C

Okay, a lot of you are going to hate me for this, but it's a hill I'm dying on. Call me a snob or a Gordon Ramsay or whatever, I don't care. This film was godawful. ...For many years, I really wanted to watch it. Surrealist ecological sci-fantasy? Giant bugs? Delicately crafted by critically-acclaimed film studio? Took one look at the trailer and, well, love at first sight. I am an entomologist in real life, you know. Then one day I actually got the opportunity to watch it in full, and I have to say, it was an hour and thirty-five minutes of Cruel And Unusual Punishment for my unfortunate brain cells. Long story short: it was pretty, atmospheric, and entirely soulless (and not even half as pretty/atmospheric as some other soulless works of art I've crossed paths with). Basically just a bunch of cliches glued together. The Toxic Jungle was basically one of those generic giant fungus biomes one sees everywhere in fiction, to give you an idea of what I mean. The plot was similarly bare-bones and even more forgettable than the graphic designs; plucky protagonist girl saves the environment and stops a war or something through the power of kindness and Science etc. etc. Now, cliches are not bad merely because they are no longer novel. I've seen a number of artists take old ideas and breathe strange and wonderful life into them. Cliches are bad because they are misused to serve as surrogates for good storytelling. To be fair, Nausicaa herself wasn't unlikeable, and its message to care about and respect insects + nature is nice I guess (especially in today's world, arthropods being constantly demonized in fiction and reality alike), but to be fair there are bugs in my real life yard right now (and it's not even a pristine yard) better at the Nausicaa aesthetic (and more imaginative-looking) than actual Nausicaa bugs. Don't watch it. Trust me. Please, please trust me.