Movies: For Children of All Ages

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Hayao Miyazaki has dreamed beautifully on film for ages; Japan's master of anime won an Oscar for his rapturous Spirited Away. Now he adapts a novel by Diana Wynne Jones about Sophie (voiced by Emily Mortimer), a Cinderella type who, under a witch's spell, instantly becomes a 90-year-old crone (Jean Simmons) and takes residence in the portable home of the birdman Howl (Christian Bale, speaking in Clint Eastwood's gruff whisper).

Is this mystery magician Sophie's protector or a predator? No suspense there. But while the story adheres to fairy-tale contours, it constantly surprises with the richness of imaginative detail. The film begins in the soot and bustle of an old European city, with a design scheme both grim and dapper: even the evil blobs who chase Howl wear straw hats. The castle, which treads back roads on four Seussian legs, is a spectacular jumble of ship parts, old wooden houses and gigantic barrels. Palaces and shimmering lakes, warplanes and fire sprites all come to life at the breath of Miyazaki's graphic genius.

Howl's Moving Castle (released in both dubbed and subtitled versions) is the perfect e-ticket for a flight of fancy into a world far more gorgeous than our own. The film doesn't halve itself to appeal to two generations. At its best, it turns all moviegoers into innocent kids, slack-jawed with wonder. •