100 | Michael Sragow |
A visual masterpiece about a scared little girl's breathtaking journey of self-discovery. All of the fun is getting there. |
Read More: Baltimore Sun |
100 | Lawrence Toppman |
Yet its visual surrealism, identity-bending and strong social/ecological message make it as much an allegory as a fable. |
Read More: Charlotte Observer |
100 | Jack Mathews |
Turns everything we know about the contemporary world on its head, and substitutes it with one in which spirits, monsters, magicians and animals mix it up in a carnival of energy, good humor and freewheeling illusion. |
Read More: New York Daily News |
100 |
Probably like nothing you've ever seen before. In a cool world, it would be guaranteed not only the Best Animated Feature Oscar, but Best Picture as well. |
|
100 | Frank Lovece |
Serenely stunning. |
Read More: TV Guide Magazine |
100 | Steven Rea |
Wondrously strange and just plain wonderful. |
Read More: Philadelphia Inquirer |
100 | Lou Lumenick |
A Japanese cross between "Alice in Wonderland" and "The Wizard of Oz" -- is such a landmark in animation that labeling it a masterpiece almost seems inadequate. |
Read More: New York Post |
100 | Lisa Schwarzbaum |
A triumph of psychological depth and artistic brilliance offered as the magical adventures of one skinny little girl. |
Read More: Entertainment Weekly |
100 | David Chute |
Does full honor to Miyazaki’s teeming and often unsettling landscape, and to the conflicted complexity of his characters: Not a single frame was cut, and the voice casting and performances are uniformly excellent. |
Read More: L.A. Weekly |
100 | Richard Corliss |
Artful but not arty, Spirited Away is a handcrafted cartoon, as personal as an Utamaro painting, yet its breadth and heart give it an appeal that should touch American viewers of all ages. |
Read More: Time |
100 | Derek Elley |
An out-and-out charmer. It's almost impossible to do justice in words either to the visual richness of the movie, which melanges traditional Japanese clothes and architecture with both Victorian and modern-day artifacts, or to the character-filled storyline, with human figures, harpies and grotesque creatures. |
Read More: Variety |
100 | Kenneth Turan |
Prepare to be astonished by Spirited Away. |
Read More: Los Angeles Times |
100 | Roger Ebert |
It's enchanting and delightful in its own way, and has a good heart. It is the best animated film of recent years, the latest work by Hayao Miyazaki, the Japanese master who is a god to the Disney animators. |
Read More: Chicago Sun-Times |
100 | Peter Rainer |
The most deeply and mysteriously satisfying animated feature to come along in ages. |
Read More: New York Magazine (Vulture) |
100 | Patrick Peters |
The fact that Miyazaki and his team hand-draw the images before they're digitally coloured and animated gives them an artistry that has been woefully lacking from so many recent American features. |
Read More: Empire |
100 | Luke Y. Thompson |
It would be a masterpiece in any language. |
Read More: Dallas Observer |
100 | Claudia Puig |
Director Hayao Miyazaki treats his audience as imaginative and intelligent human beings, rather than catering to kids with rote displays of silliness, stunts and scares. |
Read More: USA Today |
100 | Peter Travers |
Miyazaki is the Pied Piper -- see Spirited Away and you'll follow him anywhere. |
Read More: Rolling Stone |
90 | J. Hoberman |
A very nutty fruitcake, Spirited Away is characterized by wonderfully detailed animation, packed with incident and populated by all manner of comic creatures. |
Read More: Village Voice |
90 | Tasha Robinson |
A wonderful encore, marked by the painstaking attention to detail and artful balance between terror and joy that make Miyazak's work unique. |
Read More: The A.V. Club |
90 | A.O. Scott |
The towering, lost dreaminess at the heart of the film is an unmistakable obsession of this director. |
Read More: The New York Times |
90 | Ted Shen |
Enchanting and impressively crafted. |
Read More: Chicago Reader |
90 | David Hunter |
Spirited dazzles and entertains like no other movie this year. It also comes to a satisfying conclusion and never once seems to take shortcuts. Miyazaki is one of world cinema's most wondrously gifted artists and storytellers. |
Read More: The Hollywood Reporter |
89 | Marc Savlov |
Fiercely original in every respect. |
Read More: Austin Chronicle |
88 | Michael Wilmington |
It's a movie full of bewitching images and timeless fun and beauty. |
Read More: Chicago Tribune |
88 | Don Irvine |
The most successful film ever released in Japan, and co-winner of the top prize at this year's Berlin film festival, Spirited Away is a complete reversal of the Hollywood way with animation. |
Read More: The Globe and Mail (Toronto) |
88 | Rene Rodriguez |
Offers a ride worth taking -- an excursion through a fantastical pop universe that is pure, enchanting magic. Try it; you'll like it. |
Read More: Miami Herald |
88 | James Berardinelli |
Overall, while Spirited Away may not be as complex and imaginative as "Princess Mononoke" in some areas, it is as beautifully rendered and no less sophisticated in its outlook. Miyazaki has provided another triumph, and, in the midst of the quality fall-off of Disney’s in-house animated projects, a reason for animation-lovers to rejoice. |
Read More: ReelViews |
80 | Andrew O'Hehir |
It will disturb you as much as thrill you, make you wonder whether the boundaries between life and death, reality and fantasy, imagination and insanity are ever what they appear to be. |
Read More: Salon.com |
80 | Jane Horwitz |
Old myths and wonder tales spun afresh. |
Read More: Washington Post |
80 | Desson Thomson |
This movie -- which is equally appealing to children (those of adventurous, non-freak-outable spirit), Japanese animation (anime) fans, and any surviving acquaintances of Timothy Leary -- is so full of invention, you might want to take a breather now and then. |
Read More: Washington Post |
75 | David Sterritt |
Too intense for the youngest viewers, but teenagers will enjoy it -- an ill-smelling "stink-god" character is almost worthy of a Kevin Smith gross-out movie -- and grown-ups should find it diverting, if not exactly deep. |
Read More: Christian Science Monitor |
75 | Wesley Morris |
Delivers chunks of ''Yellow Submarine'' and ''The Phantom Tollbooth'' -- a vividly timeless oddity suitable for many children and most stoners. |
Read More: Boston Globe |
75 | William Arnold |
Has the power to transport us to a different place. The spark of special anime magic here is unmistakable and hard to resist. |
Read More: Seattle Post-Intelligencer |
75 | C.W. Nevius |
A lovely, evocative tour de force. So why does it seem we should be enjoying it more? |
Read More: San Francisco Chronicle |