiMaggio, Billy Bob Thornton, Jada Pinkett Smith, Keith freakin' David!!!, and Billy Crudup.  Actually, Crudup was the weakest of the bunch.  He wasn't bad by any stretch, but his voice doesn't have a whole lot of range. 

The animation is stunning and there is some beautiful imagery spread throughout the film.

The soundtrack is equally gorgeous.  It's mostly instrumental, but what songs do contain lyrics are done by Mary McGlynn, who you might know as the singer who did a lot of the tracks for the recent Silent Hill games. 

This is a fairly long movie with a runtime of about two hours and twenty minutes.  Truth be told, it was starting to overstay its welcome a little. For as long as Miyazaki worked on this story, you'd think he could've kept the runtime down a little better.

On a random note, it also could've used more Keith David.

Those forest spirits were creepy.  They were silent and ultimately harmless, but they looked like tiny aliens and the way that their heads rotated was pretty unnerving.

For its faults, this is still a well made film that you should watch at least once.  It's a pretty straight forward story, no mindscrews to be seen here.  The characters are fleshed out, the plot moves along at a decent enough pace despite the run time, and as said before the voice work is superb.  If you get a chance, I recommend checking out this movie.

Anime fans in Wichita who are looking to obtain a copy of the DVD can purchase one at a local Best Buy or Target.  I know Ultimate Electronics has a fair amount of DVD's available for sale; I looked on their website and it came up empty.  I got the same result on K-Mart's website.