Top Ten Animated Movies of the Decade

10. Isle of Dogs I’ll admit that when I first saw this, I was let down.  It doesn’t reach the heights of Anderson’s other stop-motion Mr. Fox and the human parts of the story in particular were uninteresting.  But I’ve caught it on tv a few times before then, and every time I do I […]

Toy Story 4

In the second movie this year to involve Jordan Peele and a lost child at a carnival, the very existence of a fourth Toy Story seemed to baffle many moviegoers, as the third film seemed to wrap up the series so well. As far as a conclusion to the series goes, Toy Story 4 does […]

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse

This seems like an odd choice as a theatrical release at this time. Live action Marvel superhero films are more popular than ever, while DC dominates the at-home animated superhero market, but all of the sudden we get a full studio theatrical release of Spider-man. I And not only that, but one which includes multiple […]

The Good Dinosaur

While Inside Out was released to box office success and acclaimed reviews, The Good Dinosaur released in the holiday season to little fanfare or attention.  It was pretty clear which of Pixar’s 2015 movies was its champion last year.  And sure enough, The Good Dinosaur doesn’t reach the storytelling heights of Inside Out, must does […]

Zootopia

Animated movies like to take things that are not highly intelligent and suppose that they were: toys in Toy Story, fish in Finding Nemo, video game characters in Wreck It Ralph, and now the animal kingdom in Zootopia. Its a neat premise and there’s quite a bit of fun in exploring it. Zootopia runs with the […]

Inside Out

It took me two attempts to see Inside Out. When it was in theaters, I decided it would be fun to take my 4 year old niece. Now, it was fun however, not a lot of movie watching was actually done. Most of it was taking breaks in the lobby, getting more popcorn, and eventually […]

Big Hero 6

This turned out to be a much better movie than I expected, and I can see now why it won the Oscar. That puffy robot just killed me, I think I laughed at almost everything he said or did. “I am not fast.”  Or when the kid told him to kick the door down. Great […]

Monsters University

Monsters University is the latest in Pixar’s recent trend of sequels. But does it reach the acclaim of Toy Story 2 & 3, or does it reach for the lowest common denominator like Cars 2? As you might expect, the monsters fall somewhere in middle, with the toys pulling them closer to their end of […]

Wreck It Ralph

Wreck It Ralph was the most celebrated animated film of 2012, though likely most of that praise comes from the simple fact that its about video games. Otherwise its a pretty regular family movie, nothing that will compete with the recent animated greats like Up or the Toy Story films. The arcade underworld works very […]

Brave

“I don’t speak bear.” Its hard for Pixar films these days to overcome the high expectations set on them by the company’s previous films. Pixar movies are not only visually beautiful and fun, but they usually have deeper themes which raise them up. WallE was about mankind’s responsibility to the earth, Up was about letting […]

The Adventures of Tintin

Spielberg’s first venture into animation is, well, a sight to see. He turns the Belgian comic character of Tintin into a full blown adventure film hero. This movie is a lot of fun and is also great to look at. Speilberg seems to be going back to his roots here, although working with a whole […]

Rango

This was an odd little movie, but that’s all a part of its charm. Rango is about a domestic chameleon who thinks he’s an actor, and when he ends up in the desert by accident, he pretends he;’s a gunslinger to fit in with the townsfolk. What we get after this is a rather interesting […]

Despicable Me

There has beena growing trend with animated films for the studios to make the films for both children and adults; films that pique the interest and natural excitement of kdis while still providing a sense of maturity in the story and lines which also makes it accomanying to older audiences.  This is not one of […]

How To Train Your Dragon

People are always talking about the Dreamworks/Pixar battle of animation and how Pixar dominates almost every year. Dreamworks usually loses the battle because they focus on fleeting adoration from the masses and fill their movies with pop culture references with short half-lives. Yet every once in a while (ex. Kung Fu Panda) where they come […]

A Christmas Carol

This is a hard movie to review. I watched it with a group of kids from grade 1 to grade 12 and doing so I can’t help but think that this movie didn’t really know what audience it wanted to go for. It seems like it was made for little kids, but then it gets […]