I'm so thrilled that I decided to watch Princess Mononoke for the first time ever on the big screen. Studio Ghibli is just nonstop in terms of their animated quality (leaving most animated studios in the dust) even in times like the 90s when this film was released. The action sequences are crafted with such care and such brutality that it's hard not to be remarkably energized by them. The characters surrounding the movie are so engaging and iconic which immensely supports a deeply fleshed-out and powerfully thought-provoking story. Princess Mononoke is a breathtakingly painted tale of a man on a quest to balance two opposite ends of a war filled with hatred, greed, and violence. The conflict of siding between two teams is quite apparent in the film, and it's resolutions are as beautiful as they are significantly important in the real world throughout human history and especially today. (Verdict: A)

A few years ago I would have tossed this film into a collection of movies I like to call the rubbish pile. Recently, however, I have forced myself, with great difficulty, to open my mind and look at the entire picture. Instead of focusing on one or two aspects of the movie I do not like and formulating a biased opinion based on my hasty and clouded notions, I can now decipher both the good and bad points of a given flick. Upon watching Princess Mononoke, I must say I first thought it would be very difficult to look past the animation style and see it for what it was- a dynamic film directed be the highly acclaimed Hayao Miyazaki. After about ten minutes of dwelling on the follies (and there are, in my opinion, many) of the "anime" style of art, I became enthralled with the quickly unfolding plot and the subsequently dire fate bestowed upon Ashitaka, the protagonist of the film. After Ashitaka leaves his village to search for a treatment to remedy his affliction, I no longer cared that this was an animated feature; I was on the edge of my seat, wondering what would happen next. I no longer disliked that every character had abnormally large eyes (though not over-sized to the point of utter absurdity) or that the English overdubbing was a little choppy. In fact, I even began to enjoy the accomplished yet subtle computer generated effects interspersed throughout. By the last half hour I was hooked to the screen, eagerly awaiting the conclusion I wanted so badly to end the bitter conflict of the plot. By the end, I realized that this movie carried a powerful moral with it: man's continuous tampering with nature brings about as much savagery as it does progress, as much suffering as it does good, and that a sound compromise must be struck between nature and civilization. I do not harbor any negative feelings towards those who rated this movie poorly, as I used to be one of those people. All I have to say to them is this: look at a both the visual and symbolic attributes of a movie before rating it harshly. If, after observing all these features and idiosyncrasies, you still wholeheartedly hate the film, then by all means give it a one. After all, what would the world be like if we were all did not criticize or question our surroundings?

... and arable desert dust bowl aliens. It seems our intent to unbalance, upset, bias, distort and thoroughly irritate Mother Nature knows no bounds. I'm curious of the curses and phantasms this great animator would conjure against Homo Ignorantia in todays world, spectral beasts perhaps, to unite alongside the current pandemic sent to warn us off the path we're so resolutely set on taking.

As engaging a narrative and animation as any you'll come across, with enough to keep you pessimistically in despair of the curse the people of the world are to the lifeforms we share resources with on this planet we call home.