A MOST 'SPIRITED' DISPLAY OF ANIME.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

THIS ENGLISH language version of Japanese animation master Hayao Miyazaki's ``Spirited Away'' is a two-hour feast of visual imagination, consistently rendered at the highest level of graphic art.

It gets pretty exhausting after awhile.

Miyazaki is, of course, the internationally acclaimed genius of anime, Japan's genre of full-length, hand-drawn fantasy films (``Spirited,'' for instance, was the first animated feature in 50 years to win the Berlin Film Festival's grand prize).

His ``Princess Mononoke'' and ``My Neighbor Totoro,'' both released here with English voice tracks, were admired more than they were seen on this side of the Pacific. But even their massive popularity back home pales in comparison to ``Spirited Away's''; it's grossed $234 million in Japan, more than any other feature film, ``Titanic'' included.

It's not hard to see why. This tale of a modern 10-year-old girl who suddenly finds herself trapped in an other-dimensional spirit world has more bizarre characters, kinetic action, design ingenuity and palpable (if not always coherent) kid psychology packed into it than all of Miyazaki's previous films combined. The colors are never less than vivid, and each frame appears graced with a depth and detailing that sets new standards for two-dimensional animation.

It's just as obvious that the film's cockeyed parade of witches, dragons, stink spirits, frog creatures, octopus men, faceless shades and bewildering shape-shifters must have more cosmological resonance for the native audience than they will outside of Japan. Miyazaki makes these and many, many other strange critters universally accessible, but the more wild new things that appear, the more you get the feeling that you're missing something that would add more resonance to the awesomely rendered image. And after the first 40 or so of these fantastic visions, a certain flatness creeps into the pageant.

Basically, after you've seen two or three displaced river gods assume two or three disparate manifestations, you feel like you've seen them all.

Viewed as any child's worst nightmare about moving to a new home and school, though, ``Spirited Away'' digs into rich, primal fears with an intelligence rare for any cartoon, from anywhere.

Ten-year-old Chihiro (voiced by ``Lilo & Stitch's'' Daveigh Chase) is unhappily driving with her parents to their new suburb when Dad takes a wrong turn. They wind up in what looks like an abandoned theme park (``They built them everywhere in the early '90s,'' her father wryly notes), where the parents dig into an unattended spread of irresistible food. Sensing something wrong, Chihiro wanders off, only to be warned by a young boy, Haku (Jason Marsden), to get out of there before it turns dark.

Too late. Mom and Dad morph into pigs, and at sunset the place comes alive with supernatural visitors. The main attraction is a gigantic bathhouse that caters to the assorted spirits and is owned by a greedy, big- headed sorceress, Yubaba (Suzanne Pleshette), whose only weakness is for her spoiled, bratty, 10-foot-tall baby. Haku, it turns out, is also Yubaba's apprentice (not to mention a dragon), so Chihiro is never sure if his apparent concern and advice can be trusted, a profound theme that echoes through most of the other relationships she develops with the mutable denizens of her new reality.

Still, the brave, plucky girl has got to figure out a way to rehumanize and rescue her parents and get back to their world. But that seems to require ever-deepening involvement in a dimension where each encounter proves curiouser and curiouser than the last.

It should be noted that, though it's clearly aimed at kids of all ages, ``Spirited Away'' is somewhat gorier, spookier and sporadically more intense than your average Disney cartoon. On the other hand, Chihiro, at least in the talented Chase's interpretation, comes off as the most emotionally believable cartoon heroine this side of ... well, Lilo, but she was really something else, too.

In fact, Chihiro provides the behavioral glue that keeps ``Spirited Away'' from drifting off into its own mytho-aesthetic Neverland. It's a great place to visit, of course, but two hours of sublimely surreal (yet, somehow, more than a little repetitive) enchantment will probably be the limit most of us will want to live with.

SPIRITED AWAY  - Three stars

(PG: violence, children in jeopardy)

Starring: Voices of Daveigh Chase, Suzanne Pleshette, Jason Marsden, Susan Egan.

Director: Hayao Miyazaki (U.S. production, Kirk Wise).

Running time: 2 hr. 5 min.

Playing: El Capitan 

In a nutshell: Eye-popping Japanese cartoon fantasy never lets up and almost wears you out.

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A 10-year-old girl named Chihiro must overcome her fears to save her parents in the strange world of ``Spirited Away.''