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.
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
Sequel to the animated The Super Mario Bros. Movie, which was the second highest grossing film of 2023. From the people behind the Despicable Me films, this exists as little more than eye candy for five-year-olds
Mamoru Hosoda conducts the bizarre notion of an anime version of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. It is a Hamlet that Shakespeare would barely recognise, following a heroine as she makes a journey across the afterlife
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
Actor Andy Serkis directs an adaptation of George Orwell’s satiric talking animals fable. However, the decision to update the story comes unstuck in spectacularly awful ways
A sequel to Batman Ninja, which offered an anime treatment of Batman. This gives us a bizarre alternate Yakuza-ruled Japan with versions of the Justice League working for them
The Predator series continues. Dan Trachtenberg, the director of Prey, makes an animated offering that tells three stories of encounters between human and Predator in different eras of history
Zootopia was one of Disney’s freshest animated works in a decade largely marked only by mediocrity. This is a sequel where the fantastically original world of the first film slips into being just another Disney IP
An animated revival of The Smurfs. This was greeted with a very negative reception. With a massive celebrity voice line-up packed into almost any corner of the film the casting director can manage
An animated film from Genndy Tartakovsky, director of the Hotel Transylvania films, that is a really quite filthy and hilarious story of a dog about to have its testicles removed who goes on one last adventure
More from the world’s cuddliest super-villain and those manic ritalin-deprived kids that are the Minions. Is there are life and creativity left in a franchise that has been milked for six films now?
A delightful animated film from Latvia made entirely without dialogue, following a group of animals fleeing as their territory is flooded. The winner for my top film of 2024.
The second part of DC Universe Animated Original Movies’ adaptation of Alan Moore’s classic graphic novel, the most faithful screen adaptation yet
An animated adaptation of Alan Moore’s classic, genre defining comic-book, this is the most faithful treatment to date
Disney make a sequel to Moana, their venture into Pacific Island mythology
A very nicely animated French Steampunk film about an expedition aboard a steam airship to explore the secret entrance to an underground world in the Antarctic. A computer animated film all made by one person.
A spinoff prequel to the Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films that takes the option that several other film/videogame franchises have of Going Anime
Inside Out, set around the personified emotions in a girl’s head, was one of the breaths of fresh air among Pixar’s slip into terminal sequelitis during the 2010s. Now it gets its own sequel
A winning animated film about a robot trying to find its way among the animals on an island. Tender and heart-warming, the sort of film that Pixar used to do so well
The second part of the epic three film animated adaptation of the classic DC Comics title Crisis on Infinite Earths concerning a battle across the DC multiverse
The fourth entry in DreamWorks popular animated series, which by now is just another entry in the series that is coasting by on recognition factor, while offering minimal difference
The third and final part of the adaptation of DC Comics’ classic title Crisis on Infinite Earths featuring an epic battle to prevent the destruction of the multiverse
An animated film adaptation of Crisis on Infinite Earths, one of the classic DC Comics titles of all time. With superhero films now obsessed with multiverses, this seems the perfect time to bring it to the screen
Since Michael Bay retired from the series, The Transformers films have been looking for new directions. This ventures into animation to tell a Transformers origin story
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
Another of the DC Original Animated Movies. This deals with both the Legion of Super-Heroes and Supergirl, bringing them together in a mutual adventure
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
Another of the animated DC Comics films in which various of their regular characters find themselves incarnated in simulated combat arenas
Anime that is a variant on Groundhog Day about a town that becomes caught in a time pocket following an industrial accident with the residents forced to live in the same day
A French animated film, SF noir set on a future Mars with detectives fighting against someone who is jailbreaking robots. This deploys a strong and confident use of Cyberpunk tropes
A real head-scratching oddity, a Batman animated Christmas film
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
The animated Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse proved an unexpected success. This sequel builds on that ups the artistic quality of the original to something quite extraordinary
The twelfth film from Hayao Miyzaki at age 82, a quasi-autobiographical if a slightly less classic work. A renaissance of many Miyazaki themes as a boy follows a heron though into a strange fantasy otherworld
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
An utterly charming film, all told without dialogue, about a dog living in 1980s New York who purchases a robot as its new best friend
Minus Adam Sandler this time, the Hotel Transylvania series trots out a fourth entry. Here, in some search for novelty on what has gone before, the monsters are turned back into humans
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are resurrected in a new animated film that feels like a watered-down fix designed for Ritalin-deprived youth
Beautifully made anime from Makoto Shinkai about a young girl and a three-legged chair on a quest to close a series of portals across Japan and prevent unimaginable chaos emerging
Green Lantern is a classic comic-book character but his screen presence were damaged by the Ryan Reynolds film. This conducts a severe reset of the character’s continuity
Disney’s 61st animated film. A lost world adventure that emerges as Fantastic Voyage by way of Avatar
Animated adventure given over to Catwoman that comes with an appealing sense of humour that easily erases all memory of the Halle Berry film
Disgraced former Pixar head John Lasseter makes a returns to animation for Skydance in an incredibly lightweight effort about adventures in the land of luck
The third of the Mortal Kombat animated films. This abandons inter-dimensional kombat and takes place in a post-apocalyptic world, focused around the blind swordsman Kenshi
Superheroes have overrun screens. It is starting to seem a little too much when we now get an animated film about animal superheroes who form their own Justice League
