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I’m Depressed About 2017 Animation

| Rachel's Reviews

Since I started this blog in 2014 I have had a goal to see every animated film released in the year. For the most part this has been an awesome experience with even the bad films giving some context to help really appreciate the good.

But I’m seriously debating about whether I should reconsider my goal for 2017. 2016 has been a stellar year for animation with great films coming from big studios and indies alike.

2017 what are we getting…

Yes, I get it. Any movie can be good but a talking mafia baby movie? It just sounds so awful and the trailer was one of the worst I’ve ever seen. It’s honestly reminding me of 9 Lives but less creative and the animation looks atrocious. It seems like an SNL skit of a bad movie come to life. It reminded me of the Jack and Jill trailer where you just sit baffled at how this actually is happening. I mean who saw Baby Geniuses and thought ‘we need that in 2017’ but make him a mob boss baby? And can we put that person in jail?

And what else do we have to look forward too? (heavy sarcasm in that sentence)

Well, really only 3 films right now. I am looking forward to Coco from Pixar. It’s a musical with a Day of the Dead theme and that has huge potential for creativity. (And yes they have done The Book of Life but I think if we have a million Christmas movies we can have more than one Day of the Dead movie).

I am also looking forward to Lego Batman as I loved The Lego Movie and the trailers were amazing.

The Breadwinner from the studio that brought us Song of the Sea has potential and My Little Pony could actually be a commercially successful 2D film and I really like the Friendship is Magic TV show.

I also don’t hate the Cars movies like some so Cars 3 could be good. I’m hoping it will be better than Cars 2, which I don’t hate but don’t love either. I mean it is kind of sad when Cars 3 is one of my more hopeful entries of the year…

So really I have Lego Batman, Coco and Breadwinner in the excited for camp. My Little Pony and Cars 3 in the ‘I hope it will be good’ camp. Not much to hang my hat on for the year…

That’s about all the good I have to say. Let’s go over some of the other gems that have me depressed. In addition to Boss Baby we have:

Blazing Samurai- which has a giant cats butt on the poster and from the team that brought us the recent bomb Max Steel..

Captain Underpants- yes the studio that once brought us Prince of Egypt has sunk to talking babies and a Captain Underpants movie. I’m depressed

Ferdinand- I don’t know if this will really happen in 2017. We haven’t seen any concept art or a poster or anything about it

Despicable Me 3- You guys know how much I dislike the minions and their yellow annoyingness all over everything. Now we get another entry in the highly overrated Despicable Me series

Emoji Movie: Express Yourself- Yes the horrors continue with the emoji movie. We have a character in a major studio animated film named Poop Daddy. Let that sink in for a second. Plus the female character Jailbreak is a complete copy of Lego Movie’s Wyldstyle

Lego Ninjago Movie- The short for this before Storks was completely forgettable and lame. It seriously lessened any enthusiasm I was feeling for this movie.

Nut Job 2- The original was horrible and so the fact this sequel is happening brings me even more into depression. And it was supposed to come out in 2016 which isn’t a good sign

Smurfs: the Lost Village- This has potential but I’m not a fan of Sony Animation in general and I hated the 2 recent live action films.

The Star- This is evidently a nativity movie but I don’t know much about it  I must admit. I guess it could be good.

So yeah, forgive me while I go into a corner and cry at what I have to look forward to in 2017…Sure there may be a few pleasant surprises in there but right now I am feeling extremely discouraged about it.

But then when Kubo and the 2 Strings makes 67 million and Ice Age 5 makes 404 million worldwide I guess we get the movies we deserve.

sad-mickey

Moana and Trolls Trailer Reviews

| Rachel's Reviews

So today and yesterday we had 2 new trailers drop for Fall animated films, and I thought I would give you my quick thoughts. Let’s start with the trailer I’m most excited about for Disney’s Moana:

I personally don’t know how you walk away from this trailer and not be excited. Moana seems like a great well-rounded character. I love her character design and that she looks like a normal young lady. However, she is not the cliched warrior woman although clearly with that spear she can be fierce. I also love the way she stands up to Maui in the boat! The film looks like such an epic adventure with battles, sea travels, diving into the realm of monsters that all looked awesome.

