Film Review: PONYO (2008)

Writer/Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Running time: 101 mins (approx)
Certification (UK): U

Genre: Animation/Adventure/Family
UK Release date: 12^th February 2010

Watched on Terrestrial PVR Friday 27^th September 2013.

PLEASE NOTE: THERE MAY BE UNINTENTIONAL SPOILERS IN THIS REVIEW.

Time being of the essence, I’m going to keep this short today. I heard many good things about Ponyo when it came out and have tried to see it a couple of times before, but always seemed to miss the boat (pardon the pun). Finally managed to pin it down about a month ago though and have been waiting for it to bubble to the top of the pile on my Freeview PVR ever since. Well the day finally arrived and it was definitely worth the wait. I’m a fan of the work of Studio Ghibli and of Miyazaki in particular and so that’s no huge surprise. No summary this time, I’m going straight into my thoughts.

Beautifully animated with all the style and grace of Miyazaki’s work. It is distinctively his own and I hope nobody ever tries to copy it. I saw it in the ‘Americanised’ Disney version with some well known names in the cast. For me though, I feel it always loses something; I would have rather seen it with its original Japanese soundtrack. For some reason, that gives it a little more authenticity and also makes it a little more mystical. But the English language version was ok too with the likes of Cate Blanchett as Granmamere, Liam Neeson as Fujimoto, Tina Fey as Lisa, Matt Damon as Kôichi, Frankie Jonas as Sôsuke and (of course) Noah Lindsey Cyrus as Ponyo. They all did a pretty good job. I very much liked to music by Joe Hisaishi as well, it has a great feel to it and fits the visuals really well. Over all, although I’m far from the target audience, I have to say I really enjoyed this engaging mystical tale. Maybe one for a very young audience, which proves I must be young at heart, but certainly a worthy watch.

SteelMonster’s verdict: RECOMMENDED

My score: 8.2/10.

IMDb Score: 7.7/10 (based on 50,831 votes when this review was written).
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0876563/

MetaScore: 86/100: (Based on 29 critic reviews provided by Metacritic.com at the time of going to press).

Rotten Tomatoes ‘Tomatometer’ Score: 92/100: (based on 158 reviews counted at the time of going to press).

Rotten Tomatoes ‘Audience’ Score: 80/100: (based on 93,134 user ratings counted at the time of going to press).
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/ponyo/

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LINKS:
(Note: All were working at the time of going to press)
Official Site (Disney): http://movies.disney.com/ponyo
Official Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PONYO
Trailer: