Visually - thumbs up; story - thumbs down.
The animated effort from the famous director-writer Hayao Miyazaki features, as usual for him, very nice animation. I especially enjoyed the beautiful colors in the landscapes, the interesting windmills, World War II bombers, strange insect-monsters and a lot more.
The problem is that it's too long and, despite the decent characters and colorful animation, 116 minutes of this so-so story is too much. Combine it with a story that can be convoluted at times, way too environmentally preachy at other times (tree huggers would like this storyline - literally) and I can see where viewers' minds would begin to wander or get discouraged after about 45 minutes.
Nausicala is a cute little heroine, but bland, someone I just couldn't relate to, and an unnecessarily unclad for a preadolscent. The main villain, "Princess Kushana," didn't excited me much, either. I couldn't get involved enough with the characters to sit through a two-hour animated movie and be entertained as I hoped to be.
More good and bad: I liked the main voices, those of Alison Lohman and Patrick Stewart. A little humor would have helped, but there is none in here. (Exteme environmentalists aren't a bunch of laughs.) This should be a lot of fun to watch, but I didn't find it such.
The animated effort from the famous director-writer Hayao Miyazaki features, as usual for him, very nice animation. I especially enjoyed the beautiful colors in the landscapes, the interesting windmills, World War II bombers, strange insect-monsters and a lot more.
The problem is that it's too long and, despite the decent characters and colorful animation, 116 minutes of this so-so story is too much. Combine it with a story that can be convoluted at times, way too environmentally preachy at other times (tree huggers would like this storyline - literally) and I can see where viewers' minds would begin to wander or get discouraged after about 45 minutes.
Nausicala is a cute little heroine, but bland, someone I just couldn't relate to, and an unnecessarily unclad for a preadolscent. The main villain, "Princess Kushana," didn't excited me much, either. I couldn't get involved enough with the characters to sit through a two-hour animated movie and be entertained as I hoped to be.
More good and bad: I liked the main voices, those of Alison Lohman and Patrick Stewart. A little humor would have helped, but there is none in here. (Exteme environmentalists aren't a bunch of laughs.) This should be a lot of fun to watch, but I didn't find it such.