It also looks very funny without being too modern and cheeky. The music sounds great. The visuals look breathtaking. I can’t wait!!!

On a less enthusiastic note. Let’s talk about the new Trolls trailer:

I’m not going to parse words I hate this trailer. I hate the way it is hiding behind the voice talent. I really don’t care who is voicing your characters. Don’t sell me on them. Sell me on the characters they are voicing. It shows a lack of confidence on your film if you are leaning so hard on the vocal talent.

I hate how much of the story it gives away. I hate how saccharine the story looks and it all feels so boring and bland. It’s not good when the main quote from your film is “this is a story about happiness”. How profound…

On the plus side, Trolls looks like it will entertain small children and the color palate is very appealing. The original song is catchy but the jukebox songs I’m not sold on.

I hate to say it but I’m getting Strange Magic vibes from this trailer…
I’m really bummed to because I really liked the 2nd trailer. Hopefully the movie will surprise me and be great like Kung fu Panda 3 or Lego Movie that also had trailers I hated.

What do you think of these trailers? Do they sell you on the films? Do you agree with my takes?

Kung fu Panda 3 Review

| Rachel's Reviews

kung fu 3Get ready for a surprise!  You guys know I will always be honest with how I feel about a film.  I went into Kung fu Panda 3 with extremely low expectations.  I hated all the trailers and the character designs didn’t look great.  I liked the first one, really enjoyed the second and 3 seemed like a step back.  Well, I’m thrilled to tell you I was wrong!  Kung fu Panda 3 is not a step back. In fact, it is solidly the best of the 3 and is in the running for the best CG film Dreamworks has ever made.  Yep, you read right!  That’s how I really feel.

There are so many reasons I loved this movie.  First of all, it combined the strengths of 1 and 2 perfectly.  It had the first film’s humor and sweet message with the sequels action and authentic martial arts movie feel.  But that’s not all.  It had a good story, sweet messaging and beautiful animation.

I was so impressed with the way the film combined 2D, hybrid and CG elements seamlessly.  That has always been a part of the series but here it wasn’t just a dream sequence that was 2D, it was intermixed into the entire story which was beautiful. The colors were also bright and full of life.  Kung fu Panda 3 gets serious points just for being so great to look at.  The trailers did not do it justice at all!

The story revolves around a spirit named Kai who has a score to settle with Master Oogway from the first film.  In revenge he has conquered all of the spirits of the great masters and absorbed their chi into himself.  He finally absorbs Master Oogway and that allows him back into the human world.  Still out for revenge he seeks to take all the mortal masters including the great Dragon Warrior.

As he absorbs the characters it creates kind of a jade zombie and with each one he becomes stronger and bigger. Meanwhile, Po is learning from Master Shifu to become a teacher instead of the student.  He also meets his biological father and learns about a secret community of Pandas which is strong in chi and defeated Kai before.

There are a lot of interesting things about this story.  I particularly liked the struggles Po’s adoptive father has when he meets his biological father.  As an adoption advocate, I thought that was handled very well.  Also learning how to teach as the final step in becoming the Dragon Warrior is a very insightful plot thread for the film.

Like I said, the humor is used just enough to break up the villainy but not so much as to feel annoying or crass.  I laughed quite a bit.  The action is a lot of fun but never too drab or scary for little kids.  I think people who felt Kung fu Panda 2 was boring will like this entry much better.

The voice cast works very well with some new talent in JK Simmons, Kate Hudson, and Bryan Cranston.  I still wish to begin with they hadn’t had such modern voice talent but I prefer this cast too the dragon cast any day of the week.

The film just works.  It’s beautiful to look at.  It’s exciting, funny, sweet and I was consistently entertained.  I want to give a special congrats to director Jennifer Yuh Nelson.  There aren’t that many female directors in animation and I really admire what she has done here.

