So, everyone, we've arrived at the newest Studio Ghibli movie and the 24th one all together, or 23rd depending on who you ask, The Boy And The Heron. As you all know, ever since March, I've been reviewing every other Studio Ghibli movie and I was doing those in preparation for this new film and it was the very first time I ever got to see a Studio Ghibli movie in the cinemas and so I saw it on Wednesday and I was super excited, especially since the general consensus around the film was positive and people were really liking it, not to mention the fact that this was a film Hayao Miyazaki himself wrote and directed, so all that was making me extremely excited for this. And so, in the end, while I don't know if I can say I loved this film and can't say it's one of my favourite Ghibli films ever, it was still really, really, really good and a lot more complicated than I was expecting. I'll get into that later, but first, let's go over the plot. Also, I won't be doing any spoilers in this review at all. I won't even be doing a spoiler section, I'm gonna keep this review completely spoiler-free. So, the story centres on a boy named Mahito who loses his mom during a war and now his dad is taking both of them away to live somewhere else. While there, Mahito keeps running into a heron who's able to talk to him and says he needs his help and after a while, Mahito finds some old tower and once he goes inside it, he's taken to another world that sorta bridges the world of the living and the world of the dead, and, really, the rest of the film is almost kinda like a self-realisation story because Mahito is forced to learn and confront so much. And when I say so much, I do mean that because this movie is pretty long. It's over two hours long. Other Ghibli movies have been that long before, but something about this one being that long made it especially surprising, maybe just because I saw it in theatres. Anyway, before going to see the film, I was honestly expecting the film to be kinda simple, just based on the bit of advertising I saw and also just from the title, I was expecting this to be something like Kiki's Delivery Service or something like that where the film is one of those more laid-back movies, but that's not what this film is at all. This is one of those films that you really, really need to pay attention to to follow along, kinda like Howl's Moving Castle. It also has a lot of different themes in it to because we have so many things happening at once and they touch on different things, like when Mahito and his dad arrive, he has to come to grips with how much his life is changing and it's made even harder when he's thrown into this other world and having to learn different things there too because he's now having to confront all this stuff while he was just trying to do his own thing originally. That aspect of the film is something I imagine might throw some people off towards the film because it gets extremely complicated and hard to follow after a while. And when I say that, I don't really mean that in the same way as Howl's Moving Castle where I was really turned off by that film and just didn't enjoy it all that much, because I liked this one much more, but there's still a good amount of things here that definitely isn't for kids. I don't just mean the complicated story and things like that, I also just mean the fact that the film is pretty gory in some cases. I was surprised how much there was, it's nothing super extreme, but still. I also heard that the original Japanese title for the film is actually called "How Do You Live", and I think that's a much better title for the film overall because the film delves into a lot of different topics as I just mentioned and how it does some of that is done in ways I wasn't always a fan of, but I still thought it was handled very well. Again, I don't think it's handled absolutely perfectly because I was sorta losing track of things after a while, but I think once you get to the ending, it's wrapped up in a really great way. If I did have a couple of problems with the film, aside from maybe being a bit too complicated, I do also think that the film itself is maybe a bit too long as well. I'm not even talking about how some parts are a bit too hard to follow, I just mean that I did think some sequences went on a bit too long. It's like some other Ghibli films where sometimes they have moments in their films that are going really slow and how that doesn't always work. Like I said before, some of their movies do that so unbelievably well, but some, like this, have some moments or sequences that coulda been trimmed down or cut entirely. I also found some elements to be a bit predictable too. Once some characters are introduced, I was able to figure out pretty easily what their role was and I was right. But, with all that being said, I still enjoyed the majority of this film. The way the plot keeps unfolding throughout the film as we keep seeing different things and we see more of how this world works and seeing the different characters in it, it keeps getting more interesting once you get to the ending. Speaking of, the ending gets really insane and trippy as well with a lot of crazy visuals and things like that happening and that's done by some really fantastic animation. Like every other Studio Ghibli movie, the animation is some of the best hand drawn animation you'll ever see and they keep that going all throughout the film. I also enjoyed the different character interactions too. The one Mahito has with the heron and the eventual reveal with him is fun and their dynamic actually got a fair amount of laughs from the audience I was with. I personally think a lot of that is helped by the voice acting too. I saw this in the English dub and everyone involved does a great job. Luca Padovan and Robert Pattinson are really great as Mahito and the heron and other actors like Karen Fukuhara, Christian Bale, Gemma Chan, Dave Bautista, Willem DaFoe, Florence Pugh and Mark Hamill all do fantastically as well. It was also cool to see Christian Bale, Willem DaFoe and Mark Hamill in more Studio Ghibli roles since they've been in others before. So, yeah, everyone, I was just really satisfied watching this film. It was absolutely amazing to finally be able to see a brand new Studio Ghibli movie in theatres, especially since some people think we might not ever get another one again, but we'll see. But even still, just being able to see this one was an amazing experience. Even if this wasn't one of my favourite Studio Ghibli movies and I didn't really love it, I at least loved being able to go to the cinema for it and especially since I already spent this entire year reviewing all the other ones and it was an amazing experience and thank you all for reading them up to this point. I've loved doing these and talking about this and having it all lead up to this was amazing. And so, either way, I do still recommend checking this film out if you're interested. So, that's my review of The Boy And The Heron. Thank you all for reading and please comment down below to tell me what you think.
