What's going on guys? I'm Tyler and to continue my series of Studio Ghibli reviews,
I'm here to let you know that "Princess Mononoke" is NoPerfectMovie!
And "Princess Mononoke" is about Prince Ashitaka
(played by Billy Crudup) who's on a quest to find a cure for this demonic curse
that has possessed him but he finds himself in the middle of a war between a
human village and a group of forest gods; the forest gods are led by a wolf named
Moro (played by Gillian Anderson) and her human daughter San (played by
Claire Danes) and the humans reside in this village called Irontown that's clearing
away trees from their forests in order to survive led by Lady Eboshi
(Minnie Driver) as well as a monk/mercenary played by Billy Bob Thornton!
Now, I remember watching this movie for the first time about four years ago-
I think that was when I did my last Studio Ghibli binge and I thought that
"Princess Mononoke" was good but I did find it overrated in regards to the pacing and
Princess Mononoke herself as a main character-in case my thumbnail hasn't
given that away, but upon second viewing (even though I do find some of the same
problems as before still there and a couple minor new ones that aren't really
worth pointing out), the things that I loved the first time around we're just
as good-if not better, especially being animation! This might have actually been
the largest production Hayao Miyazaki ever created in regards to its scope:
there are so many beautiful wide shots of these brightly colourful settings and
landscapes that almost have a "Lawrence of Arabia" feel to them in regards to
the cinematography! There are so many shots where Ashitaka is just riding
along on the landscap,e and him & his elk look like ants in comparison, but
dude's not afraid to get big-especially during the final climax where this
forest spirit that the humans are all afraid of turns into this headless,
demonic giant... and if you're an "Avatar: The Last Airbender" fan like I am, you're
gonna look at that and go "Wow, the guys from "Avatar" ripped that off in the
Book One finale-in fact (I'm not even kidding) "Snow White and the Huntsman" ripped off
"Princess Mononoke" in one scene where they put the forest spirit in his deer
form in the background for absolutely no reason other than Rupert Sanders loves
anime which... dude went on to make the "Ghost in the Shell" reboot so, yeah... dude likes
anime but that's really all there is to it.
So yeah, the scope of this movie is absolutely huge and it's elevated by
possibly Joe Hisashi's greatest musical score that has this epic war
atmosphere to it while also providing a lot of softer melodies for sequences
that rely on us to soak in how beautiful nature can be.
It has scope, it has great music but in terms of writing, it also has the most
mature sense of themes in regards to environmentalism and incredibly brutal
subject matter. I find it really hard to believe that Miramax (which I believe was
owned by Disney at one point) bought an anime movie were guys get their arms and
head sliced off by bows & arrows! Really see that happening
nowadays but still-themes aside, usually in environmental movies, humans are just
portrayed as greedy bastards with not much else of a motivation to it...
In this movie, Lady Eboshi (who was played incredibly well by Minnie Driver) has her
citizens and their survival at heart throughout all of her decisions!
She takes women who used to work in brothels- gives them meaningful jobs, pays them
well, feeds them well, provides them with the opportunity to marry men and have
families of their own-in fact she even gives a couple of them an opportunity to
avenge their husbands deaths by taking it out on San when she invades their fortress!
They're not clearing away this forest
just to make money, they're doing it because they need to survive and they
don't have anywhere else to go because they have other Japanese clans that are
out after them for reasons that... aren't delved too deep into (and we'll get more
into that later on), but the fact that they're building brand-new rifles in
order to take out the forest gods and their lack of empathy for the fact that
these animals exist in the forest for no other reason than to survive and they
have nowhere else to go just like them, makes their good intentions seemed
unbelievably misguided! So there's as many strengths as there are weaknesses
to their motivations-just like with the forest gods because they can be just as
(if not maybe even a little more) malicious! When this wolf God is not
afraid to mercilessly maul any human that comes
into their forest for no real reason other than they're worried that these
humans are gonna be just like the ones that they're fighting, you don't really
have to spell out why they're doing it but you do have to spell out the fact
that they're just as bad (if not, worse) than their enemies!
It's the one thing that they have in common and that's what Prince Ashitaka is trying to
set out to fix! He wants to go to both sides and say
"You guys are making the exact same mistakes- which means you're capable of making the
exact same strengths! Let's try to coexist with one another"! And Prince Ashitaka's
not only is one of my favourite Studio Ghibli characters but I think
Billy Crudup as Ashitaka is probably one of the best English dub performances
that I have ever seen! He's unbelievably committed every second in this
performance! He has a pacifist code of honour, he doesn't want to fight anyone,
but if he can protect someone's life through violent forces he will take that chance-especially during the
action sequences where he dismembers people with just a bow & arrow, I'm
surprised he carries around a sword but it does come in handy-especially when
he's trying to break up a fight between San and Eboshi-that was one of the
best action sequences in regards to emotional stakes, but what's interesting
is that Ashitaka does have some selfish desires, namely the fact that he does
have a desire to live-to lift this curse but it requires him to leave his village
and not only does he lose the respect of them, he loses the recognition.
They flat out say "If you go and find a cure (which we want you to find), you are
still technically dead to us". But he still goes along with it anyways
because he knows life is worth living and that there will be other people on
the outside who may possibly be able to help him out or he'll be able to help them.
