The Boy and the Heron Was Disappointing - Review + Reaction

I just watched the boy and the Heron at the local Cinema and unfortunately I didn't think it was good some people including myself are often disappointed when they hold a certain director to a very high regard or have very high expectations for a certain movie however I want to make it very clear that this was not the case for me watching this movie I didn't watch a single trailer I didn't even read the synopsis I simply came into my local Cinema with the expectation of watching a decent movie I wasn't crushed under the weight of my own expectations because I had none I was simply expecting an enjoyable cinematic experience and instead what I got was a very beautiful aimless and seemingly empty experience and that's my main problem with this movie is that I'm left feeling like I'm not quite sure what I just watched because I didn't really understand it I watched it with my eyes I heard it with my ears but I don't think the message really got through to me immediately after watching this movie the first thing I did was look up some reviews online did I miss something was this movie a flop and I was shocked to see that the reviews were so positive in fact as of the time of this recording this movie has 98% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes that is higher than both Spirited Away and princess monoke in reading some of these reviews I was left even more confused confused did these people watch a different movie from me was there a secret screening only for critics I really don't understand and so I hopped on Reddit in the hopes that some kind stranger on the internet could somehow explain this movie to me in a way that made sense and what I got were some overly verbose very thought out explanations some of which even equated the movie story with miyazaki's life and career which you know if you're intelligent and articulate enough I think you can just Y and Find meaning in pretty much anything and no explanation was truly satisfactory to me and that's when I realized like what am I doing hopping on Reddit threads like what is this I didn't need previous gibli movies explained to me the characters and story just resonated with me in a way that made sense and I know that art is subjective and people interpret art in different ways but I don't think the Hallmark of a good movie is for it to be over rationalized and dissected post watching into truly appreciating it I'm a simple man if I'm watching your movie I want you to take me on a journey sure my journey may not be as deep or complex as some other people but I want to go on a journey nonetheless and I think your movie should be self-explanatory I don't like this very abstract and metaphorical art where I need to read up on homework to understand it the core message of this movie was lost on me and reading some explanations online it's apparently also lost on a lot of people because a lot of people are saying wildly different things and maybe this is a Miss on my part maybe this just wasn't the movie for me and that's fine however I have such fond memories of watching previous gibli movies and I'm a bit disappointed that if this is miyazaki's true last movie that I'm left feeling confused or dumb after watching this which never happened with any other gibling movie so this is a bit of a whimper to and on overall this movie was very well animated as is usual from gibl movies but the story and characters felt like a jumbled mess that tried to do way too many things and amounted to pretty much nothing I will now start talking about the actual characters in story so if you haven't seen the movie yet then smell you later the movie starts with mahito rushing into a burning hospital to try and save his mother and every character is distorted the scene is chaotic this shot really immerses the viewer into maho's headspace and to me this is the best shot by far in the whole movie and after the first few minutes is when the movie starts going way downhill so mahito is grieving because of his mother and to make matters worse his father quickly bounces back with his mother's sister ouch and to make it even sting more his new stepmother is very similar to his mother he doesn't seem to accept his new stepmother as he gives her very short and cold replies he also doesn't get along very well with the old ladies taking care of him and he doesn't find many friends at school where the kids pretty much just hate the new rich kid and so he lashes out and hits himself in the head with a rock in a scene that is perhaps way too gruesome for kids aren't these movies supposed to be for the whole family but anyway moving on it's unclear if the reason that he hit himself in the rock is to have a good good excuse to just skip school where he was just bullied or if he's in so much emotional turmoil that he just wants his body to also feel some physical pain and here starts my main gripe with this movie is that they never really explain things properly they just state or show things and then quickly move on to the next thing and yes I know that show don't tell is a very core principle of Cinema and fiction and all that but I don't think that principle is well applied here because the show part isn't really self-explanatory and they don't really elaborate on most of these scenes further on in the movie so we're just left with a lot of information displayed to us but we don't quite understand where it's coming from and what it's connecting to at this point the movie starts getting into some very trippy fantasy elements in one sequence he's just covered in frogs and then the stepmother shoots an arrow to scare the frogs away and it's more or less implied that this is just a trauma and grieving that's making him manifest these fantasies in his head but later on in the movie other characters for example his father interact with these fantasy elements so it's a bit confusing if these were fantasies in his head or actual real things in this world this line of what is fantasy what is real is never quite explained and it makes things even more confusing then mahito sees his stepmother go into the forest and he proceeds to go after her to get her back and so he enters this fantasy world where the scenes that proceed are very hard for me to summarize because I did not think they were coherent at all and it's honestly the part of the movie that I have the most trouble grappling with he starts near a strange door he's attacked by Pelicans then he's saved by a younger version of the older lady they fish a fish and then they cut it and then they sell it to these lost souls so at this point I'm thinking this world is like a metaphor for the underworld but then apparently they feed these like white blob thingies that float up and are apparently going into