Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Miyazaki is an animation genius who got his start drawing airplanes……and so his last film before retirement is about a kid who grew up to design airplanes. I can't help but wonder how autobiographical this is. This film encompasses one half of everything that makes Miyazaki great. Miyazaki came out of retirement once before and made Ponyo. That film carried his Speilbergian love of childhood, his whimsey, his environmental political views (its in small doses and does not ruin the film for a second), and dreamlike art on the border between terrifying and heavenly. That is half of all Miyazaki films that appeals to kids. The Wind Rises is the other half. The side of Miyazaki that loves flight and engineering, tides of tragedy, and the little beautiful things lost in plain sight in the lives of his characters and makes you cry with hope. Beautiful animation and a fitting swan song for the director of the best animated films of this century……..unless he comes out of retirement again just to make a comedy action movie to balance out Ponyo and The Wind Rises, but you can probably watch Castle of Cagliostro instead ;)