The movie’s heroine, Sheeta, has ties to this marvelous floating castle, and while the movie focuses a bit too much attention on all the greedy villains determined to plunder her mythical kingdom, it delivers that incredible sense of discovery that characterizes the best Ghibli outings.
On the heels of “Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind” — a hit 1984 manga adaptation whose success motivated the formation of Studio Ghibli — Miyazaki made this remarkably similar fantasy adventure which expands upon many of the earlier film’s delights. For completists, it’s worth circling back to “Nausicaä” (which is not technically a Ghibli production), though that film’s science-fiction tone doesn’t feel nearly as distinct from other anime features of the ’80s, whereas this unmistably Miyazakian follow-up serves as a great introduction to the master’s favorite motifs. High-flying battles between steampunk airships and a group of sky pirates (the leader of whom, Muska, looks an awful lot like the big-nosed witch in “Spirited Away”) forecast the Red Baron-like “Porco Rosso,” while the levitating city of Laputa is as breath-taking a location as the director ever imagined. Laputa, not unlike the Wakanda of “Black Panther,” is a land that feels at once ancient and ultra-modern with its giant asymmetrical robots — dormant automatons designed to protect. The movie’s heroine, Sheeta, has ties to this marvelous floating castle, and while the movie focuses a bit too much attention on all the greedy villains determined to plunder her mythical kingdom, it delivers that incredible sense of discovery that characterizes the best Ghibli outings.