The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Animation refers to films in which the films are drawn individually by hand, each frame moved slightly to give the impression of movement. Animated films from the mid-1990s onwards have been increasingly drawn by computer to the point that today the art of hand-drawn animation is a dying art form.
The first animated film was Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) and the success of this has spread until animation now covers a sizeable percentage of contemporary box-office earnings.
Animation in the American mainstream is almost always sold as being for family audiences (although there is a reasonable amount of animation for grown-ups, particularly outside the US, this has by and large not been financially successful). Content frequently deals with fantastic topics such as fairytale adaptations, the lives of anthropomorphic talking animals or adventures featuring young protagonists.
See also: For animation from Japan see Anime. Films in which animation is blended with live-action are discussed under Toons. For animation using three-dimensional models see Stop-Motion Animation, for animation that uses models molded in clay see Claymation. For films that remake prior animated works in live-action see Animation in Live-Action.
If Hayao Miyazaki ever follows through on his threat to retire, the one most likely inheritor would be Mamoru Hosoda. This is a perfectly enjoyably film that is sort of The Karate Kid by way of Disney’s The Jungle Book
The second of the animated Batman films, a Mr Freeze story timed to come out at the same time as Joel Schumacher’s Batman & Robin atrocity. This treats the Mr Freeze story with far more respect than that film
What gives the expectation of being a formulaic animated film about a prehistoric cave family instead comes with a fresh and naturalistic sense of humour that proves oddly appealing
Generally overlooked animated adaptation of the J.R.R. Tolkien book made for tv by Rankin-Bass. This keeps to the text very faithfully – more so than Peter Jackson – and is only let down by some limited animation
Amblin make a sequel to An American Tail minus the involvement of Don Bluth this time. The story now becomes an amiable animated parody of a Western
The sequel to DreamWorks’ animated prehistoric film. For a very low expectation effort – the modern animated sequel – this emerges as far more colourful and entertaining than one expects
Shinji Aramaki’s immediate sequel to his reboot of the Appleseed franchise. This lacks the visually stunning qualities of its predecessor and seems more conceptually muddled but Aramaki eventually gets it together
The 30th film from Pixar, a strange take on Avatar where a young conservationist enters a robotic beaver body in order to venture out among the animals. Directed with a good deal of likeably snappy humour
Shinji Aramaki returns to the Appleseed franchise for a third time with this prequel. Though it abandons the Cyberpunk milieu, Aramaki crafts action scenes with a stunning realism
The first anime film to be based on the manga, this is set in a future where the heroine is the head of a heavily armoured SWAT team fighting terrorists. Several different incarnations followed.
Sweet and tender anime about a young girl who has a curse placed on her that causes her to lose her voice and how this actually allows everyone around her to voice things they don’t say.
Considerable return to form for animator Don Bluth even if the story of the Russian Royals he is telling is based on a hoax and manages to entirely excise any mention of the Communist Revolution
An anthology of Edgar Allan Poe tales narrated by Christopher Lee, Bela Lugosi and others. Each episode is in a different style, where the succinctness allows the stories to be told as written
One of the less successful films of the Disney renaissance of the 90s/00s. Disney has never done well with animated SF. That aside, this a very nicely animated Steampunk adventure
Another of the DC animated films, based on a work that reinterpreted Superman. This is somewhat bitsy in condensing a 12-issue series to a 73-minute film but holds some moments of great writing
Anime version of the classic tale Chinese legend Journey to the West made Osamu Tezuka, this comes with a fast-paced action and is undeniably likable
Steven Spielberg makes a solid effort to bring Hergé’s much loved comic-book character to life in this motion-capture animated effort. This plays free and easy with the original stories but generally gets the spirit of the comics right
One of the head-scratching animated oddities produced by Disney during the 2000s. Not unlikeable, the story concerns a self-centered Aztec emperor who is transformed into a llama
Likeable entry from the 1940s period when Disney was putting out animated anthologies, this conducts adaptations of The Wind in the Willows and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