I honestly don’t have anything negative to say about the film.  Maybe I will when I watch on repeated viewings.  Like the Lego Movie, it will probably be skipped for nominations because of its early release but it is certainly worthy.  I loved it.

You’all might think I’m crazy but I don’t care:

Overall Grade- A+

Here is my youtube review:

My 5 Favorite Dreamworks Films

| Rachel's Reviews

Today I posted on my youtube channel a video collaboration I was fortunate to do with fellow youtuber blu-ray Benn.  With Kung fu Panda 3 coming out later this month we thought it would be fun to talk about our favorite Dreamworks films.  A lot of people think I hate Dreamworks but it’s really just the Shrek movies aren’t my favorite (have yet to see the Madagascar movies which don’t appeal to me).  So it is more their comedies but I do enjoy the studio.

Here are my top 5 Dreamworks films:

Here are Blu-ray Benn top 5.  Give his video a thumbs up!

What do you think of our lists and what are your top 5?

Why Home is Worse than Strange Magic

| Rachel's Reviews

Before I give my worst movies of the year list tomorrow I thought I would preemptively explain my choice of Home as the worst animated film of 2015.  Most people I feel will have Strange Magic at the bottom and it is not good by any stretch of the definition; However, I do think it is better than Home.  Here’s why:

Strange-Magic-poster-bannerThere is no doubt Strange Magic is a very flawed film. The script is the biggest problem with dopey dialogue that was extremely predictable and corny. For example, one of the girl characters says to another ‘get your head out of the clouds- a cloud of boys!”.   That’s just terrible writing… Strange Magic also has characters that are at best on a Saturday morning level of development.

George Lucas said he wanted it to be a ‘girl power’ film and yet the girls are so silly. I know there is love potion involved but they certainly fall for the idiot male characters easily.  They are pretty much vehicles in the story to fall in and out of love without any real personality or character development.

strange magic3The songs are performed fine but so on the nose and uncreative they became annoying. When the Bog King starts singing ‘wild thing’ I yearned for the good old days of Happy Feet, which was at least a little creative in the song selection…

bog king strange magicHowever, even with all that said, at least the story in Strange Magic is solid. It’s based on Shakespeare for goodness sake.  It may have been predictable but unlike Gnomeo and Juliet (yikes…) it stuck pretty true to Midsummer’s Night Dream. The animation and vocal performances are also good- certainly better than the movie deserved. If the script had been better and the song choices more original it would have been a pretty good film.

home23Home was worse for me because the story makes no sense. These aliens gather all the humans to one place, which is really stupid. I mean who wants to gather all their potential foes together? And they manage to build all these houses for the humans and yet they know nothing about them like even that they live in families.  And wouldn’t there have been a big conflict when all those homes were being built for the relocated humans?  They also don’t know how human items work like a hair dryer but they manage to run the cities after the humans have left. They know how to not only fix cars but make them super cars using a slushie machine but they don’t know about toilets (such a lame toilet joke would have been so much funnier if the aliens had a truly original take on the scene not just eating it).

The aliens basically use planets until resources die and then move on to the next planet.  This makes no sense to me and makes them all cuddly but very mean when you really think about it. And especially when you find out why they keep moving on it is so stupid.

home2Basically the whole story is based on the fact that Oh sends a reply all email to the entire galaxy.  I’m sorry but that’s just lame!  It’s not believable as a serious cause for conflict and the attempt to make Oh misunderstood only becomes frustrating.  They have all these ways of communicating (email, those orb things) and yet the entire plot could be solved by a phone call or an actual conversation but nobody will listen to poor Oh.

The villain motivation was also very murky and really doesn’t make sense when you think about it.So he just wanted to keep invading other planets with his essentially minions for what purpose? They give a reason but it defies credulity.  All I could see was to make puns and be a silly villain.  And then when we get the second villain it’s even worse. Another conflict that could have been solved by a couple conversations but the dastardly plan would have been foiled.  Groan!  The ending had me rolling my eyes out of the theater.