the upper world to be born I don't know if that's a bad translation or something but so at this point this world is like a a limbo for souls or something keep in mind this is all happening with no real explanation so the white blob thingy creatures are swelling and floating away but then they're attacked by the picans and start getting eaten by the Pelicans but then a fire lady that's actually a younger version of his mother shoots fire into the blobs in the Pelicans and scares the Pelicans away they eventually team up they go into the tower try to save his stepmother his stepmother has a complete mental breakdown she says she hates him they never go further into this comment and they get caught because apparently they broke the taboo of trying to save his stepmother why is it a taboo they never really explain it they just State this and honestly they could just remove this from the movie entirely this line doesn't really amount to anything at all they could have just said they were caught because they made noise or something I don't know once again the movie Just States things and you're supposed to go along with it and then some very trippy sequences follow where once again the animation is beautiful but the story makes absolutely no sense and is very hard for me to follow the old grandfather dude wants mahito to take over this world but he doesn't want to because he says he has malice in him whatever that means and then the great General parakeet dude just comes in and smashes everything the world starts being destroyed they run away they manage to escape just in time into their respective worlds mahito goes into his timeline and his mother goes into her timeline and then apparently they are safe we get a Time skip two years later and they're going back to Tokyo and movie over like what if for some reason you are still watching this video and you you did not watch the movie and you are very confused at my explanation trust me I am as confused as you and I watched it my best guess and interpretation of this movie is that this alternate World stood for the world of the dead and people who are grieving go there mahito goes there because he's grieving for his mother and his stepmother also went there maybe because she's grieving for her sister or maybe because she feels guilty for the quick bounce back and being now pregnant it's never quite explained what the deal with his stepmother is which in my mind is one of the biggest misses in this movie because that's the juiciest relationship you could build a story around and my takeaway regarding the ending of this movie is that this world is for people who are stuck in the past and so it's a decadent world and so when mahito matures and accepts his new stepmother into his life and no longer rejects her the world is gone because it has no need to because they they are now able to move on with their lives and that was more or less my interpretation of the movie but still I don't think it's entirely satisfying and I think the movie really missed on a lot of things and could have been much better my biggest gripe with this movie is that the relationship between the Son and the stepmother is never really the focal point this movie feels like a sequence of side quests that intermittently remembers that it has a story to run so many random things in this movie were added for seemingly no reason for example what was behind the door when mahito came into this world and was saved by the younger old lady it was never explained never addressed and in retrospect it didn't matter to the story why did the Heron lure mahito into this world with an illusion of his mother what was his motivation what's the deal with the birds all of them what's the deal with the grandfather why did we never get a proper intimate conversation between mahito and and his stepmother why did we never get a proper intimate conversation between mahito and his mother that was the entire point of this movie the entire origin of this plot point and they just brush it off at the end like yeah I know that I will face a fire but at least I get to be your mother and I love you so bye T like what this doesn't make any sense they just brushed off the main core of the story The Emotional moments in this movie when someone is crying or expressing emotion feel very forced and I watching this didn't feel anything because there's not enough Rapport between the characters and there's not enough Rapport between the characters because the relevant characters in this movie barely have any meaningful conversations they barely speak at all and when they do it's so summarized and so short that it doesn't have any depth to it most of the movie is just gibl Studio flexing its animation with the random fantasy creature thingies which cool but what are we achieving with this spirited way and house moving castle for example also had a lot of random moments and were not a linear movie going from A to B but those extra fantasy elements and animation scenes complemented the story here it feels like they exist instead of the story and using Spirited Away as a frame of reference Chihiro is a much more endearing protagonist than mahito yes mahito is grieving but he's also a very spoiled rude wit kid and besides the basic human empathy for his circumstances there's not much that makes the viewer root for this character and for all of the flaws this movie has the main character not being very likable is one that really makes or breaks this movie because if you enjoy the main character and what he was going through you could sort of forgive all the nonsense and just ignore the overall story but that's not really the case and so its flaws are even more highlight highlighted honestly besides this heavier theme of loss this movie just feels like a worse version of Spirited Away it ReThreads on a lot of the same points Coming of Age story going after a parent trying to save him exploring a fantasy world gaining allies making the final decision at the end it just does everything worse and the movie overall is a lot less entertaining am I crazy am I just being a hater did you enjoy this movie leave it in the comments below personally I didn't enjoy this movie I just thought it was a very well animated mediocre movie and for better for worse a few months from now I don't think I will remember much besides the opening sequence which really saddens me as I really have such fun memories of other gibling movies but it is what it is and so this was it for me today folks don't forget to leave a like And subscribe and all the good stuff and see you on the next video shiao

Channel: OverlordDio

Views: 11,145

Keywords: lorddio, lorddiopt, overlorddio, overlordio, reaction

Id: JwTw1C89GfM

Length: 13min 58sec (838 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 19 2023