A Prairie Home Companion (2006)
Feb 19, 2024Backstage at a Radio Variety Show
The final film from the great Robert Altman set backstage at a radio variety show as an angel of death wanders through
Maya Rudolph
Idiocracy (2006)
Aug 28, 2010Future Ruled by Stupid People
A film about stupid people that for once actually is funny. This a raucous but often biting satire where Luke Wilson wakes up in the year 2025 to find that the stupid have inherited the future
Shrek the Third (2007)
Jun 24, 2007Animation/Fairytale Spoof
The third of the Shrek films settles in with a formulaic blandness where the characters turn up more because everyone expects them to than the film finds much for them to do
Zookeeper (2011)
Jul 24, 2011Talking Zoo Animals Offer Romantic Advice Comedy
Animals in a zoo offer schmuck zoo keeper Kevin James romantic advice based on their mating behaviours. The premise runs out of steam soon in, the rest is an irritating smartass CGI talking animals comedy
Turbo (2013)
Jul 26, 2013Animation/Racing Snail
The 24th film from DreamWorks Animation – the studio that once offered a reasonable challenge to Disney is now starting to slip into the bland formula of competitors like Blue Sky. While passable, this feels like a film substantially lacking in originality and where you can predict its every move
The Nut Job (2014)
Jan 17, 2014Animation/Talking Animal Heist Film
I went into this with zero expectations, expecting no more than a work of formula family entertainment and came out gently surprised. Essentially a talking cartoon animals variant on a heist plot, it does the formula likeably and with none of the relentless smart-ass cynicism of too many contemporaries
Big Hero 6 (2014)
Nov 7, 2014Disney Animation/Marvel Comics Superhero Team
Disney animation and Marvel Comics come together; Marvel loses and most of the comic-book is tossed out the window and this becomes a simple story about a boy and his robot story before settling into familiar sueprheroics
Strange Magic (2015)
Feb 6, 2015Animation/World of Fairies
George Lucas's venture into animation was critically pilloried. It's not bad, just no different from a formula film like Rise of the Guardians or Epic. From the man who made Star Wars, you had higher expectations
Angry Birds (2016)
Jun 24, 2016Animation/Videogame Adaptation
A film based on a mobile app surely counts as a world first. Mostly this is the equivalent of switching one's brain off and spending an hour-and-a-half watching cartoons for the single digit age group
The Emoji Movie (2017)
Dec 4, 2017Animation/The Lives of Talking Emojis
An animated film that bizarrely speculates that the emojis in your text messages are actually living entities that have lives inside the phone. A not-too-well-thought out concept that leaves you with strange questions about its world
The Happytime Murders (2018)
Jan 25, 2019World Where Puppets and Humans Coexist
Jim Henson's son Brian trashes his father's legacy, showing puppets getting up to very adult things we never saw on The Muppet Show. Peter Jackson did it even more outrageously in Meet the Feebles
The Lego Movie 2 (2019)
Mar 23, 2019Animation/Adventures in the Lego Universe
Sequel to The Lego Movie. This time the idea of the Lego universe, the crossovers and fourth-wall breaking gags are not as fresh but this still gets good mileage out of them
The Mitchells vs. the Machines (2021)
Jul 2, 2023Animation/The Machine Revolution Comedy
A surprise delight, an animated film that overspills with madcap creative energy concerning a misfit family on a road trip who come up against the machine revolution
Luca (2021)
Jun 26, 2021Pixar Animation/Merboy’s Adventures on Land
A Pixar offering that is an enjoyable work about merpeople/human friendship but this also sits on the B-rung of their films along with Onward and The Good Dinosaur
Disenchanted (2022)
Nov 25, 2022Fairytale Characters in the Real World
Enchanted in which Amy Adams played an animated fairytale princess entering the real world was a reasonable hit. This is the long-planned sequel that reunites the principals but feels like a joke that belabours in the retelling
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (2023)
Sep 15, 2023Animation/Comic-Book Superheroes
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were the pop culture phenomenon of the 1980s. They have not fared so well in the 2000s but this new animated film written by Seth Rogen is a promising start