I just finished watching the latest Miyazaki animation. Sadly, I am too late, for it has already been moved to the small theater (which is not surprising, given how many summer blockbusters there are this year). The film showed visible artifacts from being run too often. Having read the book, watching the movie was a complete surprise, as while it retained many of the characters from the book, they saved only a few key plot points and changed everything else. The result is a movie that more closely reflects Miyazaki's themes than the original work.
The animation quality is superb. Once again, Studio Ghibli shows why they are a force to be reckoned with in the world of animation. The care they put into painting the backgrounds is astounding, and the mechanical designs are very reminiscent of Nausicaa.
The story is probably the weakest part of the movie. While it does have it's light moments, the story isn't entirely engaging and probably could have used another draft or two to tighten it up a bit. I don't know if it is this way in the original script, but there is far too much explaining going on in the movie, which doesn't move the plot very much at all.
I didn't really enjoy the voice acting of the movie very much, Billy Crystal as Calcifer is great, and while the others give performances that are heads and shoulders over traditional North American anime voice actors, I still found much of the dialogue delivery stiff.
it's still showing at the el capitan down here, but i'm guessing that you won't be down here for a while. i was surprised that when i watched it at the amc kabuki 8 in sf that it was shown dubbed...but, then i realized that disney was as usual in charge of distributing it here. my friend's buying the japanese version, and i'm hoping to compare the voices. what did you think about the end? it was too hokey for me, but i wasn't in the mood for too much gush when i watched it.