Fascinatingly original anime set in an alternate history Steampunk version of Victorian England that has developed a technology based on Frankenstein’s corpse resurrection experiments
Unique anthology that offers 26 episodes from different directors, each ending with a death. The episodes vary wildly in quality but a sufficient number ignore all good taste and/or travel waaaay across taboo lines
Animated film spun off from a popular French online gameworld, which had also previously spawned an animated tv series. The results are amiably engaging with a sense of humour that makes the show
Not a seventh sequel to Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, this adapts the videogame of the same name. Dazzling anime action but is take-no-prisoners with explanations about what is happening to non game players
Animated adventure given over to Catwoman that comes with an appealing sense of humour that easily erases all memory of the Halle Berry film
Disney animated film from the fallow period of the 1970s/early 80s. This concerns the friendship between a talking fox and a hound tempered by the knowledge they will grow into enemies. An okay effort if not up the heights of the studio’s classics
Animator Ralph Bakshi collaborates with fantasy illustrator Frank Frazetta to make a fine and underrated sword and sorcery film that comes with a vigour that puts in the best spirit of Robert E. Howard
Anime from Yoshiaki Kawajiri, director of Wicked City and Ninja Scroll, concerning a suburb of Tokyo that is transformed into a borderland zone inhabited by demonic forces
Animated spinoff of the videogame. Your first impression is that animation is not suited for a gore-drenched film. One’s misgivings are silenced by the wildly phantasmagoric range of creatures the film throws at you
The Death of Superman is still is the top-selling comic-book title of all-time after 25 years. This was the first half of a two-part animated adaptation of the storyline, which brings it to life with a fair and reasonable telling
The last hand-drawn animated film from Disney and one of their few flops, but by no means unlikeable. The premise of talking cows setting out on a quest gives this a madcap eccentricity
One of the better animated films produced by Amblin, this is based on the true story of a husky rescue in Alaska, albeit turned into a film where the dogs now talk
Next to Hayao Miyazaki, Michel Ocelot is the greatest animators of all time but one of the least widely recognised. Here he conducts a beautifully made Arabian fairytale
Adult animated film set in a zoo for cryptozoological animals, this has a great premise and eye-poppingly psychedelic visuals
One of the more forgettable Disney animated film of the 1970s/80s lull, this draws heavily on Lady and the Tramp for a talking animals retelling of Oliver Twist
Among the cheap video-released sequels to their classics Disney made during the 00s, this Peter Pan sequel emerges as halfway reasonable
A Blue Sky Studios animated film set around a talking macaw and his journey to the wilds of Brazil for the first time to mate and repopulate the species. Familiar cliched story arcs conducted with a good deal of colour
The second of the animated films spun off around the Pokemon phenomenon and an altogether better film than its predecessor due to some imaginative animation
Ralph Bakshi’s satiric animated depiction of African-American life in 1970s conceived as a parody of Song of the South was greeted with such controversy that it nearly derailed his career
Way back before Peter Jackson, there was another whole era of Tolkien adaptations, including this animated adaptation of the third book, which is a peculiar oddity if nothing else
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
Spinoff of the popular Antonio Banderas voiced character from the Shrek sequels, this is lightweight and amiable but can be quickly forgotten
Pixar release that received uneven box-office and a critical drubbing. Despite being lumbered with a weak premise – talking elements! – it is not entirely unwatchable
Animated adaptation of the one of the biggest Marvel Comics event storylines of the 2000s – the same one also used in Thor Ragnarok. Essentially Spartacus recast with The Incredible Hulk
The original film was a good deal of fun; this sequel feels like it is simply a repeat of the same but slightly different. Still there is a good deal of creativity to the visual puns and living food creatures
Peculiar but very nicely made anime about a group of children who go on a fantastical journey in an abandoned apartment building that is washed away to sea
Amiable if lightweight film where a live-action Macaulay Culkin gets animated and has a series of adventures in a Land of Fiction where he must pass through various classic stories
French animated film about a group of kids with psychic powers going amok. Is okay at what it does but had much of its thunder stolen by the more recent and more spectacular Chronicle
