There will be a review a day for a whle, since I've got a ton written and might as well post them. All subjects will be covered, though you can expect mostly non-current books and DVDs, since I've been posting reviews of new films as I see them. Today we've got an anime review, and yes, I'm updating these to the reviews section, which is several months out of date, with tons of reviews posted in the blog and not archived properly. But not for long...
The Castle of Cagliostro is an animated film by much-acclaimed Japanese director,
Hayao Miyazaki. This is one of his earlier works, done long before he became world famous for movies such as Princess Mononoke,
Spirited
Away, Howl's Moving Castle, and others.
Cagliostro was made in 1979, and it's not the "perfect for the whole family" timeless triumph that many of Miyazaki's later films are.
Cagliostro is more of an adventure romp, staring two wacky thieves, an evil prince, silly policemen, a beautiful princess in peril, a wandering samurai, and many more oddball characters.
It's a lot of fun, but it's more like a fast-paced thriller for children or tweens than an adult film. I saw it on a DVD I got at the library, and while I enjoyed it, I don't think I'll need to buy it or want to see it again. At least not until I've got a child to entertain with something better than legacy-destroying direct to video sequels from Disney.
To the scores:
The Castle of Cagliostro, 1979
Script/Story: 6
Characters: 6
Action: 8
Combat Realism: 3 (intentionally cartoonish)
Humor: 6
Horror: NA
Eye Candy: 7
Fun Factor: 8
Replayability: 7
Overall: 6.5
It's a fun film, and a very lively, fast-paced one, but it lacks the intelligence and world-creativity of Mizayaki's mature works.
Cagliostro is anime, and it follows most of the familiar conventions of the genre, including stereotyped characters, wild, over the top emotional displays, slapstick violence, and all the rest. It's still very inventive, with numerous great comedy/action set pieces, many video game and even Buster Keaton inspired. The best is a long and very hazardous chase through the inside of a gigantic clock, with characters leaping from wheels and spokes, running over the teeth of rotating gears, and so on.
A major factor in your enjoyment of this one will be how well you can suspend your disbelief over absurdities. It's very anime in the way that it's 95% realistic and real world, and 5% wacky and over the top and defying the laws of physics. So you get realistic action for 9 minutes of a 10 minute chase scene, and then 1 minute of someone suddenly working magic, or leaping 50 feet straight up in a moment of terror, or a crappy car suddenly sprouting a jet engine and going the speed of sound, etc. If you can accept that, or even enjoy it, you'll probably love this movie. Kids more than adults, I suspect.
The plot is a bit scattered too, with more characters than it needs, and few of them used as well as they could have been. The main characters are pair of grifting thieves who float around Europe ripping off casinos and such, while having a lot of laughs and eating like pigs (in huge mouthed, shoveling it in Anime style). After an opening adventure they end up in a tiny, royal kingdom that operates sort of like a cross between Liechtenstein and East Germany. The royal family is dead, survived only by a young daughter and ruled by a regent who is clearly the bad guy, from the first minute we see him.
He's plotting to marry the princess once she returns home from her years being raised in a convent after her parents' deaths, and the count has been running things from his own gigantic castle. It comes complete with bottomless dungeons, secret passages, booby-trapped floor panels, turrets and towers and spires, and much more. It's all very fairy tale, but set in a semi-current world, so there are TVs and helicopters and machine guns. The thieves of course determine to break into the castle, the head thief wants to rescue the girl, and wackiness ensues.
Endless adventures follow, with sneaky entrances, narrow escapes, near deaths, and most of it is pretty entertaining. It gets overly complicated when a UN-like body gets involved, as they send in their Interpol-style police force to investigate counterfeit money that appears to be coming from the tiny kingdom. The head Interpol investigator is more interested in catching the thief though, since they have past history, and then the world media is watching the wedding, and then small scale wars break out, and the good guy thieves call in their old friends who include a samurai, and another woman thief shows up under cover, and there turns out to be a centuries-lost treasure that the bad guy wants and needs the girl's magical ring to find, and on and on.
The film isn't overlong, but it's a bit overcrowded, and I actually got sort of weary of all the madcap wackiness. I bet children would love it, with their hyperactive minds enjoying the frequent switches in characters and constant new scenes of action, but at times I found it a bit tiresome and superficial... while still enjoying the viewing experience.
Labels: movie review
