I was very skeptical of this newer style of 3D animation that has a different shape and contour to it than the 3D animation of say Pixar. I’m seeing it a lot more in Japanese films like DETECTIVE PIKACHU and LUPIN THE THIRD THE FIRST. I didn’t know if it was that it was new and that’ s why it was weird to me (similar to how traditional 2D cel animators felt in the early ‘90s when the Pixar shorts came out. There must have been people who just didn’t like the change. I went into this was an open mind nonetheless. This film is just gross looking. It feels like a cheap 3D animated Disney Junior show that doesn’t have the time to render real quality images that we are accustomed to today and comes close to reaching the uncanny valley of something like MARS NEEDS MOMS. The film is very similar in structure to the Harry Potter series with the first scene basically being the opening of the first Harry Potter book. I watched this dubbed, which looked bad in terms of matching the dialogue to the mouths. I love Richard E. Grant, but even his character felt like a Ghibli character that has been overused. All of the charm and life that we are so accustomed to seeing in Studio Ghibli films is just not here. Even though it is about witches — there is no magic in here at all.
