Tag: Animated Review

The Wild Robot (2024) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Roz (short for ROZZUM unit 7134, nothing to do with Peri Gilpin’s character from Frasier) is a helper robot with nobody to help after the cargo ship delivering her crashed into an island. After being rejected by the local wildlife she finds herself as the de facto mother of Brightbill, the lone surviving gosling (of the non-Ryan variety) of a Roz-related accident which killed off his entire family.

I very rarely go to see kids’ films at the cinema, especially not ones without what I would deem an appropriate “in”. I think it’s perfectly acceptable for an adult to go see a Pixar film, for example, but there are some for which it would be a bit weird to see a lone adult male in the screening. As such, I don’t often see trailers for those films. This meant I didn’t really know what The Wild Robot (TWR: pronounced Too-war) was about. I knew the title, and I knew it was supposed to be above average. But the story? Not a clue. The actors? No idea. The animation style? Nope. I didn’t even know if it was American, Japanese, English, French, or even from the Anconine Republic (although if you googled that country you’d be sceptical about whether an animated film would be released in 2024 that was made in that country).

The opening is “shot” from a weird fish-eye POV, so I was slightly worried that the whole thing would be like that, thankfully it’s not. I still didn’t entirely vibe with the animation style though. It’s incredible sometimes, with things moving with a beautiful fluidity and realness. But then there are times when the animals (the fox voiced by Pedro Pascal is the clearest example) almost seem TOO fluid like they’re made from watercolour paintings. On their own, that’s fine, but alongside the backgrounds, it’s jarring from a visual perspective. Mostly, the visuals are superb though. The world looks real, trees have imperfections, grass sways in the wind, and the sky is awe-inspiring in terms of colours (especially in the closing third).

I have a few nitpicks with the story itself. Some story beats move unnaturally quickly, and characters trust each other too quickly, to the point it seems like it’s setting some of them up for third-act heel turns. It doesn’t feel like a singular narrative at times, there’s no sense of the world flowing towards the natural conclusion. Instead, it feels like the story is being told by a kid who has joined an improv group “This happens. Then this happens, and then this happens”.

That’s a very mild criticism though, TWR is an incredibly easy film to fall in love with. Kids will (hopefully) love it, and there’s enough in there to keep parents entertained without resorting to the cliche Shrek-style “penis jokes that will go over the heads of children”. There’s no sense of cynicism or misery to TWR, it’s an experience which fills you with hope. The performances are all pitch-perfect, but it’s still weird to hear Matt Berry in a kids’ film as you keep expecting him to call someone an arsehole. Catherine O’Hara continues to be a delight. Stephanie Hsu is good, but criminally underutilized. Lupita Nyong’o is the true heart, and her performance beats beautifully. Kit Connor is pretty great too, but really it’s a showcase for Nyongo’s vocal work. She provides a good mix of humanity and confused AI.

At the start of the year, I looked at what was due out and had mentally already placed Paddington In Peru as the winner for “best kids film”, partly based on knowing that Inside Out 2 was going to hit adults MUCH harder than it would kids. For most of the year, the marmalade magnificence still had no competition, but now with both Transformers One and The Wild Robot? Paddington is going to have its work cut out, especially with the recasting issues. TWR isn’t just good, it’s magical.

The Garfield Movie (2024) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Garfield gets roped into a scheme alongside his dad to steal milk.

Well after insulting it in my review of Jackpot, I had to actually watch it, didn’t I? If only so my despair at that being rated lower than this would be accurate. There was always a chance that I would be wrong and that this would actually be really good. I mean, look at the cast. Hannah Waddington, Nicholas Hoult, Brett Goldstein, Ving Rhames, and Samuel L Jackson, that is a weirdly strong cast for a non-ensemble piece.

Like all good films, The Garfield Movie (TGM, pronounced Tigg-um) leaves you asking questions, especially with the final action scene. It’s just a shame that those questions are ones like “How fucking long is that bridge? This scene should have ended minutes ago, this movie fucking sucks”.

In 2010 there was a woman named Mary Bale who was filmed walking past a delightfully cute kitty-cat named Lola. She stroked Lola, who was clearly approachable and friendly. Lola’s tail was raised in happiness and delight. Mary then picked Lola up and threw her in a fucking wheelie bin like a bitch. That video was posted online and she became infamous. I have seen that video (I had to, it was EVERYWHERE at the time), so I can confirm that that footage is now the SECOND most painful video I’ve seen involving a cat. You know, because this movie is also about a cat, and is fucking terrible (in case I was being too subtle).

I should have known this would be terrible from the very start. It starts with Garfield ordering food on an app. So the first shot is of a phone screen. There is no effort to make it seem like real food is being ordered on a real app. It moves from the item he wants to the next item he wants, there is no scrolling and picking an item, it just magically goes from one thing he wants to the next thing. I know it’s a small thing to be annoyed about, but it does annoy me because it makes it seem low effort. Also, he’s not ordering a lasagne, he’s ordering a pizza (with sides, which he knocks off the table in the bag without eating them).

This just doesn’t feel like a Garfield movie. There’s nothing specific to the character. In fact, there are very free moments specific to him being a cat. For example, when his dad is tied up with rope, Garfield tries to untie him; he has claws. It’s not a Garfield movie, it’s a movie that has Garfield in it. He’s not a character with his usual characterisation and foibles. He’s not sarcastic or dour, he’s just a normal animated movie lead. I haven’t seen a film misjudge its own main character this much since the Artemis Fowl casting call. It’s not a Garfield movie, it’s more like it’s a standard kids film, that stars Garfield. He’s not a character, he’s an actor playing a character that doesn’t suit him. The tone is completely wrong too, it’s too fast.