Studio Ghibli’s first ever international co-production. A desert island castaway fantasy, this makes interesting comparison to the recent Robinson Crusoe/The Wild Life, even if both films are poles apart in style. This is dialogueless, spare and contained with a minimalism of plot and drama
The first film from Mamoru Hosoda based on a tv series that was a blatant attempt to copy the Pokemon phenomenon and concerning cute creatures that live on the internet
Film spinoff of an anime series about a future police force that uses a system to monitor the brains of the populace for the potential to commit crime. Reminiscent of Minority Report, this is not uninteresting, although falls short of being another Appleseed or Ghost in the Shell
A venture inside the dreamscape from anime director Satoshi Kon who creates a beautifully animated work even if some of the ideas become excessively convoluted
Early anime from Mamoru Oshii of Ghost in the Shell fame about a police squad set up to deal with giant robots gone amok. All of Oshii’s visuals and fascinating play of ideas are present
Strange, surrealist animation from Spain – the characters are the small, cute talking animals you might encounter in a standard piece of cutsie moppet animation but it exists in a disturbing world that is anything but where characters are plagued by drug addictions, mental illness and police brutality
A one-gag animated film that essentially reverses the plot of E.T, and has a human astronaut stranded on a planet of aliens and adopted by one boy. More likeable than it has a right to be.
This is a film that leaves you in two minds – one that is constantly going wow at the animated artistry and detail before us; the other that is realising that this is yet another formula animated film
I hate the utterly formulaic films of Blue Sky Studios, the ones behind the endless Ice Age sequels. That said, this is one of their more enjoyable – despite a plot that is amazingly busy trying to reintroduce characters from the first film, the screen overflows with colourful exuberance
The first of two OVA sequels to the anime classic Legend of the Overfiend, this lacks the perverse imagery of the original
The previous Barbie animated films had adapted various fairytales but this casts her as a fairy in a magical kingdom – simplistic, but one of the most colourfully animated of Mainframe’s Barbie films
Animated adaptation of the Tintin character that gets the look and details of the characters just right but is ruined by bad dubbing of some of the voice parts and allowing a slapstick element to take over
One of the first of Mainframe’s animated Barbie films, this creates a fairytale where reasonable effort gone into the animation and characters
One of the better video-released Disney sequels churned out during the 90s/00s, this finds some of the innocence of the original even if it never scales the same heights
A real oddity among the Batman animated films – one where the basics of the Batman mythos are translated into Aztec culture at the time of the arrival of the Conquistadors
This animated theatrical remake of the old Astro Boy cartoon series is nicely made, although the film often feels over-simplistic in its scripting and use of cliches
One of several animated films based on the popular comic-book characters Asterix and Obelix made by Dargaud Films
Lightweight Luc Besson directed children’s fantasy with a young boy shrunken down to miniature size to engage in a series of CGI animated adventures among a race of fairy-like people. Several sequels followed
The Teen Titans get their first solo film in the DC Universe Original Animated Movies. A reasonable adventure based on a classic comic title that works with a good story and characterisation, even if some of it has an adult flavour that makes you wonder who the audience is
An animated film about a child who is cruel to ants only to be magically reduced down to their size and then have to become their saviour against an exterminator
Part live-action, part animated adaptation of a classic Victorian children’s story about an urchin who discovers a secret world underwater
The second animated film from Don Bluth made under the aegis of Steven Spielberg’s Amblin. This tells the American immigrant story, albeit casts it with cartoon mice
One of the better animated films from Don Bluth that sets up a likeable arc in the relationship between a redeemable mobster dog who returns from Heaven and a young girl
A spinoff from Pixar’s Cars series (although is not in itself a Pixar film but comes from Disney) that sets out to do the same with anthropomorphic planes. Amiable, even likeable but more a wannabe that seems like it is trying to be than actually hits the cleverness and creative heights of Pixar
Anime involving a superheroic battle for the fate of the world. Dazzling eye candy but too many characters and subplots make things confusing
An animated film revival of The Addams Family. You feel that a PG-rated film sold to family audiences is a bit tame for the Addams’ dark humour, nevertheless this gets much of the kooky silliness.