So, motivation-wise and performance-wise he's fantastic! He does have some cliches where his
constant whines & pleas for peace can get incredibly tedious-especially when
no one listens, but I do like the fact that usually the climax of these movies
where they say 'This is what hatred looks like, you both have it'! and then he splits
it up and walks away, that's usually a climax-that's not
even halfway throughout the movie and that already happens because he knows
for a fact that the humans and forest gods are equally misguided & ignorant
towards each other. So we have Prince Ashitaka as a main character and the
side actors do a good job; Jada Pinkett Smith as one of the
former prostitutes turned mineworkers, she has a really snarky attitude in
regards to just how bumbling her husband is and how bumbling some of the other
men are when they can't do their job- they can't carry cattle away without
getting attacked by someone and she makes light of the situation and I really
like that about her. Billy Bob Thornton- I'm usually a huge fan of him, love Billy Bob Thornton
especially in Fargo, he's stuck with a character who talks too much for
absolutely no reason and I don't really fault him for that because when you're
translating the script, that's not really something you can avoid and as some of
you may know, when Harvey Weinstein asked Studio Ghibli to make cuts on
"Princess Mononoke", they allegedly sent him a katana that was inscripted "No cuts" so,
props to them! Fuck the Weinsteins! My God! Okay, so back on track, Ashitaka is
a great main character, some really good side characters - you're probably
wondering if you haven't seen this movie before ,why it's called "Princess Mononoke"
and my best guess is it's a really awesome sounding title. There's a lot to
love about San as a character; her design is unbelievably badass, when she's
in combat, she is incredibly badass even though she doesn't get that much work
done but that's mostly because Ashitaka keeps interfering.
They have Claire Danes portraying her in the English dub-she's one of my
favourite actresses-she's (in my opinion) one of the only actresses who could take such
a loud, high-pitched, over-the-top character and make it sound completely natural.
That's one of the reasons I loved her in "Homeland"-a lot of people gave up halfway
on that show because of her, if I'm being honest I think she was the glue towards
that show, but whenever! I ask people why "Princess Mononoke" is the title character
not necessarily the main character, they all go "Well, she's the leader of the rebellion... at the end of the movie she is, 80% of it...
No, she's absolutely not! She's just the one who's the most committed to
waging war against the humans and that's kind of one thing that really stuck out
with me; she's a human raised by wolves. That's inherently a really great concept!
Seeing a feral child like Mowgli or Tarzan be discovered by humans and have
them question what their places in the world, that's inherently a really
excellent arc to go through! But they don't really take advantage of that as
an arc; she wears clothes that are like a human, she walks like a human, she fights
like a human, she rides animals like a human so what is it about her that's so
animalistic other than her blind rage towards humans and her love towards
nature because Ashitaka has that certain aspect about him as a character in
certain scenes and I guess that's supposed to be the bonding element
between the two of them but that was another thing; I didn't really buy the
romantic chemistry between the two of them! I genuinely believe that San looked
at Ashitaka and said "You're not like any other humans", that part I believed!
But whenever she keeps switching sides, it makes sense why she did because
whenever someone she loves gets hurt, she's immediately torn on
what side to be on and then she randomly turns against people that she was
starting to connect with, that part made sense but what is it about her that she
sees as being pure animal or pure wolf and nothing else because I didn't see
any of that! Nevertheless though, Claire Danes (as over-the-top and loud as she is)
makes the most out of it and does give a good performance. The other problem
I have with "Princess Mononoke" is that there are other subplots revolving
around the other enemies of the human village or the other enemies of the
forest gods-believe it or not that really feel like filler or excessive
baggage because yeah, you have the war between the humans and the forest gods,
you have Ashitaka trying to find a cure for his curse but then there are these
other Japanese Lords that are going after Irontown and have been chasing
them for a long time that you only see once in a while or this
group of gorillas or Apes or something like that-
they say apes but they looked like gorillas based on design, who show up for
one or two scenes saying "We want to kill the humans" and then the wolves are
saying "Yeah we're doing that, so why don't you piss off"?!
I get what the message was trying to be with those themes, to say that the one
thing that any creature-whether it be a human or any other animal have in common
is that they're prone to conflict and they're prone to believing that they're
a hundred percent right throughout the entire thing, but it goes on forever just
during the sequences between the humans and Irontown, why would you add in
this group of wild boar that are the actual leaders of the rebellion
or these Apes who show up for one or two scenes for really no reason... seriously,
all this stuff could have been cut and you would have had a tighter script that
might have been less than two hours, it wouldn't be so complicated and you could
spend a lot more time developing San as a character. So as is, I don't think
"Princess Mononoke" is as strong of a movie as some people have made it out to be,
but it's still an incredibly strong movie! It has some of Hayao Miyazaki's
best animation, some of his best characters, some of his most imaginative creature
designs-those tree spirits look creepy but they're kind of cute at the same
time thanks to the sound design, the animation itself is shot in such a
massive scope that I really need to see this in theatres at some point-
maybe the theatres that are open in my area will hopefully start playing stuff
like this very soon, hopefully! And Joe Hisashi's music makes every
single sequence feel huge and epic and absolutely exciting! And for
all those reasons, I'm gonna give "Princess Mononoke" 4/5
If you have Netflix, definitely check this one out first! This is one of the higher
quality Studio Ghibli movies even though I don't think it's as strong as some
people say it is, but nevertheless thanks as always for watching guys! If you have
seen "Princess Mononoke", let me know in the comments below what you thought of it!
Be sure to stay tuned for more Studio Ghibli reviews and be sure to LIKE and subscribe!
Take care!