LOS ANGELES, March 22, (RTRS): There’s no shortage of magic in “From Up on Poppy Hill,” although it’s not the kind people usually associate with the work of master animator Hayao Miyazaki. His earlier classics gave us a cat-bus (“My Neighbor Totoro”), an ambulatory house (“Howl’s Moving Castle”) and a pilot turned into a pig (“Porco Rosso”), among other delights. “From Up on Poppy Hill” deals strictly with more human concerns. Still, in an age where 2D animation is being pushed aside by computer-generated, three-dimensional efforts, the gorgeous hand-drawn majesty of the films of Japanese powerhouse Studio Ghibli are magic enough for anyone who loves movies.

Miyazaki recently turned 72 and has chosen to segue out of the director’s chair; this time, he hands the reins to his son Goro (“Tales from Earthsea”), although the elder animator co-wrote the screenplay (with Keiko Niwa, based on the graphic novel by Tetsur  Sayama and Chizuru Takahashi) and participated in the film’s planning process. The end results may be a little talky and understated for the youngest of viewers, but fans of Hayao Miyazaki – and they include pretty much every other animator working today – will find this tale enchanting. Set in Yokohama on the eve of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, the film focuses on young Umi (voiced in the US version by Sarah Bolger), who begins each day raising signal flags in honor of her father, who never returned from his seafaring voyages.

She has her hands full feeding the tenants of her grandmother’s boarding house but finds time to get involved in a student protest against the demolition of a beloved school clubhouse. Leading the drive to save the building is her classmate Shun (Anton Yelchin), and while Umi and Shun find themselves drawn to each other, they also discover secrets of the past that could potentially derail any potential relationship.

“From Up on Poppy Hill” isn’t overloaded with plot, but we get to know these characters intimately, not only in the way they relate to each other but also in the context of this very specific time and place: While these teens are coming of age, Japan is just beginning to recover from the devastating trauma of World War II and the Korean War, with the upcoming Olympics clearly seen as a symbol of the nation’s return to prominence on the global scene.

The screenplay deftly balances the characters’ intimate concerns with the nation’s historic growing pains, resulting in a story that’s as engrossing as the visuals are breathtaking.  Even worlds away from the deities of “Spirited Away” or the forest spirits of “Princess Mononoke,” the Ghibli touch is very much apparent here; almost any individual shot of the film is suitable for framing.

Testament
It’s a testament to Studio Ghibli’s reputation that US executive producers Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy have been able to assemble such an impressive ensemble of voice actors; besides Bolger (“In America”) and Yelchin, the cast includes Christina Hendricks, Bruce Dern, Aubrey Plaza, Gillian Anderson, Beau Bridges, Jamie Lee Curtis, Chris Noth and Ron Howard, among many others.
This film may not be quite at the level of the very best Studio Ghibli features – if only for the modesty of its intentions – but “From Up on Poppy Hill” still stands tall among the current crop of animated films. It’s a stirring reminder (alongside the above-average “The Croods”) that human beings can be just as compelling a subject for animation as talking animals.

Twas ever so and will always be: Teenage girls are convinced that their fathers are from another era and will never understand the new and exciting changes going on in the world. And in “The Croods,” dad literally falls a few steps behind on the evolutionary ladder, while the world really is changing, complete with lava, earthquakes and continental drift. After the dreary “Ice Age” movies made Pangaea tedious and stridently unfunny, it’s a thrill to get a movie that gives tectonic shift a good name. This new effort from writer-directors Chris Sanders (co-director of “How to Train Your Dragon” and “Lilo & Stitch”) and Kirk De Micco (“Space Chimps”) offers genuine comedy and compelling characters with dazzling visuals that feature both imaginary beasts (carnivorous birds, a candy-colored sabre-toothed cat) and moments that approach photo-realism.

The titular stone-age family is led by Grug (voiced by Nicolas Cage), whose motto is, “Never not be afraid.” Between the bleakness of the landscape and the plethora of hungry beasts populating it, one could understand Grug’s wariness of the world. (“Still alive!” is what the family cries out in unison at the dawn of each day.)  But teenage daughter Eep (Emma Stone) has begun to chafe at dad’s alarmism and wants to start exploring the big, scary world. She sneaks out of the cave one night when she witnesses something dazzling, which turns out to be fire, carried aloft by Guy (Ryan Reynolds), who’s clearly closer to Homo erectus than the jutting-brow Croods.

Grug wants nothing to do with this slick visitor and his new ways, but after an earthquake destroys the family cave, the Croods – including mom Ugga (Catherine Keener), nerdy son Thunk (Clark Duke), feral daughter Sandy (Randy Thorn) and salty Gran (Cloris Leachman) - have no choice but to follow Guy into a different world that offers color, splendor and even more danger. This material could have easily fallen into sitcom cliches with a heaping scoop of anachronism jokes on the side, but “The Croods” takes these characters and their situation seriously enough to make the story matter.

When Eep chastises the ever-vigilant Grug for mistaking “not dying” for “living,” it’s a genuinely powerful moment, one that you might not expect to find in a cartoon aimed at audiences of all ages. The cast is terrific – Cage hasn’t been this intentionally funny in eons – and the directors know how to stage the small stuff (throw-away jokes turn out to be set-ups for bigger punch lines later on) as well as elaborately staged sequences, like a food-gathering mission in which the theft of an egg turns into a football scrimmage in which the Croods must maintain possession despite the efforts of fellow predators (not to mention the miffed mama bird). “The Croods” is making its way into theaters without a great deal of fanfare, but it’s a solidly produced and thoroughly entertaining animated feature that won’t club you over the head with its ideas.