The character motivations were also extremely muddled and inconsistent. Tip for instance sometimes behaved like a teenager, sometimes like a little girl and she was voiced by a 35 year old woman which was strange.  There was never a moment where I felt like a girl had not only lost her mother but all of her species had been abducted!  I mean that’s some serious trauma, not just a bad grade on a test.  She seemed more upset by the way people treated her at school than the chaos that surrounds her.

home 1Oh was also inconsistent, sometimes smart, sometimes stupid, sometimes silly, other times somber, and badly voiced.  They basically take Sheldon Cooper from Big Bang Theory and make him an alien. And as much as I like BBT it did not work for me.  I found it a very grating character and performance that was again inconsistently written.

home18At the core it is a road trip movie we’ve seen a million times and the attempts at humor were so lame. The tone is really all over the place, which is exemplified by the music feeling like it belonged in another film. Home could have been a fun silly film for preschoolers but the somber moments ruined that appeal.  I left Home thinking ‘who was this made for?’. It’s pretty morose for small kids and definitely nothing new for adults.  And unlike sometimes morose movies such as Inside Out or Song of the Sea it didn’t give me anything new and like I said, the plot holes abound. It’s at best a generic road trip movie, nothing more.

HOME

So that’s why Home for me was worst animated film of the year. It had inconsistent characters, flawed story, terrible voice acting choices, and a poorly managed tone. It made for an overall big letdown and despite their somewhat mixed history, I still expect much better from Dreamworks.

I guess when it comes down to it if I had to watch Strange Magic or Home again I’d pick Strange Magic.  To me it at least has a good story, looks nice and has some well performed, if uncreative songs.

Did the Right Film Win? 2014 Animated Oscars

| Rachel's Reviews

Well my friends I have finished my series of watching all of the Oscar nominated films for Best Animated Feature Film.  Last year I said 2014 was one of the best years in animation in a long time and now after seeing films going back to 2001, I stand by that claim.  You can make an argument for 2009 and 2010 but for not having a Pixar movie it was pretty darn good- and really diverse in style, tone and everything else.

So here is my video breaking down my thoughts on the 2014 nominees:

This is the first year I was doing this blog and have reviews for all of these films, so my thoughts probably aren’t a surprise to any of you.  Nevertheless, here is a little summary:

How to Train Your Dragon 2- A rare sequel that improves upon the original.  An epic feel to the story and some of the best animation Dreamworks has ever done.  I find the story with the 2 alpha dragons to be a little confusing and I think they give the Mother too much of a free pass for leaving her family.  But still a very satisfying, entertaining, exciting film.

Big Hero 6- A film with real heart from Walt Disney Animated Studios.  I love the character of Baymax and the relationship of Hiro and Tadeshi.  I found the villain to be clever and surprising and Sanfransokyo was extremely creative.

Boxtrolls- A wonderful stop motion film about a town whose leadership gets to wear white hats and eat cheese.  Snatcher the villain wants to wear the white hat and be respected which I think is a unique motivation and a good lesson for kids about labeling through clothing and other items.  The Boxtrolls are sweet and the humor worked for me.  The ending didn’t 100% work for me and the lead Eggs is a little flat and I don’t love the drag queen segment but it is very entertaining.

Tale of Princess Kaguya– A movie that has improved each time I’ve seen it.  A true artistic masterpiece and a story unique to Japan.  It is about a girl found in a bamboo stalk who is trained to be a princess.  She has independent instincts but she chooses to be obedient.  At first that was challenging to accept but now I love it’s different perspective.  It is so gorgeous to look at and uses music very well.   It’s a little bit of an artistically challenging movie but worth the effort.

