Mary and The Witch's Flower Blu-ray/DVD

MARY AND THE WITCH'S FLOWER plays more like a "Ghibli Greatest Hits" sort of film rather than establishing its own identity, but considering that the film is made by some former staff members of Hayao Miyazaki's famous studio, that's no insult. Especially when the end result is a fun, lively treat. Sort of a KIKI meets HARRY POTTER with dashes of SPIRITED AWAY, HOWL, and even LAPUTA for good measure, MARY may not reach the standards of the films it is inspired by, but it is charming and fun, with cute appealing characters, suspenseful action, and a thrilling edge of your seat finale. Gkids also continues the standards of Disney's fantastic Ghibli dubs by applying familiar names such as Jim Broadbent and Kate Winslet, but this dub is, surprisingly, recorded in England, which is a nice change of pace. Ruby Barnhill is a bit tentative at first, but she gradually gets into character, and otherwise the rest of the cast excels. Good family entertainment.

This is based on a British children's book and it's appropriate that they cast British actors for this film's English dub. It is a well-produced dub and is crisp. I would recommend watching the film in English at least once. This should be the minimum standard for feature dubs and fortunately most feature dubs are hitting 3/4 this quality level consistently now.
As far as the artwork and animation goes, it's of a standard Ghibli-level, nothing new there, but is this such a bad thing considering how rare hand-drawn films are outside of Japan now? Even in Japan, the 2-D/traditional animated film is an endangered species and there's a push to make it all polygons which I don't think works well for human characters.
As long as decent stories get adapted or crafted for animated films, I will definitely support the Mary's of the feature cinema world...

Studio Ghibli has unfortunately suffered from loads of atrocious dubs on account of Disney and GKids, and having loathed every one of them I wasn't so hopeful about the dub for Ponoc's first film being any good. Sadly, I was proven right. It's a waste of time, with horrible, emotionless acting, poor translations, and bad casting. It's no better than any of them. Barnhill is shrill, abrasive, and utterly annoying. She has no business being a voice actress. Broadbent is flat and gratin and Winslet overacts. The rest of the actors are terrible as well. ONLY watch in Japanese. MARY AND THE WITCH'S FLOWER is too beautiful and lovely a film to be let down by such horrible dubbing.

I personally don't think MARY AND THE WITCH'S FLOWER reaches the upper echoleon of Studio Ghibli's films. Nonetheless, it is a pleasant and very enjoyable adventure story, mixing some of the best bits of the House of Miyazaki's best films with occasional charms of its own.

However, I'm primarily writing this to take issue with the reviewer above regarding the English track. I don't know if he's seen the same movie. I've watched my share of bad dubs, and none of the Ghibli movies have been among them. They were all done well by the folks at Disney and Gkids. This one is "a waste of time" and "terrible"? Not at all. The British cast is a nice fit for this story, and I had no major problems with it. Ruby Barnhill does a fine job as Mary, Jim Broadbent's alternatingly creepy and funny as Dr Dee, and Kate Winslet is a pleasure as Mumblechook. Everybody else sounds fine as well. Honestly, watch it however you want. It's a fine film either way.

It was a good movie. It's like someone else said, it's not the most ground breaking movie, but it's still pretty good. It's not a Studio Ghibli movie but it's made by the same people who used to work at the studio. It has a lot of charm as like the studio ghibli movies. However, I felt like this movie felt a little lack luster, and didn't quite have the same heart as a studio ghibli movie. However, for a starter movie, Studio Ponoc did a pretty decent job. My only complaint is that character development could be a lot better. I also have a little nitpick about the dubbing. I wouldn't say it's awful but it is pretty bad. It's not even really the voice acting itself, I liked the British actors, it's more of a sound quality issue. The sounds quality is bad and uneven. It felt lazily edited and made it off putting to try and watch.

Great movie to spend some family time.

It's not a Ghibli masterpiece, but it draws so many little elements of what makes a Ghibli film great into the resultant presentation that I can't help but like it. If you want a gorgeous bit of lighthearted fantasy, it's definitely worth a look. It's a good first film for these guys, but I am hoping to see something a bit more original to push them into true greatness down the line.