The Boy and the Heron

audience Reviews

, 88% Audience Score
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    As a longtime lover of Ghibli films, I painfully have to admit that this one was a great disappointment. It showcases Ghibli's stunning animation and the unmistakable touch of Miyazaki, yet ultimately feels more like a puzzle than a story. Though visually rich, it lacks the coherence and magic of past classics like Spirited Away. At nearly two hours, its slow pace and heavy symbolism feel indulgent rather than immersive. While some may find deeper meaning within its layers, for others, it’s a visually beautiful but ultimately very unsatisfying experience.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    The Boy and the Heron is nothing short of one of Miyazaki’s finest works—a masterpiece that stands as one of the best films I’ve watched in years. This movie isn’t just a visual marvel; it delves into profound themes, exploring the essence of life, death, and the very nature of reality. In an era dominated by cheap cinematic thrills, endless explosions, and rehashed comic book heroes, it’s refreshing to find a film that dares to be deeper and more meaningful. What makes it truly special is its open-ended storytelling, allowing viewers to interpret its meaning in countless ways.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    The Boy and the Heron may be praised by many but it lacks any merits apart from the art work. That is to say, the background art work. Everything else is tedious like a dungeons and dragons game. Pointless nonsense.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    Animation looks amazing, story is very interesting, characters are great and voice acting is on point. What more could you want?
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    The Director and Writer Hayao Miyazaki (Greatest of All Time) shows with this movie that he is the modern Shakespeare. To me, the Wizard is a metaphor for Prospero from Shakespeare's The Tempest, and the tower the Wizard has created is the Director Hayao Miyazaki life's work as an artist creating fantastical worlds. The boy Mahito Maki is still processing the grief of losing his mother during world war two and reluctantly sets out into the wizard's world with the aid of a mystical heron to save his step mother. In the process he learns through many trials that the malice he has allowed to grow within himself is the threat to the wizard's world inside the tower and his own world consumed by war. He learns that he must make peace within himself and return to his world and make his own tower with blocks free of malice.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    A movie that truly was beautiful and outstanding but not an Oscar worthy one...
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    Deserves all the praise it’s received, another masterpiece! Bravo!!
  • Rating: 0.5 out of 5 stars
    You know when someone gives you a really long boring retelling of a deam that they had, that went nowehere and made zero sense, and you wish they would just stfu but you cant say anything? Yeah thats this movie...
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    Yes, indeed, it is "utterly transporting" if you allow yourself to just ride it like a wave; however, it lacks the cohesion and depth of all but the two main characters, and this makes it inferior to, for instance, Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro, Up on Poppy Hills or the masterpiece, Graveyard of The Fireflies and Kiki's Delivery Service. These other movies you can watch with your brain fully in gear. They not only present us with a lush and heartwarming landscape, but progress through a plot that stays always connected to itself and is, if not always easy to follow, at least can be. The story in this movie is, however, quite fractured. Without spoilers, all I will say is that the story follows a reasonably "Alice in Wonderland" sort of progression to a point... but, once the Mad Hatter shows up, things just go completely off the rails and we were left with far to many moments asking each other "do you know what just happened" or "what is going on" or similar. Again, the overall beauty of the art, it's use of color and motion, is so pleasing to the eye that ignoring plot inconsistencies is fairly easy and the overall movie something that, by its rambunctious climax, left me with a feeling of a sort of wistful joy that overpowered the feelings of confusion.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    Another animation masterpiece from Gibli studios. Story is pretty trippy but the animation is pure gold. Story follows a young boy that loses his mother and goes to a village to live with his dad and step mother. When the step mother is taken away , the boy takes it up to himself to rescue her from an enchanted tower 🍿🍿🍿🍿/5 on Max