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Ponyo - 2 Disc (Blu-ray + DVD) [Blu-ray] Reviews
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Featured Review
February 25, 2010 at 7:26 pm
Reviewed by MattH.
Pros: creative animation; apt English voice casting
Cons: a little bit long for pre-schoolers; older children may be uninterested in the younger main characters
Cons: a little bit long for pre-schoolers; older children may be uninterested in the younger main characters
A lovely fantasy for the entire family (but primarily the younger set) distinguishes Hayao Miyazaki’s Ponyo. A reworking of some of the basic tenants of The Little Mermaid, Ponyo is long on charm but also long on running time (103 minutes) with pre-school and elementary school children as a target audience. That aside, the animation is alluring and quite arresting, the English voice casting for this version quite wonderful, and the story certainly one that carries a handful of life lessons families can work through after the film is over.
Young fish Brunhilde (Noah Cyrus) gets trapped in a jar and rescued from certain death by five year old human Sosuke (Frankie Jonas). Because he feeds her ham and she tastes his blood when she licks a cut on his hand from his rescue of her, she begins to morph into a magical human whom he christens “Ponyo.” The pair becomes devoted to each other, but her father Fujimoto (Liam Neeson), a sort of ocean caretaker, is concerned that a sea creature living on land will upset the natural balance of things, a prediction all too accurate as tidal waves begin engulfing the village where Sosuke lives with his mother (Tina Fey), who runs a home for the aged, and his sea captain father (Matt Damon) who is often gone for long stretches of time.
Those familiar with the previous magical works of the master filmmaker and Oscar winner Hayao Miyazaki will need no introduction to the pleasures his hand drawn features have to offer. The worlds of his imagination are magical places, and Ponyo captures so much of a child’s view of wonderment with the world around him, but the film isn’t cloying, and some of the nastiness of life (both natural disasters and human-induced) is never ignored or sugar-coated. (Some of the opening glimpses of the garbage laden sea bottom with Fujimoto grousing about humans’ inconsideration of others’ worlds makes a strong, finger-pointing statement. The animation of water with floating sediment in it in a few shots is rather hypnotic.) The uniqueness of vision, however, is quite startling as the giant waves of a tsunami take on the appearance of monstrous sea serpents and giant fish swirling and growing to mammoth sizes. All of the glorious colors of the rainbow are present, but they’re used in very unusual ways: gold, for instance, becoming a symbolic representation of destruction. The screenplay written by the director may have a juvenile bent, but the devotion of the children, their love for their parents under even infuriating circumstances, even its depiction of old people eager to continue to take part in life give the story a universality that all can enjoy and appreciate.
The voices for the English version distributed here by Disney uses two primary children from families of Disney contract players. Both Noah Cyrus (Miley’s younger sister) and Frankie Jonas (a younger Jonas brother) give believable life to the animated characters that children will certainly identify with. Liam Neeson’s deep, threatening baritone works well as the fearsome father of the title character. Tina Fey has pluck and grit as the mother who’s having to do a great amount of the parenting with her husband away for lengthy spells. Cate Blanchett has a queenly air about her as Ponyo’s mother, a kind of goddess of mercy who gives her blessings on the transformation. Cloris Leachman, Betty White, and Lily Tomlin each contribute fun caricatures of the elderly with more life in their shaky limbs than even they suspected.
Video Quality
The film’s 1.85:1 theatrical aspect ratio is delivered in a 1080p transfer using the AVC codec. Colors are beautifully delivered here, mostly pastel hues but still nicely saturated with no blooming evident. Sharpness is rock solid with no line pixilation observable. There are some glimpses of faint banding with some of the lighter skies late in the film, but the artifact isn’t prominent and doesn’t really spoil the effect of the gorgeous animation. The film has been divided into 20 chapters.
Audio Quality
The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 sound mix is very effective combining the lithe and charming music score by Joe Hisaishi with efficient sound effects of ocean waves, wind, and other sea sounds into a very bracing and immersive combination using a better than adequate spread through the soundstage for panning effects (especially front to rear ones). The low end of sound doesn’t quite hit the mark it needs to hit in terms of the storm sequences, so the LFE channel doesn’t get quite the workout it should.
Special Features
The film can be played with or without a “Meet Ponyo” introduction which runs 3 ½ minutes in 1080p. The film may also be played with picture-in-picture overlaid storyboards for the movie.
Unless otherwise noted, the featurettes are presented in 1080p.
“Creating Ponyo” is a 4-minute interview with director Hayao Miyazaki in which he expresses his philosophy of filmmaking and his perspectives of nature which led him to write the script for the movie.
