The Phoenix Network:
 
 
About  |  Advertise
Adult  |  Moonsigns  |  Band Guide  |  Blogs  |  In Pictures
 
FIND MOVIES
Find a Movie
Movie List
Loading ...
or
Find Theaters and Movie Times
or
Search Movies

Review: Ponyo

Visually stunning, but leaves you shaking your head
By PETER KEOUGH  |  August 12, 2009
2.5 2.5 Stars

 

In a film like Spirited Away (2001), Hayao Miyazaki takes flight and creates his own seductive animated universe. When tied to a Disney fable about the environment and true love, he lurches from cliché to myth to things that just leave you shaking your head. In the latter category is Fujimoto (Liam Neeson), an undersea wizard who looks like Michael Jackson.

He's mixing elixirs to keep "the world in balance," and he has a school of little fish daughters. One of these, his favorite, he keeps in a bubble safe from the disgusting humans. There's a little bit of Captain Nemo and Finding Nemo here, not to mention The Little Mermaid as the fish falls in love with a little boy (he calls her Ponyo) and evolves (at one awkward stage she looks like Ernie Bushmiller's Nancy) into a little girl.

Oh, and did I tell you about the world out of balance and true love? The film is visually stunning, however, with a A-list cast of voices that include Matt Damon, Cate Blanchett, and Tina Fey.

Related: Review: Taken, Review: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Review: The Informant!, More more >
  Topics: Reviews , Celebrity News, Entertainment, Michael Jackson,  More more >
  • Share:
  • Share this entry with Facebook
  • Share this entry with Digg
  • Share this entry with Delicious
  • RSS feed
  • Email this article to a friend
  • Print this article
Comments

Today's Event Picks
ARTICLES BY PETER KEOUGH
Share this entry with Delicious
  •   REVIEW: BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS  |  November 24, 2009
    Nicolas Cage is at his best in Bad Lieutenant
  •   REVIEW: THE ROAD  |  November 24, 2009
    John Hillcoat doesn't stray from Cormac McCarthy's Road For those who found the Coen Brothers' adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men too lighthearted, John Hillcoat's relentlessly faithful version of the author's post-apocalyptic Pulitzer-winning novel might hit the spot.
  •   INTERVIEW: NICOLAS CAGE  |  November 24, 2009
    "When people like to label any kind of performance as over the top, I suggest that if you were to go to the Guggenheim and look at a Francis Bacon, would you call that over the top?"
  •   REVIEW: FANTASTIC MR. FOX  |  November 25, 2009
    In The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, Wes Anderson excelled at telling adult stories with childlike whimsy. Telling children’s stories with adult whimsy is another matter.
  •   SWINE FEVER: AN EVENING WITH HUNTER S. THOMPSON  |  November 24, 2009
    Only Hunter S. Thompson could come up with a line like that; no one else had his knack for the near-Biblical proverb. Few writers outside of Madison Avenue or the New Testament can sum up a zeitgeist so cannily in a phrase.

 See all articles by: PETER KEOUGH

MOST POPULAR
RSS Feed of for the most popular articles
 Most Viewed   Most Emailed 



  |  Sign In  |  Register
 
thePhoenix.com:
Phoenix Media/Communications Group:
TODAY'S FEATURED ADVERTISERS
Copyright © 2009 The Phoenix Media/Communications Group