The Boy and the Beast

[Its] familiar beats cunningly coalesce into an elaborate plot, set to Takagi Masakatsu's bustling score.

The soundscape is rich, and the beast-battles well executed. But the characters never develop beyond their two-word descriptors: Conflicted Boy, Lonely Girl, Angry Son, etc.

The whole thing displays that combination of visual flair and wildly inventive storytelling that distinguishes Japanese animation from the rest of the field.

Questions may linger about what's real and what's projected from Ren's turbulent feelings, but the film creates such vivid worlds on both sides of the alley, you'll root for their coexistence.

The Boy and the Beast continues to solidify Mamoru Hosoda's reputation, and serves as a heartfelt, satisfying reminder that Japanese animation has a bright future.

The animation is gorgeous: graphically rich in background and character design, with that very Japanese awareness of the transitory forms of nature. The storytelling is beyond uneven, but that's not unusual.

A few instances of gorgeous and magical imagery cannot make up for the lack of genuine emotion or a fresh story.

The martial arts sequences look very bold and captivating, and all the animation is rendered beautifully.

For a film that claims to have so much heart, it all feels suspiciously hollow.

The sole fault of the film is that it becomes a bit sanctimonious in the end, trying to include as many values as possible, in a tactic that seems a bit out-of-place. However, this fault is not enough to ruin a true masterpiece of the genre.