Tag: animated

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Minions & Monsters

Minions & Monsters

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Minions & Monsters could be the funniest movie I see this year.  Two factors play into this assessment.  First, Hollywood studios rarely make pure comedies these days, which means that this one will have little competition for the title.  Second, this movie is hilarious.  Did it matter to me that this movie was made for kids?  Not at all.  If this is the best funny business Hollywood has to offer, I’ll take it.  All hail the Minions, the new kings of comedy!

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Toy Story 5

Toy Story 5

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Everyone knows that “helicopter parenting” is bad, right?  Apparently not, since the good folks at Pixar have revisited the topic again, seven years after Toy Story 4 made it clear that toys need to know their place.  Don’t they have a “prime directive” to guide them in situations like this?  Anyhow, in Toy Story 5 it’s Jessie instead of Woody who decides to take matters into her own hands with current owner Bonnie, and things turn out about as you’d expect.  There’s also a platoon of newly-awakened Buzz Lightyears that find their way into the story, and who doesn’t love more Buzz?

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Hoppers

Hoppers

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“If I could talk to the animals, just imagine it.  What a neat achievement that would be!”

Those lines are from “Talk to the Animals”, the Academy Award winning song 1967 movie Doctor Dolittle.  (They’re mostly spoken by Rex Harrison, but the versions by Bobby Darrin and Sammy Davis Jr. make up it.)  The idea–or fantasy, if you prefer–of being able to talk to animals is one that’s intrigued mankind forever.  Who wouldn’t want to talk to any of the other species living beside us?  That sense of curiosity and wonder is largely absent in Hoppers, however, a likeable animated film from Pixar that uses this fanciful notion in the service of a small-scale adventure.  Although the movie has its heart in the right place, and is often quite funny, it could have been much more.

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Zootopia 2

Zootopia 2

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A lot has changed since Zootopia was released in 2016.  For starters, the buddy cop movie is practically nonexistent.  Decades ago, these movies regularly appeared in theaters in the form of action-comedies (Lethal Weapon, Rush Hour), spoofs (21 Jump Street), satires (The Other Guys) or fresh takes on the genre (The Nice Guys).  Besides the evergreen Bad Boys franchise, I’m hard-pressed to recall a notable buddy cop movie from the past ten years besides the one starring Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling.  If sneaking the genre into a family film helps keep the genre alive, I’m all for it.  I wish the filmmakers had given their animal detectives a better case to crack than the one in Zootopia 2.  Ah well, perhaps they’ll get one in the next sequel, which is hinted at in a credit cookie.

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The Bad Guys 2

The Bad Guys 2

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When you’ve played the villain your entire life, it takes more than a single good deed to change perceptions.  That’s the quandary these Bad Guys find themselves in.  They bought into the whole tail wagging thing last time around and used their talents to do a whopper of a good deed, but their past transgressions are still etched within everyone’s memory.  Did they make the right decision in breaking good?  Or should they revert back to what everyone still holds against them?  The Bad Guys 2 shows that it takes time, hard work and believing in yourself to make that happen.  I’m not sure if this movie’s target audience will appreciate the philosophical argument discussion that’s happening alongside the slapstick and chaos, but their parents can explain it to them later, I suppose.

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Elio

Elio

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If science-fiction films have taught us anything, it’s that meeting aliens from another world should scare us.  Time and again, the aliens that show up just want to kill and eat us.  Films like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T., which depict aliens as being benevolent and even helpful towards humanity, are notable exceptions to the rule.  Elio joins that short list because the aliens the eponymous character meets are a very friendly group who actually need his help.  Unfortunately, Elio can’t make up its mind as to what story it wants to tell, forgoing adventure and excitement implied by its premise in search of emotional payoffs.  The resulting film is fine, but it could have been special.

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The Day the Earth Blew Up

The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie

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The Day the Earth Blew Up is funny, visually inventive and, unlike Warner Brothers Discovery, honors the legacy of the Looney Tunes cartoons.  The movie is a testament to what hand-drawn animation can achieve when in the right hands.  Although 2025 is only three months old, this movie is already the front-runner for comedy of the year.  Highly Recommended. Continue reading The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie

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Flow

Flow

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Although never explicitly stated, Flow is about climate change.  Even if you don’t believe in it, I think you can still enjoy the movie, but its underlying message will elude you.  There is a reason why an unassuming grey cat is forced to deal with a sudden environmental catastrophe, and it’s not so that we can see how well it can steer a boat.  (It steers surprisingly well, by the way.)

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Moana 2

Moana 2

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Moana has a restless spirit.  When we first met her in the eponymous movie from 2016, Moana was the only one on her island of Motunui who wasn’t happy with the status quo.  She didn’t want to just exist, she wanted to go places.  Simply put, she lives for adventure.  When she’s warned by her father not to venture beyond the reef, that’s exactly what she tries to do.  Moana fails, but that setback doesn’t stop her from trying again because she’s an explorer at heart, a feeling she conveys perfectly when she sings “How Far I’ll Go”.  (See the line where the sky meets the sea?  It calls me.)

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