“Ponyo & Fujimoto” finds the director explaining the origin of the name of the movie’s main character and his ideas about fashioning the father originally as more evil and destructive than the final character ended up being. It runs 3 minutes.
“The Nursery” examines the part that the Ghibli Studio’s nursery had on influencing the way the nursery in the movie is portrayed. This runs for 2 minutes.
“A Conversation with Hayao Miyazaki and John Lasseter” presents the film’s director and Disney’s executive producer discussing the film and Lasseter’s admiration for the director’s other works. This lasts 3 ½ minutes.
“Behind the Microphone: The Voices of Ponyo” shows some of the big name talent recording lines for the English-language version of the movie. There are also brief introductions of the film’s two young leads: Noah Cyrus and Frankie Jonas. This runs 6 minutes.
“Producers’ Persective: Telling the Story” shows us how the filmmakers start with story sketches which lead to full storyboards and then on to animation. Clips from several of Miyazaki’s films now distributed on DVD by Disney are also shown in this 2 ½ minute vignette.
“Scoring Miyazaki” is a 7 ¼-minute introduction to composer Joe Hisaishi as he explains themes to some of the films he has scored for the director (including clips once again from these works).
“The Scenery in Ghibli: Locations of Ponyo” gives us a brief tour of Seto Inland Sea which offered inspiration to the director before he mapped out the story to his film. This 1080i featurette lasts 9 ½ minutes.
There are two original Japanese trailers which are combined into one 3 ½ minute featurette.
The disc offers three featurettes from the bonus features on other Hayao Miyazaki films distributed by Disney. From My Neighbor Totoro is “Creating My Neighbor Totoro” (3 minutes). Kiki’s Delivery Service has “Creating Kiki’s Delivery Service” (2 ½ minutes), while Castle in the Sky offers up a 2 ¾-minute feature on character sketches from the movie.
The World of Ghibli is a series of interactive maps which allows users to click around the worlds of four different Hayao Miyazaki features: Ponyo, Kiki’s Delivery Service, Castle in the Sky, and My Neighbor Totoro. The map offers clips from the films, descriptions of the stories and characters from these movies, and games and puzzles based on the films. Watching every feature in this section will take a minimum of 195 ¾ minutes.
The disc offers 1080p trailers for Beauty and the Beast, Toy Story 1 & 2, The Princess and the Frog, Toy Story 3, Fantasia and Fantasia 2000, Tinker Bell, and Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue, among others.
The second disc in the set is the DVD version of the movie.
In Conclusion
Ponyo will thrill fans of traditional line animation, and the story has enough interest for both young children and adults to make it a recommended experience. The voluminous bonus features with the Blu-ray will really immerse you in the world of director Hayao Miyazaki making the entire package something animation fans will undoubtedly want to experience.
Matt Hough
Charlotte, NC
1 person found this review useful
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April 15, 2010 at 4:58 pm
Reviewed by mattCR
Pros: Best presentation available in the marketplace, beautiful picture
Cons: The audio presentation is not true to the original film, Extras are poorly structured
Cons: The audio presentation is not true to the original film, Extras are poorly structured
STORY
As I've noted in a few other reviews, I'm not as big about getting into the story, as I feel interpretation of the story is a tricky endeavor, and largely up to the viewer to determine. Ponyo is a modern retelling of "The Little Mermaid"... no, not the Disney "Little Mermaid" the Hans Christian Anderson "Little Mermaid". As such, it hits all of the main chords within that story effectively and with wonder. For those who are familiar with the works of Hayao Miyazaki, you will find this to be true to his previous efforts, a great film with the a real craft to it's storytelling.
The Video
5/5
Ponyo is encoded in MPEG-4 /AVC @ 22.5Mb rate, and it looks impressive. If you've seen spirited away, you're aware of how this near full stream capture format allows for almost perfect color presentation. Because of the way in which the encode is done, your presentation has will really stand out, even on large monitors with almost no ringing or edge look to it. The color saturation is near perfect, with no gradient (rainbow) natively within the encode. This is a great, great looking transfer.
The Audio
3/5
I really debated how low I wanted to go on the audio. In some ways, I nearly wish to make the audio 1/5. The reason is that the audio on this disc is desperately flawed. The disc presents two audio sources: a DTS-HD feed, which contains the American dub, and a Dolby Digital EX (non-TrueHD) feed @ 640k in the original japanese.
