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.
A visually striking compilation of five animated French horror tales. Each varies widely in style but the result is far more extraordinary than many live-action counterparts
Film spinoff from the long-running animated tv series. The familiar gags are there but show feels awkward extruded out to a full-length plot. You keep feeling the film should have been more than it is.
This came out several months after Happy Feet and has a similar plot involving surfing penguins. Though the lesser film and far more predictable, it is likeable
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
A condensed animated adaptation of the top-selling DC comic-book of all time The Death of Superman that comes with some massively exciting animated action set-pieces
Another cheap Disney made-for-video-release sequel. This at least offers the novelty of an alternate retelling of Cinderella but everything transpires predictably
The eighth film from Pixar and Brad Bird’s follow-up to the hit of The Incredibles. Telling the story of a rat that becomes a gourmet chef, this is slightly the lesser among the high standard that Pixar have set nevertheless still immensely enjoyable
Film spinoff of the cult animated tv show. This feels like a film overtaken by the effort of trying to be surrealistic, wacky, scatological etc more than it is ever a film that creates gag that are funny
Very nicely made French animated film based around the daughter of the pharaoh Akhenaton
Animated film spun off from the Garfield comic-strips in which Garfield emerges out into the real world. A cute premise that the film fails to develop
The Highlander series conducts an anime variant on the franchise set in a post-apocalyptic future. Co-directed by Yoshiaki Kawajiri of Ninja Scroll fame who adds some highly stylised moves
One of the handful of animated Marvel Comics films. This confusingly presents a different origin story to the live-action Iorn Man film, while the major villain of The Mandarin is completely mishandled
An anthology of short anime pieces from five different directors. Episodes range from traditional anime and Cyberpunk to mind-expanding surrealism
This attempted to do something different to the usual formula US kiddie animation film and creates its own fantasy world. Unfortunately, while the ambition is admirable, the film flopped badly
Whose bright idea was it to give us kid versions of The Avengers (ostensibly their children)? While Marvel have had an unparallelled string of hits on the big screen in the 00s, their attempts to replicate the successes that rival DC have had in animation have been a dismal failure
Animated Justice League film, which adapts a comic-book storyline that reconceived the various DC superheroes as they were back in the era of their original creation
A low expectation Disney animated film that proves an entirely charming winner centred around a dog tv star who believes it is a superhero. In essence, this is a talking animals variant on the Don Quixote story
One among the series of cheap video-released sequels to their classic animated films made during the 1990s/2000s, this is a prequel that offers up a Little Mermaid origin story
A reasonable sequel to DreamWorks’ Madagascar that this time actually takes the characters to Africa where it determines to give each of them their own story
A near-dialogueless story of a lonely robot clearing up junk in the aftermath of civilisation. This is surely Pixar’s most endearing film to date where they are operating at the peak of their creativity
Another of Mainframe’s interminable Barbie films that soon slip into a sameness. This is at least directed with a visual sweep
Really odd, even at times touching, Japanese film about a man’s thwarted attempts to have sex with his android maid
From Mamoru Oshii of Ghost in the Shell fame, an anime that seems a mix of Biggles and Never Let Me Go, all taking place in an alternate world. The film is exquisite in its detail
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
Taking a leaf from The Wachowskis with The Animatrix, DC went to Japan and hired a bunch of anime directors to deliver an anthology of six different animated Batman stories
The first in a series of anime films that were produced by Capcom, the creators of the Resident Evil videogames, and intended to run parallel to the live-action films. I was never a big fan of the live-action films. The question is – does Resident Evil work better in the anime format?
