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Howl's Moving Castle
Buena Vista Pictures

Howl's Moving Castle reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 80 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
8.8 out of 10
based on 40 reviews
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How did we calculate this?
based on 103 votes
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MPAA RATING: PG for frightening images and brief mild language

Starring Christian Bale, Jean Simmons, Lauren Bacall, Blythe Danner, Emily Mortimer, Josh Hutcherson, and Billy Crystal

An amazing new animated adventure that celebrates the power of love to transform and the resiliency of the human spirit in the face of adversity. (Disney)


GENRE(S): Animation  |  Fantasy  |  Foreign  |  Romance  
WRITTEN BY: Hayao Miyazaki
Diana Wynne Jones (novel)
Cindy Davis Hewitt
Donald H. Hewitt
 
DIRECTED BY: Hayao Miyazaki  
RELEASE DATE: DVD: March 7, 2006 
Theatrical: June 10, 2005 
RUNNING TIME: 119 minutes, Color 
ORIGIN: Japan 
LANGUAGE(S): Japanese (dubbed in English) 

Original title "Hauru no ugoku shiro"

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100
Village Voice Michael Atkinson
An organic, childlike wonder, fabulously unpredictable and seethingly inventive.
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100
Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
You run across animation this ingenious about as often as a moving castle comes your way.
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100
Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
Perfect for anyone with a youthful heart and a rich imagination.
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100
Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
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.
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100
Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
The movie's dreamlike spaces and characters are sometimes worthy of Lewis Carroll.
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100
Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
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.
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100
Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell
It's one of the best and strangest films of Miyazaki's career.
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100
Newsweek David Ansen
Howl's Moving Castle has the logic of a dream: behind every door lie multiple realities, one more astonishing than the next.
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100
Premiere Glenn Kenny
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.
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100
Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
A picture from an old man working at the top of his game.
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91
Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker
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.
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91
Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
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.
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90
LA Weekly Ella Taylor
Another soulful gem from the peerless Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki.
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90
The New York Times Dana Stevens
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.
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90
Time Richard Corliss
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.
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90
Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
A moveable feast of delights.
90
New York Magazine Ken Tucker
In the best moments of Howl's Moving Castle and in his extraordinary body of work, Miyazaki teaches his viewers more valuable lessons.
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88
USA Today Claudia Puig
Clever and often enchanting.
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88
Rolling Stone Peter Travers
There's a word for the kind of comic, dramatic, romantic, transporting visions Miyazaki achieves in Howl's: bliss.
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80
Variety David Rooney
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.
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80
The Onion (A.V. Club) Tasha Robinson
Miyazaki's animated adaptation of Jones' book is a charming and thoroughly absorbing treat.
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80
TV Guide Ken Fox
You'll gladly surrender to the whole gorgeous muddle.
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80
Slate David Edelstein
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.
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75
San Francisco Chronicle G. Allen Johnson
A wise and wonderful parable.
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75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey
With its bold screen-filling imagery, this is definitely a movie to be relished on the big screen.
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75
Boston Globe Ty Burr
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.
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75
ReelViews James Berardinelli
Miyazaki may not have achieved the level of "Spirited Away," but he's still ahead of the curve.
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75
New York Daily News Jami Bernard
A richly inventive, slightly eerie animated movie from Japan.
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75
New York Post Lou Lumenick
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.
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75
Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
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.
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70
The Hollywood Reporter Richard James Havis
Consequently, though it's difficult to work out what's going on, it's never boring.
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70
Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar
While Howl’s Moving Castle is far from perfect, it’s still a very good movie. It’s just not a great one.
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67
Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
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.
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63
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
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.
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60
Dallas Observer Robert Wilonsky
Miyazaki's movies are as stunning as they are confounding.
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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.
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50
Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
The movie is practically incomprehensible.
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50
Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
The plot of Howl's Moving Castle meanders so listlessly that its details become less and less charming.
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30
Washington Post Stephen Hunter
The movie made almost no sense whatever to me. I literally could not follow it, even as I was dazzled by it.
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20
Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan
Miyazaki, like an evil sorcerer, has plucked the heart out of Jones's story and left it there to die.
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What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 8.8 (out of 10) based on 103 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Korenna Y. gave it a10:
This Movie Is The Best Anime Movie I Have Ever Seen In My Life! It seems to me that im obessed of it but who cares :)

Jim gave it a1:
This movie stinks!

