Lets take a minute to think about what Christian Bales career was looking like in 2004. He had starred as the delightfully malevolent Patrick Bateman in American Psycho only four years early, just that year he had made headlines by dropping down to a shockingly unhealthy weight for The Machinist, and had recently been announced as the new, gritty incarnation of Batman. So was he the most obvious choice to play the English language version of Howl, a mysterious but emotionally stunted anime wizard, in Howls Moving Castle? No. No, he was not. But Bale, who had been a fan of Miyazakis work after seeing Spirited Away, was interested in collaborating with the director and campaigned for the lead role in his next film, which just happened to be Howl. Despite the fact that its a major departure from the work he was doing at the time, it totally works. The film brings out a softer, gentler Bale, and harkens back to the lighter roles that he did earlier in his career. We miss that Bale.