Movie #239: Princess Mononoke

Movie #: 239
Movie Title: Princess Mononoke
Year Released: 1997

Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Notable Cast: Billy Crudup, Billy Bob Thornton, Minnie Driver, Jada Pinkett Smith, Gillian Anderson, Keith David, Claire Danes

Short Description: On a journey to find a cure for Tatarigami’s curse, Ashitaka finds himself in the middle of a war between the forest gods and Tatara, a mining colony. In this quest he also meets San, the Mononoke Hime. (IMDB.com)


Rank on the Top 100 Lists

AFI.com: N/A
IMDB.com: #94
Ranker.com: N/A
Lifed.com: N/A
Empire.com: N/A
FilmCrave.com: N/A
FlickChart.com: N/A



Date Watched: 2/12/2013

What I Liked: I enjoyed the music as it had an epic feel to it at times. Billy Crudup and Claire Danes did a good job with the voice work for the main characters Ashitaka and San.

What I Disliked: Almost everything, although that may derive from the fact I made a cardinal sin of watching anime with English voiceovers instead of in its native Japanese with English subtitles. I should know better than to do that since I own some anime and most of it is in Japanese. Other than Crudup and Danes, the entire rest of the cast had absolutely no emotion in their voiceovers and it was awkward listening to Billy Bob Thornton, with his southern accent, try to be a Japanese character. It’s not that I didn’t understand the overall message of the story, but there were many points where I exclaimed out loud “wtf?” or “that’s dumb”, whether because of plot developments, art style, or especially the voiceovers.

Grade: 1 out of 5 (Poor)
Rationale: I may correct my mistake and watch it again someday, but this attempt was a disaster mainly because of the awful English voiceovers