Sequel to the hit multi-director anthology has a less high-profile line-up of directors, nor hits the astonishingly perverse heights of its predecessor. As always some entries never do much but the film finds its stride in the last few episodes
Another of Mainframe’s interminable Barbie films that soon slip into a sameness. This is at least directed with a visual sweep
Here the less-than-serious Teen Titans Go! conduct an Into the Spider-Verse-type crossover with their serious counterparts from the multiverse
French film that was nominated for the 2011 Best Animated Film at the Oscars. Cute but over-rated, the film is all highly stylised hand-drawn caricature that looks great but never works very hard to engage in terms of its characters
DC Universe Animated film that is adapted from an Elseworlds story that offers up an alternate 1920s version of Batman who is fighting up against H.P. Lovecraft entities
Promisingly ambitious animated SF film that tries to catch some of the trippy qualities of Heavy Metal where the impressive quality of animation is let down by a juvenile story about a rock band in a post-holocaust future
The first of two Brave Little Toaster sequels, this plays more along the lines of a regular animated film formula but has its charms
A real head-scratcher from Pixar that seems to have been pitched as a cross between Braveheart and Disney’s Brother Bear. The usual Pixar humour and polish makes for a mostly amiable film but never lifts the show out of a lame duck premise
DreamWorks animated talking fish film that was dismissed in the shadow of Pixar’s earlier Finding Nemo but is perfectly likeable in its own right
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
Osama Tezuka is a cult figure in anime and manga – what is less well known is that he also made adult animation. This, about a woman’s temptation by The Devil in mediaeval France, is a mind-boggling array of psychedelia and eroticism
Anime film spun off from a popular Japanese tv series. Despite crude animation, this has a colourful vigour and taps the same space opera vein as Star Wars, which came only three months earlier
The Long Halloween Part One was one of the best DC animated films in some time, now comes the concluding chapter, which alas fails to fulfill the promise that the first film showed
The first animated film in 3D, a blatant copy of Star Wars that proves occasionally engaging
An animated version of the Tarzan story shot in the motion capture process. Some of the modernisations might have Edgar Rice Burroughs turning in his grave, nevertheless the animation is excellent and the film works well as a technologically upgraded version of the Disney film
The third of the Stuart Little films, this one animated instead of its live-action predecessors
Illumination Entertainment, the company behind the Despicable Me films, make an animated film based on the popular videogame franchise. The result was the second highest grossing film of the year
An animated film that seems premised on not much more than bringing various obscure DC Comics characters out of mothballs for one giant-sized punch up
Animated adaptation of the classic Batman comic-book story, this places the Batman/Cat Woman relationship centre stage to give her the most substantial workout of any film
Film spinoff of Batman Beyond, an animated tv series set in the future as a youngster inherits a hi-tech Batsuit from an aging Bruce Wayne. The film resurrects The Joker but fails to do anything interesting with the character
Another of the DC Universe Original Animated Films. This is less a Batman film than a Batman Family film, a mixed effort that sidelines Batman for much of the show
Another animated Barbie film, this appropriate the name of the Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytale and makes it now about a fairy who preaches conservation. As these films go, this is one of the better made and comes with quite a degree of colour
The third animated film based on the popular girl’s doll Barbie. This places Barbie into Tchaikovsky’s ballet Swan Lake in an okay telling, if one that suffers from the usual limited animation of Mainframe’s early films
Appealingly nonsensical DreamWorks animated film written by Jerry Seinfeld who also voices a bee who befriends a human woman and then stands up against the exploitation of bees
More of an abstract art short than a film. Dialogueless, almost plotless, this concerns the lone human in a city inhabited by inscrutable beings that amuse themselves by rearranging matter
Sequel to DreamWorks hit animated film, this does little more than repeat its predecessor. The detail and texture is amplified to a work of art, although you cannot help but wonder if the under tens care about this
Aardman Animation abandon Claymation for regular animation in this story of a pet rat thrown out of his comfort zone down into the sewers. Alas, this only serves to make it just another talking animals animated film