Review of Suzume

It's an enjoyable popcorn-flick, enjoyed it a lot more than more than the visually gorgeous but muddled Weathering With You, although less than Your Name - or any of Shinkai's previous works. While the backgrounds are as gorgeous as always, the Character acting/animation is noticeably more generic than Your Name, and character design and writing are similarly generic - Suzume's design and overall character reminds me a lot of the protagonist from Roujin Z (a positive!), Souta a dark-haired Howl (this is played with well in the early section of the film, less so later on), although rest of characters are cut+paste from any generic anime,and the overt Ghibli references are kinda distracting. Shinkai does not need them, and the story - although maybe less so the commercial appeal - would likely be better without them.

Plot is fine, but again very much in a popcorn-flick context, thinking about it too much would likely prove frustrating and feels very much by-the-numbers to delivery on audience expectations of a Shinkai film. Pacing is uneven, movie feels 20 to 30 minutes too long, maybe more production constraints - or screenwriting help - would help deliver a more tightly plotted and paced movie. Soundtrack wasn't bad, just seemed out of place at and heavy-handed at times, surprising as usually a Shinkai strongpoint.

Positives are that it is engaging, it was an easily enjoyable watch, the road-trip format and the characters they meet along the way is interesting - and some of those being fleeting encounters is kinda what it's like, and well captured - but overall it just didn't have that 'X-factor' that takes it from 'good' to 'great'.