| 100 |
Village Voice
An organic, childlike wonder, fabulously unpredictable and seethingly inventive.
|
| 100 |
Christian Science Monitor
You run across animation this ingenious about as often as a moving castle comes your way.
|
| 100 |
Chicago Tribune
Perfect for anyone with a youthful heart and a rich imagination.
|
| 100 |
Los Angeles Times
Parse it any way you like, Miyazaki's gifts as an animator place him in a category of his own. To see his latest film is to be somehow reminded of Italians who could hear Verdi's operas as soon as they were sung or English readers who could experience the novels of Dickens episode by episode.
|
| 100 |
Chicago Reader
The movie's dreamlike spaces and characters are sometimes worthy of Lewis Carroll.
|
| 100 |
Baltimore Sun
Howl's Moving Castle is one animated epic that has it all: poetic intensity, potent storytelling, vivid and surprising characters, and intoxicating powers of visual imagination.
|
| 100 |
Portland Oregonian
It's one of the best and strangest films of Miyazaki's career.
|
| 100 |
Newsweek
Howl's Moving Castle has the logic of a dream: behind every door lie multiple realities, one more astonishing than the next.
|
| 100 |
Premiere
The plot is pretty convoluted, but Miyazaki has a very good handle on it and lavishes his customary heart, humor, and inventiveness on every situation he depicts.
|
| 100 |
Charlotte Observer
A picture from an old man working at the top of his game.
|
| 91 |
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Movie magic is only as powerful as the imagination that casts it. Japanese master Hayao Miyazaki's imagination is the most creative in animated filmmaking.
|
| 91 |
Entertainment Weekly
The worldview, the sense of childlike fun shaded with adult melancholy, and the joyful, serene attention to visual oddity and wordless beauty could only be made in Japan. And, specifically, made by Hayao Miyazaki.
|
| 90 |
LA Weekly
Another soulful gem from the peerless Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki.
|
| 90 |
The New York Times
Sophie, in both her incarnations, joins an impressive sisterhood of Miyazaki heroines, whose version of girl power presents a potent alternative to the mini-machismo that dominates American juvenile entertainment. Not that children are the only viewers likely to be haunted and beguiled by Howl's Moving Castle - all that is needed are open eyes and an open heart.
|
| 90 |
Time
The perfect e-ticket for a flight of fancy into a world far more gorgeous than our own. The film doesn't halve itself to appeal to two generations. At its best, it turns all moviegoers into innocent kids, slack-jawed with wonder.
|
| 90 |
Wall Street Journal
A moveable feast of delights.
|
| 90 |
New York Magazine
In the best moments of Howl's Moving Castle and in his extraordinary body of work, Miyazaki teaches his viewers more valuable lessons.
|
| 88 |
USA Today
Clever and often enchanting.
|
| 88 |
Rolling Stone
There's a word for the kind of comic, dramatic, romantic, transporting visions Miyazaki achieves in Howl's: bliss.
|
| 80 |
Variety
The tireless volley of ideas and inventions make this a delight that should connect with kids and adults in both dubbed and original-language versions.
|
| 80 |
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Miyazaki's animated adaptation of Jones' book is a charming and thoroughly absorbing treat.
|
| 80 |
TV Guide
You'll gladly surrender to the whole gorgeous muddle.
|
| 80 |
Slate
Because of its convolutions, Howl's Moving Castle isn't quite as transporting as "Spirited Away." But it's a moving bridge between his lyrical fancies and his outrage. Miyazaki is like a soulful cartographer of the soul, mapping our inner landscape, leaving us bedazzled.
|
| 75 |
San Francisco Chronicle
G. Allen Johnson
A wise and wonderful parable.
|
| 75 |
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
With its bold screen-filling imagery, this is definitely a movie to be relished on the big screen.
|
| 75 |
Boston Globe
The filmmaker's obsessions have got the better of him. That said, I can't recommend the film highly enough, since bad Miyazaki is still leagues better than anyone else.
|
| 75 |
ReelViews
Miyazaki may not have achieved the level of "Spirited Away," but he's still ahead of the curve.
|
| 75 |
New York Daily News
A richly inventive, slightly eerie animated movie from Japan.
|
| 75 |
New York Post
The story, which also involves an asthmatic dog and a scarecrow, is more accessible than "Spirited Away" but less transporting than that Oscar-winning masterpiece.
|
| 75 |
Philadelphia Inquirer
It is almost inevitable that Miyazaki, often compared to C.S. Lewis and J.K. Rowling, should have found in Diana Wynne Jones a kindred spirit.
|
| 70 |
The Hollywood Reporter
Consequently, though it's difficult to work out what's going on, it's never boring.
|
| 70 |
Film Threat
While Howl’s Moving Castle is far from perfect, it’s still a very good movie. It’s just not a great one.
|
| 67 |
Austin Chronicle
The voice acting, from new Batman Bale to the almost unrecognizable Bacall is fine – even Crystal reigns in his usual Borscht Belt bravado – if a little plain.
|
| 63 |
Chicago Sun-Times
While the movie contains delights and inventions without pause and has undeniable charm, while it is always wonderful to watch, while it has the Miyazaki visual wonderment, it's a disappointment, compared to his recent work.
|
| 60 |
Dallas Observer
Miyazaki's movies are as stunning as they are confounding.
|
| 60 |
Empire
Staff (Not credited)
Just as Miyazaki seemed on the verge of properly crossing over, he serves up an anime riddle wrapped in an enigma - though with all his usual charm, wit and hand-drawn beauty.
|
| 50 |
Miami Herald
The movie is practically incomprehensible.
|
| 50 |
Salon.com
The plot of Howl's Moving Castle meanders so listlessly that its details become less and less charming.
|
| 30 |
Washington Post
The movie made almost no sense whatever to me. I literally could not follow it, even as I was dazzled by it.
|
| 20 |
Washington Post
Miyazaki, like an evil sorcerer, has plucked the heart out of Jones's story and left it there to die.
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