I know the big movie of the weekend is District 9, but Hayao Miyazaki's new movie finally hit theaters in the US this Friday. Let me start with the fact that I've been looking forward to this for about 4 years now... And I wasn't disappointed. Was it his best movie? No. Was it amazing? That's an understatement. Honestly, he can do no wrong when it comes to the medium of anime. Even if you aren't into Japanese anime, it's hard not to fall in love with his deep story telling. The easiest way to summarize this movie is... it's Miyazaki's version of "The Little Mermaid". The one thing that I think about now that it didn't have is a flight scene, although that was made up for with all the water which can be seen as flight... Lots of detail everywhere you looked, unlike most cartoon feature films these days, even by Disney. Only other studio I can think of that puts that much detail in their work is Pixar. And Disney used to put detail in their movies, Jungle Book everything before it. But there was a reason for that; Walt Disney was alive. This movie is filled with magic and wonder, from the characters to the settings. [spoiler]The movie begins with Ponyo, a sea dwelling fish of sorts going off from her father's realm to the surface, getting caught in a jar and washed ashore by a cliff. A boy named Sōsuke then finds her and breaks her free. He takes care of her until her father takes her away. She wants to be human and leaves, creating an unbalance in nature. Everything is alive due to the ocean covering the land when Ponyo leaves again to find Sōsuke. The disorder brings the moon close to the Earth raising the oceanic levels and bringing the planet to the brink of destruction. The only way to stop it is to test the two children's love. [/spoiler] While not as comedic as Up, it definitely holds it's own in pure fun and the ability to illicit emotion. As for the dub, it's a dub... It was decent as most of his are, but I'd honestly prefer the Japanese with subtitles. The cast did a good job for their parts, especially Liam Neeson. He does a good job as a father (is this just his new role? Taken, Fallout 3, now this...), as Frankie Jonas (Sōsuke) was probably the most prominent character and a lot better than expected. If you're looking for a movie to entice your inner 5 year old child, this is definitely worth seeing.