Laputa: Castle in the Sky (1986)
There’s a lot of hype around any kind of work by Miyazaki… as if he can do no wrong. Laputa is touted as one of the best animated film of all time, and I disagree. It’s above average at best, and there’s nothing special about it! Of course, the 20 year later standard that I’m using to grade Laputa isn’t exactly fair, but the core element ~ the story, the character development, the romantic angle… etc, etc ~ are all about average and what I expected. There wasn’t anything grand about Laputa… it’s just like most other movies! So, wtf?!
There may be many symbolism involved in the movie, and if I want to, I can get down and dirty with it and think about what each thing may represent — but that isn’t really fun and I don’t want to think about Laputa all that much. It’s just average. AVERAGE!