Kiki's Delivery Service (1989)

Rating: 70%
Now I remember seeing a trailer to this on a VHS tape to - I think it was Alice in Wonderland - whenever I was watching that movie when I would visit my grandparents when I was a kid. So after recently remembered that, I decided to settle the matter over finally seeing the movie for myself. And here's how that turned out.

Plot: Kiki is a thirteen year old witch, where it's custom for witches her age to leave home and find a city without witches where she is suppose to take a year training to become a witch and also use her magic to earn her living at that city. Kiki settles to a port city where she lives in a room at the bakery where she watches over the shop for the pregnant owner Osono, and decides to create a delivery service.

Now the first thing I really liked about this movie was how they were giving us a completely different take on the concept on witches. I mean that's one of the things I really enjoyed about Howl's Moving Castle with the concept on Wizards. However I wish they elaborated a little more on it. I mean they cover her earning a living for herself, but I didn't get how she was suppose to be training per say while this was happening. Maybe making a living is how she's suppose to train, maybe not. But personally I would've liked to have that elaborated on more. But I also liked some of the voice actors they had, mostly that they had Jeff Bennett, Kath Soucie, and above all, Corey Burton.


Characters:
Kiki: Now the interesting thing that I found out about this character was that she was voiced by Kristen Dunst. I think she did a nice job voice acting. Not spectacular but not bad. As for the character itself, I thought she was nice. She did have her really stubborn side but she was also friendly, smart, and surprisingly independent, or that is to say, it's surprising how much she was responsible to take care of herself for the most part for someone her age. Really that idea for witches in the world of Kiki's Delivery Service, is messed up considering how girls are making their living at only age 13. Maybe I'm thinking too realistically, (actually I'm sure I am,) but...yeah. But nice character all around.
Jiji: you know the sad thing about this movie was that apparently the voice actor for Jiji, Phil Hartman died the same year Disney released this version in 1998. In fact, I just decided to borrow from the library and then review Small Soldiers because A) that's a movie that I remember seeing once when I was a kid, and B) That was apparently, officially Hartman's last role before his death. As for how Jiji, his second to last character was, I kind of liked him. I mean his tone made his voice sound a lot like one of my best friends, but he did have that likable character in him. He's not the best character, but he wasn't the worst.

Music: I was okay with the music. There was nothing bad or good about it so it was just nice.

Editing: Now I've basically made it a rule for myself not to have an editing section for an animated movie because there usually is never anything to talk about. But there are a couple of points in this movie where I thought the editing that I didn't think needed to be in the movie. For example, when Kiki and Jiji spend the night on that train, there was a part where a train passed by the train they were on and THEN they got to the part where their train started moving a few second after that whole other train passed by. To me, I thought that whole part with the other train had no purpose editing wise. I thought they should've just cut to when their train moved. And later about 2/3rds of the way in the movie, Kiki walks from the beach all the way to her room after hanging out with Tombo. The way they edited it at the end was a shot of the bakery and then the table inside the room, and then the shot of her entering her room. I don't think the shot where it's just her table inside her room had much of a point in terms of the editing either.

And that's my review for Kiki's Delivery Service. It's a nice unique film with a couple of things I either thought where messed up or wished they elaborated more on, good ol' voice actors that I know, but an all around enjoyable film at the end of the day.