Rating: PG-13
Starring:
Cate Blanchett as Gran Mamare
Noah Cyrus as Ponyo
Matt Damon as Koichi
Tina Fey as Lisa
Frankie Jonas as Sosuke
Kurt Knutsson as The Newscaster
Cloris Leachman as Yoshie
Liam Neeson as Fujimoto
Jennessa Rose as Kumiko
Lily Tomlin as Toki
Betty White as Noriko
Written and Directed by Hayao Miyazaki
Special Features:
The World Of Ghibli: Visit Ponyo In This Extraordinary Interactive Experience!
Meet Ponyo: Introduction By The Producers
Storyboard Presentation Of The Movie
DVD Copy of Film
Other Info:
Widescreen (1.85:1)
DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio
Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound
Japanese and French Language
French and Spanish Subtitles
Running Time: 100 Minutes
The Details:
The following is the official description of the film:
“Welcome to a world where anything is possible! Academy Award® winning director Hayao Miyazaki (2002, Best Animated Feature, ‘Spirited Away’) and legendary filmmaker John Lasseter together with Disney bring to life a heartwarming and imaginative telling of Hans Christian Andersen s classic fairy tale ‘The Little Mermaid.’ A young boy named Sosuke rescues a goldfish named Ponyo, and they embark on a fantastic journey of friendship and discovery before Ponyo’s father, a powerful sorcerer, forces her to return to her home in the sea. But Ponyo s desire to be human upsets the delicate balance of nature and triggers a gigantic storm. Only Ponyo’s mother, a beautiful sea goddess, can restore nature s balance and make Ponyo’s dreams come true. Ponyo will delight your family with its magnificent animation and timeless story.”
“Ponyo” is rated G.
The Movie:
Our family has enjoyed many of Hayao Miyazaki’s other films including “Spirited Away,” “Howl’s Moving Castle,” “Porco Rosso,” “My Neighbor Totoro,” “Castle in the Sky,” “Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind,” and more. So when we heard “Ponyo” was coming out, the whole family wanted to see it.
“Ponyo” is much lighter than many of Miyazaki’s other films. There are minimal action scenes, there’s not really anything scary, and it has an overall more innocent feel than the other stories. After all, the heroes are only 5 years old. The characters face one potentially disastrous situation after another and they deal with it with all the casualness of walking to your mailbox. The city floods? No big deal. A giant wave chases your car? No problem. Giant fish with sharp teeth swimming around you? Aren’t they cute. I kept expecting the film to take a dark turn and it never did. It faced all the potentially scary situations with a childlike innocence that gave the overall film a fanciful feel. That’s something you dont see in many movies today.
But like the other Miyazaki films, “Ponyo” has amazing animation and imaginative visuals. We’re treated to beautiful scenes of undersea life. You see bizarre fish swimming among dozens of jellyfish. When the town floods, you see prehistoric fish cruising along streets and among buildings. It’s really cool stuff that will impress Miyazaki’s fans. It goes a long way towards proving the case that there’s still a place for 2-D, hand drawn animation.
I went into this movie knowing almost nothing about it. About halfway into the film I realized this was a new take on Hans Christian Andersen’s original story “The Little Mermaid.” (Notice I say the original, not Disney’s version.) It takes the familiar story and puts a decidedly Japanese take on it. It was cool to see the kids in the audience get a taste of Japanese culture. You see them cook noodles, communicate with fishing ships, and other things they typically don’t see in the US. But at the same time, there’s a lot they’re familiar with. The kids at the preschool fight, the mom argues with the dad, the kids play with toys. It’s simultaneously foreign and familiar.
The English voice cast was incredibly strong and were perfectly matched with their characters. Cate Blanchett is regal as Gran Mamare. Liam Neeson is the eccentric and somewhat befuddled Fujimoto who chases after Ponyo. Tina Fey is Lisa, the loving mom with a lead foot and a little temper. Lily Tomlin, Betty White, and Cloris Leachman are perfect as the little old ladies that Sosuke talks to. Then you have Noah Cyrus as Ponyo and Frankie Jonas as Sosuke. It would be easy to dismiss them because of their relationships with their older and more famous siblings, but they do fantastic performances in this movie. Cyrus stands out when Ponyo gets her first taste of life as a human and repeatedly yells out, “HAM!!!!” Jonas finds the right balance between maturity and being a believable 5 year old. The result is a great pairing.
On the down side, when Ponyo is in goldfish form… well, she doesn’t look like a goldfish. She looks like a baby in a nightgown. So it wasn’t until about 15 minutes into the film that Sosuke actually calls her a goldfish and you go, “Ah! So shes a fish!” Up until that point you have very little idea what she is or what’s going on. And what’s odd is everybody in the film immediately recognizes this mutant baby as a goldfish. Why do they not recognize it had a freakish human head?? Who am I to tell Hayao Miyazaki how to animate his films, but I think if Ponyo had actually been drawn as a fish it would have made more sense story-wise.
This film is also going to bore a lot of people. There are a lot of scenes of everyday life in it that take up a lot of running time. We see a lot of cooking, chatting, eating, etc. You know, the things you do every day, but without a fish/human girl. Some of this does get a little boring. But on the positive side, I kept expecting my kids to get antsy and bored in these scenes, but they didn’t. They sat utterly enthralled by even the most mundane stuff taking place on the screen. I suppose they were so wrapped up in Ponyo’s story that even her eating ham grabbed their attention.
I will mention that Lisa comes across as an incredibly irresponsible mother in this film. She drives like a maniac on narrow, hazardous streets. In one scene, she sees a wall of water heading towards her car and rather than staying where she’s safely at, she floors it and nearly gets swept away with the kid in the car. Having seen enough people die driving into floods in Texas, this seems like the height of stupidity. She also opts to leave her 5-year-old son home alone as the entire area is being flooded by an unnatural storm. Again, it’s another stupid parenting decision. There are a few other moments where she seems like an idiot, but you get the idea.
The only other thing I’d mention is an odd scene where a woman essentially explains breast-feeding to Ponyo. It kind of came out of nowhere and I’m not sure what purpose it served the story.
Overall, “Ponyo” is a fun film for both adults and children. It’s not my favorite Miyazaki film, but it’s a refreshing expression of imagination and culture that you rarely see on the big screen these days.
The Extras:
At first glance it doesn’t look like there are many bonus features on this Blu-ray disc. You see listed “The World Of Ghibli.” While it doesn’t look like much on the disc cover, it’s actually a collection of a bunch of featurettes, both for the American version and the original Japanese version. You see the American cast recording dialogue including Betty White, Liam Neeson, Tina Fey, Noah Cyrus, and Frankie Jonas. You see a Japanese television special on the town that Miyazaki used for inspiration for the film. There’s a featurette on the scoring, the animation, and all the other good stuff that you’d expect. Fans of Studio Ghibli will enjoy the featurettes a lot. You can also visit a map of the Ghibli world and see previews of some of the other films also being offered on Blu-ray such as “My Neighbor Totoro,” “Kiki’s Delivery Service” and “Castle in the Sky.” While this collection makes up the bulk of the bonus features, you’ll also find “Meet Ponyo: Introduction By The Producers,” storyboards and a DVD copy of the film.
