Spirited Away

Critically lauded, watched by us a number of years ago, this Miyazaki/ Ghibli film has its moments but is in all honesty heavily overrated.
First the high points; some wonderful scenes in the bath houses, a heroine who actually develops as the story goes on, and, as always with Miyazaki, wonderfully imaginative twists of the plot. He is able to create creatures and scenes, without a drop in the rythm, that startle with their originality compared to 99% of the fare of the silver screen. His drawings are always beautiful, perhaps not the most evocative but always with their own straight-lined charm and purposefulness.
However, all of these upsides, great as they are (and let us not be misstaken, his films are often fine works, he is one of the superior creators of mainstream fare around), do not hide the fact that he is not a good director, or even perhaps a good storyteller. The storys are wonderful, but often dissapear into lucanas and lack the heart to fully embed themselves and be told across a regional amount of time. Plot strands are set up, and then forgotten, as though Miyazaki has lost his nerve.
This is forgivable, but it is in the literal scene-plotting that Miyazaki falls down. He has the awful habit of shooting every single movement from five angles, we see a character, a room, a door, a step, another step, a hand on the door, the doorhandle turning, the door starting to open....etc etc unto infinity. He throws us straight into plots, but once there everything takes half an hour and twenty cuts to accomplish. This makes his films, most notably 'Spirited Away' (less so 'Ponyo') over-long and frequently energy-sappingly boring. The fact that it takes such a long time, full of inconsequential (not in a imaginative, quirky manner, the inconveniences are the mindane parts) actions, makes his films rather oppressive to watch at times.
Miyazaki has a fantastic creative imagination, a unique visual style, and the ability to render exciting action. His themes of childhood existential angst and loneliness create masterpieces in mood across his work. However, his inability to direct with any subtlety or leaness can make one rather wish to never seen one of his films again.