Song of the Sea- A true masterpiece.  Even with Inside Out, Song of the Sea is the best film I’ve seen this year.  It’s got the emotional depth of Inside Out with Ben trying to deal with the loss of his mother but the hand drawn animation is stunning.  Ben’s sister is a Selkie and Ben must get her back to the sea before it is too late.  Along the way they meet an Owl Witch and other creatures so it is exciting, heartbreaking and tense.  It made my Top 10 Favorite Animated Films.  The music is stunning and I wish I could convince everyone to see it.  I love it so much .

So if I was giving away the award I would pick Song of the Sea, despite my liking all 5 films.  Of the mainstream nominees I do think Big Hero 6 is the best so in that sense the right film did win; however, I think Song of the Sea is the best of 2014.

What about you?  What do you think of these 5 films and which would you pick as best of the year?

 

Did the Right Film Win? 2013 Animated Oscars

| Rachel's Reviews

Hi guys!  We are up to 2013 in my series on the Animated Oscars and I have a special treat for you! Queen Elsa has come to visit to review all 5 films!

elsa2I admit in my review for the Disney Canon of Frozen I was a little defensive and perhaps overly concerned with trolls.  This time I took a different approach and just decided to have fun with it. I know people feel all kinds of ways about Frozen and I explained it as best as I could.   But there are plenty of great animated films for everyone so hopefully you can enjoy hearing my thoughts on one I enjoy.

The other 4 films are also worth seeing (no Shark Tale skunks in this year!).

Ernest and Celestine- Done by some of the same team that did The Illusionist and The Triplets of Belleville.  This is a watercolor sketchbook style story about an unlikely friendship between a mouse and a bear.  They kind of become bandits and the friendship evolves over time and then when both are put on trial they teach their societies something important about love, labeling and racism.  A real gem of an animated film (and can also be very funny).

Despicable Me 2- I think the Despicable Me movies are just ok and I wasn’t a big fan of Minions, so I wasn’t sure what I’d think of Despicable Me 2 on the rewatch.  I think the disappointment of Minions actually made me appreciate this film even more.  It has a lot of solid laughs, which didn’t happen in Minions.  I really like seeing Gru with the 3 little girls and being an overprotective Dad.  The Minions are also funnier in small doses than the main attraction.  It’s no masterpiece but a decent comedy for kids.

The Wind Rises- The strongest competition for Frozen.  A great film that just gives us the life of a man and we decide what we think of him and his dreams.  It is a story about hope and how a dream can carry you through tough times.  It is a magic-free film from Miyazaki about the life of a airplane designer named Jiro during World War II.  It made my top 50 animated countdown so clearly I love it.   It goes without saying the animation is stunning.

The Croods-  This was a new one for me from Dreamworks.  I’d heard bad things about the film and you know what? I actually enjoyed it.  I liked it was about a family and thought the script was pretty funny.  I liked how the created new animals and world for them to meet.  It made it unpredictable and surprising.  I liked the voice cast especially Nicholas Cage who has a freak-out even animated!  It’s not a masterpiece but liked it a lot more than I thought I would.

I’d still give the Oscar to Frozen because I think it has the best characters, music, story and everything else.  One of my favorite animated films from Disney.  That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!  🙂

Did the Right Film Win? 2011 Animated Oscars

| Rachel's Reviews

Hi guys!  Time for the next in my animated oscars series.  Today we are looking at 2011 which was an eclectic year for animation with no Pixar or Disney nominations.  I personally would have nominated Arthur Christmas and Winnie the Pooh but the 5 they went with are interesting in their own right.

This is a bit of a long one but I think you will enjoy it.

Basically I thought Puss in Boots may be my favorite film from the Shrek universe.  I like how they kept the parody elements down.  I also liked the 3D back when I first saw it and think the animation holds up very well.  The voice work by Antonio Banderas is good and I like the action which was a loving homage to Zorro and those kind of classic films.   On downside I didn’t love how they handled the Salma Hayek character.  She starts strong but isn’t treated with much respect and ends up having to be rescued and as an ordinary love interest.  I also think it can feel a little episodic and gets a little convoluted at moments.  But overall I enjoy Puss in Boots.

