Earwig and the Witch review – a disappointing CGI debut for Studio Ghibli

Gor Miyazaki's foray into computer generation, a magical tale of a gleeful brat adopted by a witch, falls far short of Ghibli's hand-drawn output

Eighty-year-old animation legend Hayao Miyazaki once described computer-generated imagery as thin, shallow, fake". Now Studio Ghibli has made its first ever fully CG feature, and it's, well, erm ... The politest thing to say about Earwig and the Witch is that it's not a patch on Ghibli's hand-drawn output, with plasticky-looking characters and an aimless plot. More painfully still, the film-maker responsible is Miyazaki's son, Gor Miyazaki (who previously directed the pretty decent Tales from Earthsea and From Up on Poppy Hill).

To be fair, Earwig was made for Japanese TV, but there are so many echoes here of Ghibli films past that it's impossible not to compare and despair. Like Howl's Moving Castle, the script is based on a classic children's book by Diana Wynne Jones; and just like Kiki's Delivery Service the heroine is a plucky young witch. It begins on the doorsteps of an English orphanage where baby Earwig is left by her rock star mum along with a note: Got the other 12 witches all chasing me. I'll be back for her when I've shook them off. It may take years."