An animated film about saving the environment, no, not Avatar again.

Ponyo On the Cliff By the Sea, or Ponyo as the distributors butchered it to, is the latest film to eventually make it's way across from the land of the Pan, with a big Ja in front of it, in the guise of Studio Ghibli's numero uno, Hayao Miyazaki.
Anyone familiar with his works will know how great his films can be, smart, funny, touching, beautiful, sometimes scary and tense, he can craft a wonderful tale without fear that a slow pace will lose all enthusiasm, in fact, the 2 hour Spirited Away isn't fast at all, but is ridiculously perfect, one of the finest films ever made.

And here in lies the problem.
I loved Spirited Away, I enjoyed My Neighbor Totoro and Princess Mononoke, Howl's Moving Castle, not so much. So I was looking forward to, what everyone proclaimed, a triumphant return to brilliance from Miyazaki with Ponyo.
I guess I'm just not understanding critics anymore. The film began with 4 minutes of odd underwater moments, a human, Liam Neeson, bad acting, is working on making fish, and Ponyo escapes.
The rest of the plot is this: fish meets boy, fish loves boy, fish taken home, fish becomes girl, girl loves boy, boy loves girl, 50 minutes of rooting around an island until they can have a happy ending, without any semblance of threat or danger.
It may be a pleasant, easy watch, but it's not interesting, engaging or well done. The animation can be breathtaking, but it can also be simplistic to a point where it feels weak, the dubbing can be good, but awful too, Ponyo has frequent moments in which her mouth opens and the girl's voice lets out a silly sigh to fill the gap.
Matt Damon is listed high up for having, what, 5 lines, as a dad away from home who, as it happens, has no relevance to the plot. Neither do the old women characterised by Lily Tomlin, Cloris Leachman and the awesome Betty White. Hell, Cate Blanchett's mercy spirit mother thing comes in about an hour in to magically fix any danger that just occurred, no problems.

As Ponyo is taken by the young boy, there are about 5 moments in the 5 minute sequence where he worries she has died, all involving her squirting water out, I fear that's one of the 'comic' elements like the old biddies, which is not funny, like, at all. As is a long sequence involving a baby's evil face.

The level of humour is low, the level of entertainment is low, and it's disastrous to see such an iconic legend making such an awful awful film, and getting praise for it.
And if that wasn't bad enough, Liam Neeson keeps complaining about humans ruining the ocean, we get it, environment is good, humans are bad, enough self-deprecating, we're the dominant species, lets act like them. In fact, I believe Rodeney Dangerfield said it best: "Hey, we're all gonna get laid" so shut the frak up.
3/10