Earwig and the Witch (Goro Miyazaki)

[Idioteque Stalker]

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[Idioteque Stalker]

This was horrible. Looks like shit. Sounds like shit. The majority of the runtime is an orphan wading through muck while being abused. It purports a lighthearted tone while being thoroughly unpleasant. I haven't seen any other Goro Miyazaki movies, but this screams of nepotism. Along with Only God Forgives and 365 Days, it's the worst movie I've seen in recent memory. Ghibli is dead -- let's not taint the studio further.

[Stay Puft]

Yeah, Goro doesn't have the track record. I've seen From Up on Poppy Hill and it ain't good. I'm probably just gonna skip this.

[Philip J. Fry]

I thought Poppy Hill was pretty solid while Earthsea was a fun mess. I'll still give Earwig a shot, but I guess I'll have to temper the expectations.

[Philip J. Fry]

This was horrible. Looks like shit. Sounds like shit. The majority of the runtime is an orphan wading through muck while being abused. It purports a lighthearted tone while being thoroughly unpleasant. I haven't seen any other Goro Miyazaki movies, but this screams of nepotism. Along with Only God Forgives and 365 Days, it's the worst movie I've seen in recent memory. Ghibli is dead -- let's not taint the studio further.

Just watched it. Definitely the worst of the three Goro movies and the weakest Ghibli (it barely even feels like one).

What bothered me the most is that I never got a sense on who were the characters: I mean, Bella Yaga just tries to treat Aya like a servant because she's evil? Then not so much; Mandrake is just there getting angry while the main one, Aya, doesn't seem to have a clear arc: I mean, first it seemed as if it were about finding out she was a witch and what had happened to her mom, but then that's tossed aside quickly to her wanting to see her orphanage friend, to learning to be a witch again to, like controlling the house? It's weird and this lack of any discernible arc makes the movie feel like it's going nowhere, being reduced to a series of random shenanigans and then it just... ends.

And as you said, it just doesn't look good. The character models do look like Ghibli, but that's it. The art direction is nowhere as detailed or rich as a Ghibli movie looks, paling even in comparison to Poppy Hill and Earthsea and when the characters or the camera move, they have this somewhat jerky movement that feels more stop motion than 3D animation that makes it even look somewhat cheap (or as a work of someone just learning the technology). I found it very disappointing.

[Philip J. Fry]