Ponyo

The new(ish) Miyazaki film from his Studio Ghibli warehouse, this is probably the best directed one of his offerings we have seen to date.
It is undoubtedly aged at a younger demographic than prevous darker and often more disturbing work, here the bad guys aren't really bad. This doesn't make the peril less perilous, there's still a sense he could kill a charcter off, but the over-riding message of the fim is one of joy and curiousity rather than the confusion which can characterise his other films.
Due to it being set around infancy the characterisation isn't particularly complex, yet it's fine enough and does well to not ram a message down any throats. The story is nicely told, even if I does drag and draw itself out a little at times. The humour is at once laid on with a troal and rather light, endless rather silly jokes not being oppressive but rather cute.
It is of course in the animation that this film excels, the action scenes especially are wonderous, wild spinnings and leapings, there is no one who can create quite the 'wow' factor with animation as Miyazaki. The characters he draws are exciting, changeable, and different.
This, in comparison to others of his work, is very much a kids film, with more slapstick and even a catchy theme tune. Because of this, its simplicity and, to overuse a word frequently attached to Miyazaki, charm. These make it perhaps the most pleasurable of his films to watch, if not the deepest, for those who like that sort of thing.