The Cat Returns is the most light-hearted and purely comedic of recent Studio Ghibli films. It is a sequel to Whisper of the Heart (1995), to the extent that two secondary characters (the cats), The Baron and Muta, are here principal characters. Otherwise it's a standalone effort, though the English title might make a bit more sense if Whisper of the Heart had been released already. The Japanese title, Neko no Ongaeshi, translates as "The Gift of the Cats," or more specifically, "the gift that keeps on giving whether you like it or not."

The story begins with Haru (Anne Hathaway) rescuing a cat from getting run over by a truck. The cat turns out to be the son of the King of the Cats (Tim Curry, as a kind of unreformed 1950s hipster), who decides he likes this kid and that she'd make a good daughter-in-law. After failing to persuade her with presents, such as dozens of little gift boxes stuffed with mice, they kidnap her and drag her off to the Kingdom of the Cats, an Alice in Wonderland place where Haru finds herself shrinking to cat proportions herself.

It is then up to The Baron (Cary Elwes), along with Muta (Peter Boyle) and a giant crow (Elliot Gould) to rescue her. At this point the movie very much turns in a cat version of an Errol Flynn swashbuckler, made even sillier by a steady stream of sight gags (made funnier by the fact that they're all--cats!) that veer off into Coyote & Roadrunner territory. The film's one significant failing is that, unlike Miyazaki's carefully realized fantasy worlds, the internal workings of the Kingdom of the Cats quickly lose any logic further than the next joke.

Still, they're pretty good jokes and, after all, this is director Hiroyuki Morita's first feature effort. You have to applaud a Studio Ghibli project determined not to take itself seriously in the slightest. And Morita does rein things in sufficiently in the denouement to deliver the requisite object lesson without too much saccharine.

Disney has again done an outstanding job producing a dub track every bit the equal of the original, which is frankly surprising considering Disney's grudging indifference to the Ghibli library it spent a hefty sum licensing. You can imagine some Disney exec hemming and hawing and then writing a check and telling them to go away and not bother him anymore. Until next time, as long as they promise to deliver soon an equally adept version of the far superior Whisper of the Heart, all is forgiven [update: which they have].

Labels: anime reviews, personal favs