Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984) review

Exclusive kids-only affair: the characters are generic and the story's flat (it's about a teenage girl trying to save the environment - big surprise if you're aware of Miyazaki's pro-environmental stance). Miyazaki's grown so much as an artist, that his later - and considerably more surreal - films have a stronger impact on me than his earlier, more 'normal' narratives, and I found the one-dimensional storyline and general blandness to be a major disappointment (even his 1979 film, Castle of Cagliostro, is zippier, sillier and more inspired). I'd like to think Princess Mononoke - which tackles the same topic of pollution - is a 'remix' of this.