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Mary and the witch's flower at first glance had me intrigued and excited for something new that at least had a similar feeling to the Ghibli movies that I've loved since I was little. But by the end of it, I just ended up feeling genuinely upset. It could have been so good, but it lacked so much in it's story and character building that could of probably been solved if the movie was simply a bit longer.

Without going too in depth on how I would actually change the story to make it better, I'll point out the main issues that made the movie ... much less enjoyable for me.

1. The friendship between Mary and Peter goes from non-existent to BFF's without any buildup what-so-ever.
Mary just meets Peter twice by chance, he mocks her for looking like a monkey so she gets upset and then he just leaves! Then Mary has the fantastic idea to get Peter mixed up in all of the magic shenanigans happening, which really made me dislike her as a character. Her decisions were so immature and irresponsible at times and for the dumbest reasons. When she cried and apologized to Peter it didn't feel like she cares about him and feels bad for getting him mixed up in danger, it felt as if she was just being a brat crying over the mistakes she made. (because their relationship had no buildup, why should she care about someone so badly if she just met them a few days ago?)

2. The story was predictable.
As soon as I saw the front yard of the school and saw how madam Mumblechook showed up and behaved, I knew immediately that she was the antagonist and from there everything else was predictable. Judging by the scene in the beginning that showed a girl who looked like Mary, and everything about the broom, I knew that the woman wanted the flower that Mary used to get there. I could also immediately predict the "Twist" that the aunt was the girl from the scene at the beginning of the movie. It really just left me feeling bored in the end.

3. Peter's role and him as a character
Enough said, he lacked development and he was sirt of just a prop so that Mary could mess up and have a chance to shine upon rescuing him.

I'm giving the movie an overall rating of 3, because there's only 3 things that I liked. One point for the animation for being pretty and fluid and second point for the scene at the beginning of the movie where Mary's aunt steals the flower seeds and flee's the academy. I know I complained about that scene a little bit, but truly for me it was the best part of the movie, it got me more hyped and excited for what was going on and really just gripped me and made me wanna keep watching. Third point is for the whole animal and human experimentation theme that was going on, I found it to be different and creepy, so it kept me intrigued a little bit longer.