Kazuki A. gave it a10:
Howl's Moving Castle by Miyazaki Hayao A Review Written for Friends by Kazuki Anno, Translators United for Peace Like a vivid dream, Miyazaki's film presents an alternate world for children of all ages. For more mature viewers, however, his works represent the complex realities we face here and now in this cruel, yet beautiful world. Howl's Moving Castle will take us on a journey of moral quest to confront unnecessary and destructive wars that make us victims of, and collaborators with, terror at one and the same time. If our children can handle such serious subjects as war, justice and humanity, so must we. Miyazaki tells us that we are not what we seem to be. Howl is a handsome young man who looks like a dashing rock star and behaves like a flamboyant prince. Nevertheless, he is a wizard. Yet, unlike other wizards, he no longer works for the Palace, and when night falls, he turns into a black monster bird, flying across the sky to intercept a massive bomber formation over defenseless cities burning in flames. Howl spreads his wings and tries to catch bombs in the air, but all he can do is to neutralize a few bombs out of thousands. Thus, he goes to war each day, knowing in advance that he will fail. Which one of his multiple characters is truer than the other ones? Is any one aspect of his as true as any other? Sophie, a 19-year-old girl, is turned into a 90-year-old woman by the Witch of the Waste Land because she attracts the attention of Howl whom the Witch desires for herself, secretly envious of his youth and beauty. Is this a curse by a jealous witch, or does it merely mirror the lost heart of Sophie who does not know what she is to become, having resigned herself to a drab life in her family's hat shop? If the latter is the case, what can she do to break the spell? So, she sets off on an adventure to discover herself. Not even the Witch, an elaborately dressed dowager, is immune to power. When she is called to the Palace, she kowtows to authority and transforms herself into a helpless old woman, going up a flight of steep stairs that lead to a majestic chamber. It has been a long time since the ancient oral traditions she represents were annihilated and subjugated by nation-states in the age of modernization. Calcifer, a cantankerous fire demon, is supposed to be a free being in the universe, but he is under a contract to Howl, so he is kept in a small fireplace to generate energy for the moving castle. When more energy is needed for the castle in crisis, Sophie offers a lock of her hair to Calcifer who then says, "If you give me your soul, I will be able to produce unimaginable amounts of energy." Perhaps, the wizards at the Palace who are in charge of inventing all the machines, warplanes, tanks, bombs, and missiles, have given up their souls to Calcifer to develop nuclear weapons. As citizens of nations with industrial democracies which uphold a single economic model, namely extreme capitalism unleashed by neo-liberal shock treatments in the era of corporate globalization, we have no faces, no voices, and no names. Here we have Miyazaki's invitation to take off on a magical journey, together with Sophie and Howl, to search for the infinite possibilities that dwell in each one of us. It will be as hard an adventure as anyone can undertake in the mysterious frontier of the human mind, as valuable an experience as dreams that would not cease to inspire us, and as easy a task as remembering once again our own names. Peace, Kazuki

Evelyn P. gave it a10:
I absolutely loved this movie! It has so much heart, and I was enthralled all the way through. The storyline differs from the book a bit, but that only makes it more original. The artwork is beautiful, and the music is among the best soundtracks I've heard. Bravo!

Mezzie B. gave it a10:
THISis one of my ALL time FAVORITE movies!!! I talk about it any chance that i get !! i also love Howl! :)

Katie gave it a10:
There is something deeply wrong with the reviewers who could not follow the plot, and thought that this film has no heart. I am in my twenties and love all Miyazaki films; these films have more heart than any Disney film has in its little finger. The morality of these films is deep and complex; there is not true good or evil, and children are put in places of responsibility where they must take responsibility for their actions. Howl's is no different. Spirited Away is my favorite Miyazaki film, but this comes in close second. The film never gets old; it's like a favorite song.

Bandi W. gave it a10:
im a your #1 fan also it was the best movie from miyazaki i ever seen i hope he keeps making more movies like this on or Spirtted Away also i was wondering if you were the one who made Princess Monokay bye the way do you have a myspace?

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