The bottom line: Ponyo is probably Hayao Miyazaki's most powerful artistic vision yet, but the story simply feels lacking.

This is what I hate about reviewing Ponyo, it is as equally brilliant as it is lackluster. On one hand, you have a fairly confusing story that children, and even some adults, have trouble following; coupled with some of the most beautiful and memorable hand-drawn animation ever created. While the positive aspects outnumber the negative ones, it is quite disheartening to see so many flaws drag the film down.

The Children's Movie
As a movie made for children, Ponyo exceeds expectations. All of the characters are strong role models and in typical Miyazaki fashion, seem to lacking true evil. Ponyo earns its G-Rating with limited action and extremely tame themes, but it still a great watch for adults concerned of it being too childish. The three children I brought to the movie found themselves enamored with the fish-girl Ponyo and the young boy Sosuke. The duos adventure without adults, Ponyo's magic, and her bizarre affection for ham were the things they enjoyed the most. Especially the ham thing. Seriously, they were singing about ham for like an hour afterward.


Most of all they loved Ponyo for her innocent exuberance, her rebellious spirit, and her curious nature. I couldn't help but agree that Noah Cyrus did a fantastic job bringing the character alive. Miyazaki and Cyrus could have imagined her as a timid and confused girl, but instead scored big by making her literally brim over with excitement. It is extremely hard to not smile whenever Ponyo is in human form, running everywhere she goes like a real five year old girl.

The children I brought complained mostly about the slow beginning and the length of the film. It was about twenty minutes before the end and all three were ready for it to be over, I have admit I was too. It had lulled significantly and the ending felt like it was nowhere in sight. Ponyo runs at 100 minutes while a typical animated children's movie runs at about 80 to 90 minutes. That isn't massively drawn out, but I was curious and reading up on the movie discovered that Miyazaki had problems ending the film, which made sense considering the literal drag followed by a lightning quick climax.

On an extremely positive note, the morals it imparted were priceless. The central theme of the entire movie is unconditional love, but the more apparent one is environmentalism - particularly ocean pollution. The glorious views of the ocean transition to polluted murky waters near a human port town leave a stark impact. Almost every single shot of the ocean near the human city is mired with glass bottles and a lack of sea life. After Ponyo's arrival this slowly changes as the magic she unleashes begins to take over the entire world. It is important to note that almost every single person in the film is a strong role model and behaves properly. Even the "villain" is acting with a noble purpose and has highly redeeming qualities.


The Miyazaki Film
Now let's be honest, Miyazaki in America isn't quite for children. In my theater, there was definitely a 4:1 ratio in terms of groups with and without children. A lot of young adults and teenagers flocked to the movie based on their love of anime and Miyazaki. For them, this movie was viewed as I viewed it. Beautifully flawed.

Here's the problem, even as an adult the plot lost me. The biggest character that caused confusion was Ponyo's father Fujimoto. His motives never seemed clear and the whole ending seemed flimsy. I couldn't figure out if he was trying to save the ocean, cause the Armageddon, or if he was just being an over zealous father. Liam Nesson did a decent job with his voice work, but the whole character just seemed lost. I get that you're not supposed to fully understand Miyazaki's films, but I've never questioned what he was going for before. Pieces just don't click together, a lot of it felt unnecessary and poorly executed.

On the other hand, I was often lost in a good way as well. The opening ocean sequence is fantastic, as are all of the ocean visuals. It it is remarkable that Miyazaki would attempt what he did by hand, especially considering the sheer number of ocean creatures that populate the background of the film. At one point I couldn't even imagine how he was hand animating the hundreds of sea creatures that populated the screen. IMDB lists that for a particular twelve second scene at the beginning, there were over 1613 conceptual sketches created - that is mind blowing. It never lets up either; there are constant moments with intense animation from start to finish.

I was also blown away by his character work. Ponyo, Sosuke, Sosuke's mother Lisa, and the four elderly ladies in particular felt particularly strong. Their voice work was well done and I thought Tina Fey as Lisa was remarkable. Sosuke was modeled after Miyazaki's own son and you could genuinely see the love drawn directly into the character. I'm hesitant to use the word precious, but Sosuke is an absolute charmer. His interactions with Ponyo, Lisa, and the elderly quartet are wholesome and powerful. Frankie Jonas did the character solid, selling the 'wise beyond his years' Sosuke as a pillar of purity and innocence.

And that is why I'm torn.

I highly feel this is perhaps Miyazaki's most beautiful film - animation wise - and rivals My Neighbor Totoro in terms of sheer warmth. However, I feel it is one of his weaker stories and doesn't quite rise to the level of Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle, and Princess Mononoke. Miyazaki does deliver his usual strong, likable characters and positive morals quite effectively though.

In the end, I gave it an 8 out of 10. Even with the lack of a solid story, the powerful animation and characters delivered.

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The DVD's for Ponyo come in various releases that all release on Tuesday March 2nd, 2010. All of them are relatively the same, with the main difference being of course Blu-Ray HD versus DVD quality. The only thing missing from the Blu-Ray disks is a DTS-HD master track on the Japanese audio. This seems like something negligible to me and might influence 1 out of 100,000,000 people.

Both DVD and Blu-Ray come with a slew of Studio Ghibli featurettes and an interactive map of the worlds of Ponyo, Kiki's Delivery Service, Castle in the Sky and My Neighbor Totoro. The coolest feature though is a storyboard presentation of the film that will show various storyboards of the film as it plays.

It is a great day for Studio Ghibli fans as they are releasing not just Ponyo, but also the three movies mentioned above in the same format. Each is a 2-Disc special editions with matching packaging and a slew of features. So if you've been waiting for a re-release of the English versions of Studio Ghibli films you've got your wish. Ponyo, Kiki's Delivery Service, Castle in the Sky and My Neighbor Totoro all drop on March 2nd. These are the perfect films for you parents that are tired of watching the same movies over and over again. With the exception of Castle in the Sky, they are age 3+ appropriate and impart some powerful cultural awareness and morals. I know my three year old niece loves each and every one of them.

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