As I've noted in a few other reviews, I'm not as big about getting into the story, as I feel interpretation of the story is a tricky endeavor, and largely up to the viewer to determine. Ponyo is a modern retelling of "The Little Mermaid"... no, not the Disney "Little Mermaid" the Hans Christian Anderson "Little Mermaid". As such, it hits all of the main chords within that story effectively and with wonder. For those who are familiar with the works of Hayao Miyazaki, you will find this to be true to his previous efforts, a great film with the a real craft to it's storytelling.
The Video
5/5
Ponyo is encoded in MPEG-4 /AVC @ 22.5Mb rate, and it looks impressive. If you've seen spirited away, you're aware of how this near full stream capture format allows for almost perfect color presentation. Because of the way in which the encode is done, your presentation has will really stand out, even on large monitors with almost no ringing or edge look to it. The color saturation is near perfect, with no gradient (rainbow) natively within the encode. This is a great, great looking transfer.
The Audio
3/5
I really debated how low I wanted to go on the audio. In some ways, I nearly wish to make the audio 1/5. The reason is that the audio on this disc is desperately flawed. The disc presents two audio sources: a DTS-HD feed, which contains the American dub, and a Dolby Digital EX (non-TrueHD) feed @ 640k in the original japanese.
For those who are fans of the work, you'll find this to be all wrong, because it by default means that the original soundtrack cannot be heard in it's original format (DTS), it's relegated to a lesser standard, and it shows. The Japanese soundtrack comes off as "flat" in comparison, which is a real shame.
The US soundtrack is decent, but for those who are fans of Hayao Miyazaki's work, you recognize that his work trends closer to Anime then US animation, and so the US soundtrack is at times too bubbly, and the dialog seems to be "off" because of changes in context, it doesn't nearly line up as effectively with the characters.
The music has also undergone changes from the Japanese version, with new title songs, etc. The US audio cast is very recognizable, which is smewhat distracting, but livable. But the two US lead children are .. annoying is an understatement. Go break out a copy of any "Godzilla" movie dubbed and listen to how kids talk. Bingo. You have it. Rotating between squeaky and flat, it makes watching the film a chore, even for a fan.
Much of this is just because of US desire for a dub. I understand that, and maybe I'm pickier because of those I know in Japan who saw this in their theaters. But realize in buying this, you are buying this as a kid-item, not a collectible, because this presentation is absolutely NOT as was intended by the artist, and while passable, the lower quality Japanese soundtrack should be corrected back to it's original format at some point in time.
If you are watching the Japanese version, the subtitles are also wrong a few times, and they do not take any effort to translate the credits or songs.
Extras
3/5
Ponyo is a disc that deceives your eyes with extras. Seemingly tons of extras are offered, but the menus are thick, non-intuitive to navigate, and once you do, you realize almost all of the extras are insanely short and have very little benefit. This isn't to say they aren't worth it, but if yous see all the extras you're going to think you're getting a great value with the BD, with tons of content. They are for the most part so short that the looks are very decieving. Notice also the bitrate here on the video drops considerably and it shows.
“Creating Ponyo” (4M) interview with director Hayao Miyazaki.
“Ponyo & Fujimoto” (3M)
“The Nursery” (2m)
“A Conversation with Hayao Miyazaki and John Lasseter” (3:27)
“Behind the Microphone: The Voices of Ponyo” (6:08) BTW: Spend more time with the annoying American kids, who hope to be the next Hannah Montana!
“Producers’ Persective: Telling the Story” (2:28)
“Scoring Miyazaki” (7M)
“The Scenery in Ghibli: Locations of Ponyo” (9M)
Series of trailers for Disney, and includes features that show us previews of other works by Miyazaki.
The World of Ghibli is truly the only unique extra on this disc. Let me explain something: there may be a lot of content to this extra, as the prior reviewer notes, but this may be one of the most annoying extras I have ever seen. Difficult to navigate, time consuming, and even my Oppo-83 shuffled the disc repeatedly every time I'd move from item to item. If you've decided that maybe you need to sit and trim your fingernails while you wait on an extra that may be 30 seconds to a few minutes long while you hop around a map, or maybe you like sticking pins in your eye, this extra is absolutely for you.
Conclusion:
If you are collecting this film to add to your BDs/DVDs for the sake of a child, this is a great buy. The story is fun, the animation is great looking, and it preserves the fun of the film which can't be denied. But if you're a fan of the artist, you're going to find this BD is lacking in almost every meaningful way. Difficult navigation. Wrong audio stream for the original Japanese. Subs that are incorrect. Relatively meager extras. Is it worth $20? I don't think so. I'm betting in about a few months you'll find this in bins for $10 at Walmart or other places. I'm hopeful that in the future we see a disc corrected to represent how this film was meant to be seen, with audio properly done.
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