10 Famous Movies That Got Away With Half-Assed Plots

2. Howl's Moving Castle Completely Forgets That It Needs To Tell A Coherent Story

Howl's Moving Castle differs from the other movies on this list in its half-assedness, in the sense that the plot just does whatever it wants an expects you to go along with it just because it's an animated film, and hey, can't animated films just do whatever they want? Ask around and you'll find an endless stream of people who cite this as one of legendary animating Hayao Miyazaki's best films; in fact, it actually highlights many of his worst traits as a filmmaker. So the plot (based on the novel of the same name) concerns a young woman named Sophie who is cursed and transformed into an old woman, and - through a series of wacky adventures - learns to appreciate her new form. In Miyazaki's hands, even the craziest of plots can made entertaining and wonderful (check out Spirited Away for the certified proof of that), and yet Howl's Moving Castle never finds a centre of gravity, throwing out random plot element after random plot element until you ultimately decide to shut down your brain and just marvel at the visuals instead (because it's easier!). And it seems that in the decision to shut down their brains, movie-goers were able to get past the frankly confusing nature of this motion picture, the muddled and murky plot of which outright forces you to ponder so many questions about what it is you're watching (none of which can be answered using the film alone, though the book sheds more light on the ambiguities). Miyazaki's approach - rather surprisingly - seems to have been to take an already established narrative and to cut it down into something resembling a half-assed version.