Kung fu Panda 2 I really enjoyed.  I know many readers don’t care for it, which is cool.  Always good to have a variety of opinions.  I think they toned down the humor and made a real kungfu movie with good fight scenes and battles.  I think they also majorly upgraded the villain with Shen voiced by Gary Oldman.  I like the adoption subplot and the development of the Furious Five is much better than in the first.  Overall, I think it is a good martial arts movie!

Then we have Cat in Paris which was a huge surprise for me.  I had never heard of it and I really liked.  I thought the animation was unique and beautiful.  I really liked the Mother character and felt she was well developed and interesting.  The story surprised me and didn’t go exactly as I thought it would.  The music is really strong and it’s both scary and funny.  Its a real hidden gem.

The fourth nominee is a foreign film called Chico and Rita.  This is a very adult animated film with a lot of nudity and I had to skip over sections.  That said, I liked the character of Rita and the music.  The animation I thought looked rotoscoped and generic; although, there are pretty moments.  I didn’t like the character of Chico and felt the movie was a little to easy on him.  He’s a real jerk and doesn’t deserve Rita.  The jazz music is really catchy and I can see why it was nominated even if it isn’t my cup of tea.

The final nominee is Rango.  If you have been a fan of the blog you might remember my review of Rango last year. I was pretty tough on it and I must admit I liked it a little bit more this time around.  The beginning has some interesting surrealist touches and towards the end the story picks up.  I appreciate they were trying to do something different but overall the pallet feels very beige to me so everything ends up looking bland and the same.  I also feel it takes way too long for the story to get going and don’t find Rango ambling around very funny.  Granted I haven’t seen many Westerns it is spoofing so that may be part of it.  I think the characters are underdeveloped and you go long stretches without characters which makes them even weaker.  Overall, I’m just not a fan of Rango but I see why others like it.

Of course, Rango won for the year and I think in this case the wrong film won.  There just isn’t enough story and the artistry is too bland for me to get behind Rango.  If I had to pick out of the 5 I would go with Cat in Paris.  I think it is visually inventive, the story surprised me and I really liked the characters.  Overall, it is a real delight.

What would you pick out of the 5 films?

Did the Right Film Win? 2010 Animated Oscars

| Rachel's Reviews

Hi guys!  The next year is up in my review of the animated Oscars.  We are at 2010 and this is the first year where I really think the academy got it wrong with the Tangled snub.

I think Tangled was the best animated film of 2010 for a lot of reasons.  First, it looks beautiful and I saw it in 3D and scenes like the lanterns was breathtaking.  I also love Rapunzel because she isn’t weak like an Aurora but she’s also not a cliched warrior woman.  She has pieces of both inside her.  I think Flynn is a great character and I LOVE Mother Gothel.  I also like the music unlike some people.

Anyway I think they got it wrong but that’s what they did.  Here are my thoughts on the 3 nominees.

The Illusionist is by the Sylvain Chomet who directed The Triplets of Belleville.  It is from a screenplay by the French actor, director, mime Jacques Tati.  It basically tells the story of a magician who is old fashioned and can’t get a good gig.

He meets a girl who is in awe at his tricks.  He buys her presents because her adulation feels so good.  The animation is beautiful but I didn’t respond to the film.  I never felt like I got into the heart of the magician.  It kept me at a distance which made the tragic story less compelling.

The next nominee is How to Train Your Dragon which is one of my favorite Dreamworks films.  I really like the character of Hiccup and find the story of his bonding with Toothless to be very engaging.  I have a few little complaints with the Jay Baruchel vocals, the treatment of the Astrid character and some of the design of the dragons but they are minor.  It also has a lovely message about having the courage to see things in a totally new way and from a new perspective.

I just wrote about Toy Story 3 so I won’t repeat myself too much.  It’s a beautifully animated, thrilling prison escape movie.  The villain is menacing and the ending is pitch perfect for the Andy part of the series.

In my opinion the right film won of those 3 nominees.  What would you pick?