Hayao Miyazaki’s tale, based loosely on Japanese folklore, is a convoluted story that had this critic, admittedly not a major proponent of the genre, checking his watch every fifteen minutes. The tale of a war between encroaching civilization and the beast gods of the forest which threatens to unbalance the forces of nature (that’s taken right from the press release) is a mighty one. Complete with twists and turns and characters that are not easily identifiable as either good or bad, but who often straddle the fine line between the two, this is one film that may have your head spinning.

At a press conference afterwards, through translators, Miyazaki spoke of having absolutely nothing to do with the Americanized, English-dubbed version. He had no idea who any of the actors hired were. He even went so far as to say he hadn’t seen a live action film in years, Japanese or otherwise, and couldn’t care less about this version, essentially. He is a very interesting man, but one questions his stating that he created this film “for the children”, and that he hopes the American kids will take heed of the ecological and far-reaching meanings of this film. The sad part of it all is that most American kids’ attention spans are nowhere near the two plus hours of this film; nor do they have affinities with the traditional folkloric content of the story. While Japanese audiences were obviously awestruck with the movie, it appears to be a foregone conclusion that this film will play at a few art houses and rapidly move to video, where it will probably be adored and cherished by those that, once again, are into Japanimation in the first place.

The addition of the voices of Billy Bob Thorton (slightly weird with his country-ish twang), Minnie Driver as the royal Lady Eboshi, Billy Crudup as Ahskita (the protagonist and last of a dying breed of warriors), and Claire Danes as Princess Mononoke herself, does little more than to create an air of mystery about the film, and hopefully, for the producers sake, generate a greater income. While all of the aforementioned performers are admirable in their duties, the sad fact remains that the content of the film, with the American adaptation by Nail Gaiman, creator of DC Comics’ "Sandman," is a really tough sword to swallow. Extremely intense, especially for an animated film, "Princess Mononoke" is probably going to be hailed by many, yet I’m sure each of those critics have copies of the original Japanese-language version on video already. If you don’t already own that version, it’s my advice that you shouldn’t be racing to check out this one.