At some point, I bet Hayao Miyazaki read The Hobbit, got to The Battle of the Five Armies and said, “I can beat that.” Yes, with at least seven competing factions -each with a different agenda- in the final conflict of Princess Mononoke, I think I needed a program to keep track of it all. In lieu of such, my eyes got really, really tired.
To me, Princess Mononoke is a perfect mix of the genius and aggravation that is Hayao Miyazaki. “Fantastical world” sells Miyazaki short; a Miyazaki film –any Miyazaki film- puts common imagination to shame. Mononoke is no exception: it begins with a giant boar god disguised as the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Elk jockey and warrior prince Ashitaka (voice of Billy Crudup) kills the beast before it gets to the village, but catches Spaghetti Monster herpes and is, hence, banished from the village by a bunch of ingrates. Aw, who needs your lousy village anyway, chumps.
In an attempt to get a cure, Ashitaka encounters a bunch of murdering samurai jerks and then a Buddhist monk voiced by Billy Bob Thornton just in case the bizarro-meter wasn’t already at 11. Meanwhile, in another movie, Lady Eboshi (Minnie Driver) has to get food back to Irontown while avoiding the wolf god and her offspring. After a few dudes lose lives on 
account of rice … yes, rice – oh, this isn’t about rice, really, it’s about the forest Lady Eboshi keeps ripping apart to get iron to make weapons to kill forest creatures to clear the forest to get iron to make weapons … dammit, I’m stuck in a loop. Anyhoo, Ashitaka finds some of the dudes wolf goddess didn’t kill and decides to help get them to safety.
So, look here, we’re 40 minutes in, we’ve got half a dozen different conflicts going on and we haven’t even met the title character yet. Who the Hell is Princess Mononoke? Oh, and I haven’t even mentioned the little dice-headed ghost dudes or the thing with the body of a deer, the face of the Nowhere Man, and spigot antlers.
Turns out Princess Mononke is a wolf girl and she’s pissed off about Lady Eboshi’s extra-curriculars, setting up the big fight scene that … Ashitaka puts a stop to. Son, you get an A+ for pacifism, but a D in action heroism. For film with a ton of violence, Princess Mononoke is actually about the higher pursuits of pacifism and communing with nature. Ashitaka’s big quest is all about dealing with the nature spirit, maybe 
convince Nowheredeerspigot that he’s a really a docile guy who doesn’t deserve Spaghetti Monster herpes – so what if I lop off a few heads along the way; that’s just gonna happen in warlord playlands. Seriously, this film is primarily about the war between the exploiters of nature and the denizens of nature; and when that message comes through, the kids will be so happy.
Or it would be a happy time, that is, if the film had a little more humor or weren’t 134 minutes long. This is where Miyazaki loses me. And Miyazaki has lost me at least once in every film he’s made (with the possible exception of Spirited Away). Animation was not meant to span more than 90 minutes, 105 tops, 115 if you’ve got The Incredibles in your back pocket, but THAT’S IT. No one said you can’t illustrate, Hayao. In fact, you rock at animation. Great stuff. Almost always. But I have limits. And while it’s bad enough to push over two full hours of Miyazaki World on screen, Princess Mononoke had 30 minute spans without a single hint at humor. So, if I may sum this up, you’ve got a 134 minute film preaching the value of the natural world, it’s relatively humorless, has a handful of unnecessary characters, and you’re going to animate it to what? Sell to children? Geez, no wonder Japanese kids are better at concentrating than American kids. You’ll forgive me if I feel sorry for them.
♪She’s a wolf girl, loves the forest
Loves stalking and hunting rabbits, too
She’s a wolf girl, crazy ‘bout nature
Loves fighting and those runts full of goo
It’s a long film, watchin’ in the cine
Intermission really needs to start
And I’m a bad boy, cuz I can’t stay fully conscious
I’m a bad boy for sleepin’ through this part
And I’m free snorin’
Yeah, I’m free, free snorin’♫
Rated PG-13, 134 Minutes
Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Writer: Hayao Miyazaki, Neil Gaiman
Genre: Love Mother Earth, dammit! Or I’m gonna draw at you some more.
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Miyazaki fanatics
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: The easily overwhelmed
♪Parody Inspired by “Free Fallin’ “
