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Critics Consensus: With its epic story and breathtaking visuals, Princess Mononoke is a landmark in the world of animation.
Critic Consensus: With its epic story and breathtaking visuals, Princess Mononoke is a landmark in the world of animation.
View All Princess Mononoke (Mononoke-hime) News
All Critics (107) | Top Critics (36) | Fresh (99) | Rotten (8) | DVD (8)
[Miyazaki's] visually brilliant, thematically rich fable isn't just an ambitious cartoon; it's an epic, hand-drawn in pen and ink.
Done mostly in the style of hand-painted classic animation, with occasional digital assists, "Princess Mononoke is indeed a thing of beauty and imagination.
This handsome, beautifully designed Japanese animated film has the size -- though not the clarity -- of a great Japanese film epic.
Miyazaki's hordes of animators haven't penetrated beyond the skin; the moving creatures feel inarticulate and jerky, almost weightless, particularly when played against painterly background mattes.
The film's strength lies in its refusal to paint either its arguments or its characters in black and white: There are no pure heroes, no clear-cut villains and no pat answers.
Beautifully constructed and painstakingly written, this is about as close to a perfect animated epic as you're likely to get.
There are some movies that are so special that it's almost like watching it for the first time every single time. Princess Mononoke is one of those films.
A spellbinding epic with great characters, visuals and pathos.
It's one of Ghibli and Miyazaki's many animated masterpieces.
Princess Mononoke's greatest feat is in crafting a story that could've been so easily simple, but manages to be more morally complex than even the most epic live-action films.
With a Luminist's attention to light, water, shadow and smoke, Miyazaki creates an epochal story born of history, myth and Shinto animism.
This imaginative and intriguing Anime deserves all the plaudits heaped upon it.
Miyazaki returns to the ecological message that he explored in Nausicaä and elevates it to an epic level with this splendid story of man vs. nature, and more wonderful than its stunning visuals and score is to see so many complex characters who can't be defined as heroes or villains.
Super Reviewer
Hayao Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke lays out the gods and the demons.
There is an interesting story to tell and it does have a lot going for it. The uniqueness of the plot details and the likability of some of the characters hold interest; however, the film slows down in places and the finale was overly long leaving a run time easily over 2 hours.
The animation of the characters and even the violence, which is more adult oriented, are nicely drawn. Other elements, including the gods, are more abstract and weird, but don't feel out of place in the grand scheme of things.
Yoji Matsuda and Yuriko Ishida lead a Japanese cast that provide satisfying voice work for each of their respective characters. No problems in this department.
Princess Mononoke does a lot of things well. It's the drawn out story that is the biggest disappointment.
A much more action-oriented Hayao Miyazaki film that boasts intoxicating animation that beautifully combines traditional with computer-generated and a suitably complex and epic plot. Also one of the more violent Studio Ghibli flicks (far from a blood bath but the film's violence justifies it's PG-13 rating), so it may not be suitable for younger children. Despite it's slightly bloated runtime, this is a very well-rounded eco-themed fantasy epic.
i am a big fan of miyazaki, and i think this may be my favorite of all his films. really this is one of the best animated films i have ever seen. the oddities and animation style are all typical for ghibli, but there was something specific about this story, as with my neighbor totoro, that i really resonated with. the characters and plot structure are so epic and yet so personal. a wonderful film.
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