Review:
Castle in the Sky is old school anime, a style that brought me back to the age of the original Transformers and old classroom cartoons. It follows a fanciful story in a very original world. In fact, even though it is more than a decade old, it is still one-of-a-kind and unique to itself. This in itself is quite a feat, considering that watching Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade makes the entire thing feel clichéd (although it was the original inspiration for many of those clichés). The story is well plotted and is very emotionally touching despite it's surreal fantasy setting. The characters are quite well developed both in their individual personalities and their interactions with one another. Castle in the Sky takes care to spend enough time on it's plot and character development, producing a rather long movie. It does not feel unusually condensed as with Escaflowne the movie. The animation is quite impressive, though not as visually astonishing by modern day standards since it originates from a relatively early age of Japanese animation, and cartoons in general. The sountrack is where the movie really hits home. The music in Castle in the Sky is astounding. It sets the mood wonderfully, and sounds excellent as a sountrack as well. It is cheerful, pleasing to the ear, and produces a wonderful ambient sound. The voice acting is quite good as well, although Sheeta's accent in the English version is less than convincing, and Pazu's voice in the Japanese version is mildly vexxing. Nonetheless, Castle in the Sky is a fantastic piece of anime, well-rounded and way ahead of its time. |
