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Spoiler-free review: Ghibli's "The Secret World of Arrietty"
I saw The Secret World of Arrietty on Sunday and I thought I'd give my two cents on it here (and leave out the spoilers for those who haven't seen it).
Arrietty had the same "slice of life" tone and feel as Totoro. Nothing really "big" happened until the end. Most of the fun in this film comes from watching the creative way the tiny race of Borrowers build their homes from found human objects (in that respect, it reminded me of Rescue Rangers. Some of the rooms in the Borrowers' home even resembled Ranger HQ! XD).
The plot is very simple; but it's executed well and it never gets boring. I was in a theatre full of small children and I didn't hear any of them whine about being bored or start fussing once the movie started.
Because it's Ghibli, the backgrounds and animation were gorgeous. But one thing I noticed was that the animators clearly had WAY more fun drawing the animals and insects than they did drawing the human-looking characters. The animation became a lot more lively when the bugs were jumping around.
In short, if you just want to sit down and watch a relaxing "comfort food" movie, Arrietty is a good choice. It's not quite as amazing as past Ghibli flicks; but it's still pretty good.
However, I did have one major quibble with this movie. Well, not this movie specifically. But Disney's handling of Ghibli's films as a whole.....
FOR F&%K'S SAKE, DISNEY!! STOP HIRING NON-VOICE ACTORS TO DO VOICE ACTING!!!!!!!
For Arrietty, Disney cast two twerps from their Disney channel tween sit-coms to play the leads. I had no prior knowledge of who was in the dub cast for this movie when I went to go see it; but I could immediately tell which actors were hired for their names and which actors were hired for their talent the moment I heard them speak. It was REALLY distracting!
To be fair, the girl who played Arrietty didn't do a bad job acting-wise. She just sounded bland and didn't have much spark in her voice or performance compared to Amy Pohler and Carol Burnett (who played supporting roles). Unfortunately, the same can't be said about Shawn (the male lead in the movie). Shawn's voice actor was AWFUL! First of all, his voice didn't fit the character. He sounded WAY too old to be playing that part. Second of all, like Arrietty, his voice was also as bland as baking soda compared to the two supporting actresses who actually have experience with voice acting and character performances. And lastly, his acting was terrible. It sounded like the actor was bored throughout the entire recording process. He had the same dull monotone and lack of emotion in every scene. Even the life-changing emotional crying scenes. Daria Morgandorfer has more vocal range than this tool does!
...sorry to rant, but Disney's habit of casting random "celebrities" and Disney Channel pop tarts in Ghibli dubs REALLY gets under my skin because I prefer watching dubs and I hate to see Ghibli's films get tarnished by lack-luster voice acting. Disney spends all this money to hire people like, say, Anne Hathaway when someone like Tara Strong could play the same part (plus a few dozen supporting roles) and do a MUCH better job for 10 times less money.
And you know what the confusing part is? Even if you try and think like an evil, greedy corporate overlord; these casting decisions still don't make sense!! The people who are most likely to see a Ghibli film in theatres are moms with their little kids and anime nerds like me. Moms and little kids are very unlikely to decide to see a Ghibli film just because Carol Burnett or Miley Cyrus are in the cast because they just want to see a colorful movie that'll hold the kids' attention for 2 hours. And the anime nerds are likely to be REPELLED by that kind of casting decision and say "screw this! I'm waiting for the DVD so I can watch this subbed! Or maybe I'll just torrent it and call it a day!".
And it's not like the actors they choose are so super popular that their names alone will get asses into seats. So why not just hire seasoned pros like Billy West and just have a few token celebrities thrown in for the hell of it? And if they just MUST hire "celebrities", at least hire the ones who can voice act and/or have voices that are distinct and interesting?
Anyhoo, despite all my bitching, I still think this movie is worth a matinee just to see Ghibli animation on a big screen. Just thank your lucky stars that Shawn doesn't speak all that much in it!
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In Ponyo, it sounded so WEIRD to heard a voice of a 10 year old for a character that is clearly suppose to be 4 or 5. (Granted, I don't like how young they made those characters either, but that's another rant.) I realize they probably did that because it's a big "No, no" in Western culture to leave a young child alone while in Japan it's viewed as trusting the child is mature enough. However, it still sounds REALLY odd.
Here's a fun fact, Crispin Freeman once said that when he went to do his recording for Howl's Moving Castle, all the other actors (You know the celebrities) were having problems with it because it's a different system to dub and had to keep doing it over and over again. However, Crispin naturally did it all in one take. Thus the following happened.
Studio directors:.....Have you done this before?
Crispin: *grins* Maaaybe.
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I didn't mind the Ponyo dub that much. I thought the child actors did OK and neither of them sounded "off" to me. But then again, I had VERY low expectations for them because they were hired based solely on the fact that their older siblings are famous. So maybe that's it. :P
I heard that Howl story before. It's funny. But it's also kinda sad that the recording directors had no clue who Freeman was. I mean, they're the ones who HIRED him for goodness sakes!
Back around 2004, I saw a panel with Billy West and he gave a pretty angry rant about the trend of putting celebrities in big-budget animated projects. It's something he's pretty passionate about because it really does screw over professionals like him by taking their jobs away and giving them to people who have less talent yet demand more money.
One story that really got to him was the time he and some other VAs auditioned for leading roles in a feature film. The studio took their audition tapes and had the "celebrities" mimic them in order to make their performances sound less awful (he said it was easy to tell because the celebrities used the exact same vocal inflections and pronunciations that he heard himself and the other VAs use in the auditions). This was a smaller con, so I got to talk to him one-on-one for a bit and it was clear that he was pretty bitter about it. :(
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Good grief, that's got to be frustrating. Voice acting is a different form than live action acting, you would think they would want to get people who have experience with it. *sigh* Let's just hope someday these big companies take a hint eventually.
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On the other hand, using people who are seasoned voice actors doesn't always make for the best choice. After all, the voice for your iconic character above was most famous for co-starring with a talking horse back in the day. ;)
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Good point about Alan Young. However, at least he actually has the acting chops to hold his own with the likes of Frank Welker and June Foray. And it's not like the old Ducktales promos made a huge deal about him being in the show.
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But yeah, the voice acting blows. I saw it in Japanese and i'm waiting for the Dvd release. Just hearing one scene as a preview on youtube made me not want to see this in english.
Too bad, since the rest of the sounds in Arietty's world are beautiful (like clicks becoming loud noises, the rustling of vegetation... every small sound make big. It's beautiful)