I am going to be straight up honest from the start, I did not like this movie. Spoiler + ramble Warning
With just over a 2 hour run time, Suzume feels like a boring mess of a movie. There is nothing of substance here, no really, I could not believe how badly written this movie was. Watching Suzume and Souta (in human and chair form) close doors multiple times was boring. Watching these two chase after a cat and then Suzume chasing after Souta was boring. This movie legit is just closing doors, chasing something, and some eating scenes thrown in. Is it normal writing to put a 17 year old girl in a position to put her life on the line just to save some college student she found attractive? Like seriously at the start of the movie she found him attractive, he tells her about some ruins and then she continues off to school just for her to turn back around and chase after him. Towards the end of the movie Suzume was going to turn into the keystone just so Souta could live again. With all these ideas youd think the characters have a good dynamic but no they really dont. Souta is gone for a good chunk of the movie because he becomes the main keystone in place of the cat so hes out of the picture, and with the amount of time spent with Suzume and Souta together theres no feeling of a real relationship between them to justify any plot points that happen with the movie. The movie goes by so fast that when the lights turned on at the end i was left thinking "is that it?" because this movie just breezes by but feels so slow because of its terrible plot. You have this cat that really doesn't add much to the movie and then later on another cat shows up and that cat turns massive and fights the giant natural disaster worm at the end..... like what??? The side characters added nothing of value, there was a weird part where the aunt of Suzume lashes out at her then the new cat takes over her or something??? I have no clue. I mean its just a complete fever dream of a movie. There are some parts of the movie that i can tip my hat to (so a little white lie lol there is VERY LITTLE substance) , Suzume meeting young Suzume and some parts of getting Souta back. The voice acting is fine, the visuals are a little bit worse than some of the other Shinkai movies ive watched but thats not the biggest issue, If you are a fan of Makotos work, I'd say go see it still despite my complaints. If this would be your first Makoto Shinkai film, i'd recommend starting off with some of his other works (5 centimeters per second is his best work in my opinion). This movie was just a complete odd ball, a weird mix of supernatural and adventure with the tiniest dash of romance that all came together a plopped out this boring ass movie.
Thank you for reading my review and I hope you have a great rest of your day