Appealingly old-fashioned film about chivalry and heroism, much quieter than the other animation out there but this still holds its own
Animated adaptation of the Dr Seuss book is an amiable effort that captures a certain zaniness but ultimately seems to be forcing Seuss’s slim original to inhabit the formula of the modern animated film
Theatrical spinoff from the Star Wars prequels, released to introduce the popular animated series. This shows it is time for George Lucas to move beyond recycling something that was successful three decades ago
Animated adaption of the comic-book about a Native American warrior stranded in a prehistoric lost world
Probably the least great of Hayao Miyazaki’s films. The plot feels recycled from The Little Mermaid while Miyazaki’s recurrent themes seem more perfunctory and the film lacks many of the beautiful contrasts of epic and fragile he specialises in
Massively successful animated film for DreamWorks, a comic riff on the martial arts training film that proves amiable and crowd-pleasing without ever being riotously funny
Another of Bill Pympton’s unique animated films, all stylised artwork and surreal juxtapositions. This is a dialogueless film about a mean-spirited man who suddenly gains a set of angel wings
An animated film about NASA experimental chimpanzees. Not quite up there with Pixar but an amiable and unpretentious and amiable outing
One of the first of Mainframe’s animated Barbie films, this creates a fairytale where reasonable effort gone into the animation and characters
The first in a series of Disney video-released films based around the Peter Pan fairy who is now reconceived as a contemporary Can Do girl
Robert Zemeckis’s motion-capture animated adaptation of the Charles Dickens classic. The tale has gone through so many adaptations, it fee;s an uphill battle to find anything new in the story no matter the technical quality of the film
The DC Universe Original Animated Movies conduct a solid and worthwhile animated retelling of the Green Lantern origin story, which delves into all the aspects of the mythos
Phil Lord and Chris Miller, later directors of The Lego Movie, create an animated film that is a delight with its nonsensical visions of a town inundated by weather phenomena made of food
Alexandre Dumas’s classic adventure story is turned into an animated vehicle for Barbie with genders reversed and an absurdly upbeat Girls Can Do Anything vibe. Being a kid’s film, the girl Musketeers are no longer allowed to wield swords
Beautifully made animated film that won surprise recognition at the Academy Awards. More a festival film than necessarily a box-office one
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 film directed by Rob Zombie that feels like an episode of Ren & Stimpy made by someone with an unhealthy obsession with horror and exploitation movies and stripper bars
Animated film set in a dystopian near-future Europe of constant surveillance where even people’s heads are monitored
An animated Marvel Comics adaptation that is actually two separate stories involving The Incredible Hulk, who battles respectively Wolverine and Thor
One of the finest works from Pixar, the story about an old man and a boy on an adventure in a film that develops some incredibly nuanced and heart-warming emotional depths
Cutley appealing DreamWorks animated film that brings together a bunch of oddball creatures clearly intended as an affectionate homage to various 1950s sf films
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.
Another of Blue Sky Studios’ interminable animated sequels to its likeable original about prehistoric talking animals. This has little substance beyond a kinetic rush from one gag to the next
A unique homage to Night of the Living Dead wherein the original has been recreated with a bewildering range of artwork and short pieces of animation from dozens of different artists, even scenes conducted by sock puppets and animated Barbie dolls
Beautifully made Mamoru Hosoda film about a rogue A.I. taking over a social media network. A film that is also a heartwarming work about family togetherness
Exquisitely lovely anime set in a world of creatures that live on scavenged human junk. If in the end, the heroine’s allegorical quest is on the generic side, the film captivates you with the richness of colour and detail that has gone into imagining its world
The second of the Neon Genesis Evangelion reboot films, this gets the essentials right and delivers some stunningly epic anime action scenes
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
Fine animated version of the DC Comics superheroine that gets the character just right and tells the story in a way that eclipses all previous filmed versions
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
Extraordinary animated film from Shane Acker concerning the lives of a series of stitchpunk dolls as they try to make sense of the world in the aftermath of civilisation
This was the second of Luc Besson’s Minimoys films, partly animated children’s films set in a world of miniature creatures. Here the charms of the first film seem thinly stretched
One of the more enjoyable Disney animated films from the latter half of the 00s. Featuring Disney’s first Black heroine, this embraces its New Orleans setting and turns Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytale on its head with enjoyable results
Anime that has clearly been modelled along the lines of Neon Genesis Evangelion Initially, the animation is conducted with a dazzlingly realistic textured look but once the giant robot action scenes take over, these seem increasingly absurd in their anthropomorphism
After such high standards with the previous two films, there is considerable onus on Pixar when it comes to this third entry nevertheless they manage to wring some strong and effective new twists on the familiar
A contender in the animation stakes that never rises above formula and cutsie slapstick. Against its many competitors, it offers up only B-budget animation
Fascinating anime about a cafe for androids. Imagine a cross between an Isaac Asimov Robot story and Jim Jarmusch’s Coffee and Cigarettes. The film opens up in a series of episodes that tell stories of human-robot relations that hold a lovely tenderness
Second of the Bruce Timm animated films based on DC’s Justice League, this has been construed as a Mirror Universe take that pits the Justice League up against villainous versions of themselves
Zack Snyder makes an exquisite motion-capture animated film for adults about talking owls. This has a story that comes with a sweeping mythic arc
Disney fairytale Lite. The story of Rapunzel gets hiply modernised and is now no more than a cute adventure/romance about a handsome rogue and a girl who has magical hair. Eminently forgettable Disney animation.
