Hayao Miyazaki's Howl's Moving Castle is a disappointing film. It's an overlong animated version of a children's book by British author Diana Wynne Jones about a little girl getting involved with witches and wizards in a militarist central European country around 1910. With leading Hollywood stars providing the voices, there is little of the magic and Japanese flavour of such Miyazaki masterpieces as Spirited Away. However, the first half-hour is rather good.