Ponyo Review

Released in North America simply as “Ponyo”.

2009 has been a great year for animation, and “Ponyo” continues that streak of great animated films. Hayao Miyazaki has created another fantastic movie that proves animated films are just as good as many of those undeserved Best Picture nominees. With a good story (if not slightly familiar a la “The Little Mermaid”), a very talented voice-acting cast, and beautiful animation, “Ponyo” will delight and bewitch kids and adults alike. Still, there are some minor problems with “Ponyo” that keep it from being another Miyazaki masterpiece, like “Princess Mononoke” and “Spirited Away”.

The biggest surprise for me about “Ponyo” is that the voice-cast is actually prefect. I was very worried that Disney had hired Noah Cyrus and Frankie Jonas to promote Hannah Montana and the Jonas Brothers, but they knew what they were doing when they cast these two young, talented actors to play the leading roles. Their voices fit their characters perfectly and they bring to characters to life with such personality and charisma. Not that many great actors take voice-acting seriously, but all of the adult actors voicing supporting characters are incredible. Liam Neeson (on a streak of great performances) and Cate Blanchett have fantastic screen presence as Ponyo’s parents, and their characters are animated perfectly to fit their booming and commanding voices. Tina Fey also gives a very sweet performance as Sosuke’s mom. Bravo all around for the incredible voice talents.

Once again, the animation in this film is gorgeous. The animators alone deserve Academy Awards. The character animations are incredibly detailed and fit their voices perfectly. Another thing I thought that was animated gorgeously was the ocean. Sometimes animators are lazy when designing an ocean in an animated film by saying “it’s just a damn ocean”. That damn ocean is a big part of this movie, and they succeeded in making the ocean look beautiful and breath-taking. In fact, it looked gorgeous I wanted to jump into the movie just to take a swim in that ocean. There’s also one scene where the ocean goes complete berserk with sea life erupting out and waves crashing everywhere, and it’s a sight to behold. The amount of strenuous hours these animators have put in has totally paid off.

Now here’s the section where the problems come into view. Even though Miyazaki is an extraordinarily gifted story-teller, sometimes he can tell too much story. There’s one subplot in this film that did not work for me at all and didn’t feel right being in this film. I won’t spoil it, but if Miyazaki had removed it from the film, the film would’ve a lot more fluent. Not that it’s terrible subplot (it’s a very good one), but it’s just not developed enough for it to be included in this film. But besides that one subplot, the story here is magnificent.

Overall, “Ponyo” is another great film from Hayao Miyazaki. Even though it’s not one of his masterpieces, it’s still a wonderful movie worth checking out. It’s one of the best animated films of the year, and one of my favorite movies released this year. A