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
DreamWorks animated film about a super-villain that might have worked better had its thunder not been stolen by the far superior Despicable Me a few months earlier
An animated effort about a mad scientist and three orphans. One entered this with zero expectation only for it to unexpectedly emerge as a side-splitting and completely charming pleasure
The fourth of the Shrek films. By this point, the freshness and originality of the first film has been buried under animated film formula, while the plot is a tired rehash of It’s a Wonderful Life
A compilation of shorts from anime directors set in the Halo videogame universe. The first two episodes have a breathtaking scale but the others are bitsy stories but nothing standout
Extraordinary anime where the members of an after school club secretly harbour great powers. From there, this expands out with reality-bending scope
One of the best of the animated Batman films, telling the story of the overlooked Robin Jason Todd and his resurrection as the villain Red Hood, a film that has an adult tone and comes with immensely exciting action scenes
Studio Ghibli tackle Mary Norton’s classic books about a miniature family that live inside the walls of a house. Norton’s essential Englishness translates surprisingly well to anime and the results are quite magical
Luc Besson has made some phenomenal action films but I just can’t seem to get into his trilogy of children’s films. This was the third. A silly effort written down to a very juvenile level and padded with inane humour
Animated film based on the popular fantasy wargame. The set-up is a fascinating mix of SF and mediaeval religion but the plot rehashes Aliens without much payoff and the animation is B-budget
One of the best of the DC Universe Original Animated Movies under the greatly underrated Lauren Montgomery. This serves to introduce Supergirl and Jack Kirby’s Fourth World
Czech Claymation animator Jan Svankmajer embraces the Terry Gilliam cutout animation process in this wackily playful mix of dream and surrealism that emerges similar to The Science of Sleep
Gore Verbinski makes an eccentrically different animated homage to the Western, all cast with talking animals. The animation comes from Industrial Light and Magic and is quite unlike any other animated film.
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
Spinoff of the popular Antonio Banderas voiced character from the Shrek sequels, this is lightweight and amiable but can be quickly forgotten
A charming French-made animated film about a genteel singing monster. Nothing profound but this is beautifully animated and sweetly appealing in all the right places
Animated adaptation of the classic Frank Miller graphic novel, this is dark, psychologically brooding, far more adult than the children’s niche it is sold to, and with producer Bruce Timm and his team at the top of their game
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
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
Sequel to Pixar’s Cars. While the original was a cutely appealing concept with a gentle contemplative message, this plays as more of an out-and-out spy caper making a virtue of its international locations
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
George Miller had a charming and delightful hit with his dancing penguin film Happy Feet. He returns to make a sequel here that merely tries to repeat the same
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
Animated film that tells different stories of various members of the Green Lantern Corps (including two stories from Alan Moore). Another of the worthwhile animated DC adaptations
Though Marvel Comics have had massive success with their big screen adaptations in the 00s, they have been far less successful with their attempts to spin off animated films. An okay but unexceptional animated prequel released at the same time as the first Thor live-action film
Anime about the oddball friendship between a teenage girl and three goblins. Reminiscent of My Neighbor Totoro, it is a film about a girl’s feelings for her parents that eventually becomes greatly affecting
A wholly unnecessary sequel to Hoodwinked!, this again runs the fairytale characters over with modern quips and pop culture references
An animated collaboration between Aardman and Sony Pictures Anomation. This has a good deal of eccentric charm that overcomes one’s dislike of the cloying sentiment of most Christmas films
On the slight side as a Disney theatrical film, nevertheless this keeps to the essence of the original tales and comes with some appealingly playful fourth-wall breaking visuals
Makoto Shinkai conducts a flawless capturing of Hiyao Miyazaki’s style – the clean simplicity of the animation, reverence for nature, the tender intimacy of the characters – in this beautifully animated work about the discovery of an underground realm
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
Surely the most outlandish film premise ever slung together for an animated film – a version of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet conducted between talking garden gnomes in rival backyards
Motion-capture animated version of a popular children’s book. The title suggests a 1950s B movie and the subtext doesn’t bear close examination but the results are engagingly put together
Film spinoff from the popular anime tv series that seems caught between a film and a tv episode. While the film reaches for epic scale, the usual run of power blasts, there is nothing that we haven’t seen before