So I’ve established it fails as a Garfield movie. It’s not even a good animated movie. It fails at being a movie, and the animation is terrible. It reminds me of the South Park game on the N64, only with less piss-soaked snowballs. The human characters look okay, but the animals themselves look terrible. There’s no sense of realness to it. The animals don’t feel fluffy or cosy, they look like balloons. This is going to be a weird criticism of an animated film, but it’s too much of a cartoon in terms of the physics. There’s a scene where Garfield bounces from one tree to the other without losing any momentum. I know, standard modern animation. But still, it’s completely out of place in a series such as Garfield which has always maintained a somewhat realistic style.

I’ve seen worse films this year, but I can’t think of a movie which has completely failed its own lead character as much as this one did. On the plus side, I don’t have to see it again.

Inside Out 2 (2024) Review

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Quick synopsis: Riley is now a teenager, and with increased age comes increase emotion.

With Pixar, you know what you’re getting; emotions. They’ve given emotions to a wide variety of things: toys, dinosaurs, Scottish people. Inside Out is the most obvious example of this: What if emotions had emotions? It wasn’t crying out for a sequel, it was pretty self-contained and didn’t leave any unanswered questions. That doesn’t mean a sequel doesn’t make sense. It was a film about childhood emotions, and (spoilers), emotions don’t stop when people hit their teens.

Let’s be honest, even if it didn’t NEED a sequel, it’s very easy to picture how to do one. As people grow, their emotions develop and become more complex. It’s the complexity of developing emotions that drives the plot of Inside Out 2 (IO2, pronounced Eye-owe-two, like the surname of a lower league Ghanaian footballer). As well as the returning Sadness, Joy, Disgust (sadly no longer voiced by Mindy Kaling over a pay dispute), Anger and Fear, there are also new emotions in the form of Anxiety, Envy, Embarrassment, and Ennui. Three of them slot effortlessly and are believable (albeit incredibly late arriving, are you saying other people didn’t have anxiety until they were teens? Lucky bastards), Ennui feels the most out of place and unnecessary.

The main difference in this entry is the importance placed on Sense Of Self. At first, it just seems like a clever way of displaying something, but the pay-off when Riley is affected by self-doubt, and how it affects her sense of self, is f*cking marvellous and one of the best things I’ve seen this year. It’s a perfect encapsulation of how you can crippled by anxiety and worries, and how they can lead to you keep making things worse in an attempt to make them better.

IO2 actually does a pretty good job of explaining the benefits of anxiety; preparing you for things which have not yet come to be (a bit like that super scary thing in The Muppet Christmas Carol). On the downside, that does mean that Joys arc of “oh, I see that negative emotions value now, I should help them and ease them into this system” is very similar to her arc in the first movie. I know there will be some narrative crossover, but there are times where it does feel like we’re just watching the same thing again.

That’s a very small issue though, overall it’s delightful, in a kind of depressing way. This, like all Pixar films, will break you slightly. But it will also rebuild you. That’s what Pixar do, they make you sad, but then they leave you feeling inspired and hopefull. They’re masters at it, and nobody does it better, except for Carly Simon.

Fun fact btw: When I left the cinema after seeing this I overheard a small child say it wasn’t very realistic because “why would someone’s brain make them feel worse?”. That poor sweet innocent child.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Bowser wants to get married to Princess Peach, she would rather that doesn’t happen so enlists the help of a random plumber.

At the time of writing, The Super Mario Bros. Movie is the highest-grossing film of 2023, the sixth highest-grossing animated film of all time (already surpassing every Pixar movie with the exception of Incredibles 2), had the biggest opening weekend for an animated film, the first film based on a video game to gross over a billion dollars worldwide. That’s all well and good, but I’d be lying if I said it deserved those accolades. Fun fact; the highest-grossing animated film? The 2019 remake of The Lion King, that seems wrong somehow. This is a fun film, but that’s all it is. It looks absolutely gorgeous, the visuals (and the music) are full of interesting references and in-jokes, so you can tell the animators are true fans of the franchise. The writing? Not so much. A lot of the jokes don’t seem to be thought of specifically for this film, they could go into any movie. This means the whole script seems incredibly generic, nothing about it makes it stand out as either a very good movie or even as a Mario movie. There are a few plot points which are heavy references to the franchise, but they’re shoehorned in with all the subtlety and grace of a drunken elephant twerking. Yes, it is fun to see the karts appear, but they don’t really add anything to the narrative. That, along with many other moments, is just there for the sake of being there. Like they knew they needed to reference the karts so just threw them in where they could without an attempt to make it seem natural. There’s no attempt to be intelligent or appeal to anybody who’s not already expected to like it. There are too many moments where you’re acutely aware that you’re watching a kids’ film, with a few scenes which are (and this is not fun to say) kind of embarrassing. There’s no attempt to be anything better than a basic disposable kids’ film. It’s a shame. The Lego Movie has shown how films like this can and should be done; with wit and intelligence.

On the upside, Jack Black is fantastic. His singing the Peaches’ song is undoubtedly the best part of the whole thing. Most of the other vocal performers are fine, nothing special, they just exist in this movie. There’s nothing particularly wrong with wrong, but they’re all so generic that it’s difficult to remember who was who. It’s also much better than the previous attempt at a Mario movie (not that that’s difficult).

I imagine kids will like this, but it’s the kind of film which parents will be really annoyed about being forced to watch again and again. The best it will do for parents is remind them of playing the games as a youth. There are a few moments where tonally it might remind you of those terrible Friedberg And Seltzer parody movies where instead of jokes they just have references. Nobody wants to be reminded of those films, not even the people who were in them.

So in summary, it’s a fine movie. By which I mean, when someone asks how it is, all you can see is “It’s fine”. Nobody can doubt it’s a successful film, I just wish it was also a good one. I wish there was half as much love put into the narrative and dialogue as there is the animation.