And now you get a frail boy trying to save a tiny person from a dollhouse, guarded by a senile granny. Hayao used to make world-shaking events, full of action and suspense, people dying by the millions, civilizations crumbling, and vengeful spirits or beasts huge as skyscrapers turning everything to rubble. In case you are wondering why would I expect all that from a family movie, just head back in the older Ghibli films to find out why. What about Shou’s illness? What about the Borrowers moving away to safety? What about that granny capturing them for unknown reasons? What about an entire new civilization in the brink of extinction being suddenly revealed to the world? What about their hostile relationships? None of those cool things happen and the most exciting part was seeing a frail sick boy trying to unstuck a crow from a window for over ten minutes. All that mean nothing in the longrun since the most core themes of the movie are left hanging to dry. There is a battle scene of sorts with a crow, and some annoying cat running around, and some granny capturing some little people for awhile. It’s not like there is nothing going on in the story but it sure as hell is not exciting. By the time their background is established, the movie is almost over. And that is pretty much all you get from the plot, as most of it is about the human boy Shou becoming a friend with Borrower girl Arrietty. And seriously, of all the myriads of things they could have shown from the civilization of the little people, they only focused on a single family living in the middle of nowhere, while it has two big people (our kind that is) coming for a visit in the house they are living in for years. Well sorry to say this but those earlier versions were better because the older, the better… Err, I meant those had more plot. I happened to have seen the cartoon series from the 80’s when I was a kid, as well as the live action movie they made some years back, both of which were based on the same book. It takes talent and attention something of which his successors (his own son included) have no idea of. Thank goodness he realized that making quality family movies is not something everybody can do. It is indeed not a complete travesty like those two, only because the supposed-retired super awesome director Hayao Miyazaki ran back to supervise most of whatever they were doing. The Borrower Arrietty is yet another mediocre Ghibli film, which was adored by thousands of people only because they were completely disappointed with their previous works, Tales From Earthsea and Ponyo in the Cliff.
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