Animated film featuring a team-up between the sons of Batman and Superman, which ends up being far more fun than you expect
Anime in which Tokyo is covered by a mysterious energy bubble of alien origin and of a group of defiant youths who live on in its midst until the appearance of a mystery girl
This was the 25th Pixar film and becomes in effect a Pixar-ised version of The Incredible Hulk about a young girl who transforms into a red panda whenever she gets upset
A spinoff from Pixar’s Toy Story films that gives Buzz Lightyear a film all of his own. A likeable if fairly routine space adventure but aargh the rewrites to series continuity
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
Multiverse films are all the in-thing in superhero films right now. This anime is a treatment of multiverse themes far away from superheroics that works beautifully in its sophistication of ideas
Richard Linklater makes a charming animated film about a kid selected for a secret Moon Landing. Most of all a film with a lovely nostalgia for growing up in the era of the Moon mission
The cutely nonsensical Minions have become a pop culture phenomenon. Here we get more of them, although this is more as a Gru origin story
An oddity among the animated Batman films. This seems less another Batman film – Bruce Wayne gets more screen time than Batman, for instance – than it does a homage to the 1970s martial arts film
The Justice Society of American was the first comic-book superhero team, bringing together all the heroes at DC Comics of the day. This is an animated film devoted to them
A beautiful anime from Momoru Hosoda that retells Beauty and the Beast and spins it in SF terms as tale about a girl who finds fame as a singer in Virtual Reality
One of the best Disney animated films in some time. Set around a Colombian American family that have hereditary magic powers and live in a magical house, this comes with an enormous degree of colour and energy
Animated film about a talking and singing monkey from Cuba that travels to the US on a quest
An alternate world take on DC Comics continuity where Superman snaps and creates a totalitarian police state and the other DC superheroes come together to stop him
The first in a two-part adaptation of a classic Batman story, this shows great promise that lifts the DC Universe Original Animated Movies out of the comfortable middle ground they have been drifting through the last few years
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
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
Beautifully affecting animated film from Ari Folman in which the imaginary companion in Anne Frank’s diary comes to life in the present day
The 59th animated film from Disney emerges as a modest effort with a cross-Asian cultural focus that eventually builds a strong character arc
This was the fourth film in the Neon Genesis Evangelion reboot film series and concludes the saga. Rather than offering any answers or solution to the cryptic world we are in, this opts for a major letdown of a wrap-up
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
Sing had the cute idea of American Idol-like competition conducted with talking animals. This equally likeable sequel expands the scale of things and takes the show to the talking animal equivalent of Las Vegas
The animated revival of the Addams Family was a mixed affair. All of the same creative personnel and voice talents return here for a sequel, which takes the Addams Family on a road trip
Adult animated film set in a zoo for cryptozoological animals, this has a great premise and eye-poppingly psychedelic visuals
Surprisingly good animated sword and sorcery film, made with a darker edge and definitely not for children
A remake of the original zombie film Night of the Living Dead conducted in animation
The second of the Mortal Kombat animated films, this continues into another tournament, introducing a bewildering array of characters from the games amid a high degree of violence and bloodshed
An animated film revival of the Mortal Kombat videogame franchise. This does a quite reasonable reworking of the basics, while leaving you blown away with the ultra-violent excesses of the action
A clone of Donald Trump battles The Illuminati and the Egyptian god Anubis on Mars before travelling to Hell to sort out The Devil. The sheer dementia of the premise alone has one sitting down to watch
A sweet and quite lovely anime where a girl befriends the boy she pines after being offered a mask that transforms her into a cat body – only to then have her own body stolen
Charming anime from Hayao Miyazaki’s son Goro about a young girl adopted into a witch’s strange household. The occasion where Studio Ghibli made the switch over to computer animation
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
An animated film revival of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? This also makes an misguided attempt to build a shared universe among assorted Hanna-Barbera characters
A very different take on the Superman story that asks What if Superman had grown up in the Soviet Union rather than in the US and become a paragon of Communist virtue
Fine animated film that traces Superman’s early years – Superman: Year One if you like – as we see pieces of the mythos coming together
South Korean-made anime that takes a dive into horror grotesquerie in the story of a beauty product that offers to reshape flesh and a girl who becomes obsessed with it
Pixar film with a head-scratchingly odd plot but also one of the better efforts of the divided post-2010 period that goes a long way towards recapturing the things they did so well in their heyday
The third film from Irish animator Tomm Moore, a beautiful Princess Mononoke-like tale of a girl’s friendship with persecuted werewolves in the forest
The DC Comics animated version of an Avengers film where they put every superhero under their roof on screen at once, including Justice League Dark, the regular Justice League, Suicide Squad and Teen Titans
From the director of Trump vs the Illuminati, gonzo animation where Bigfoot and several resurrected historical figures fight off invading aliens that include Stalin, Aleister Crowley and Anubis
The 22nd animated film from Pixar and also the least successful (being released only a week before theatrical chains closing down due to Coronavirus). This has an appealingly quirky and original concept not unakin to Bright that takes place in an alternate reality where magic creatures live in a world akin to our own
Animated film that is gore-drenched and certainly not for children. Imagine The Belko Experiment conceived as a videogame where the heroine has to survive an office of people trying to kill her while aliens bet on the outcome
Illumination’s The Secret Life of Pets came with a winning concept – a Garfield like series of wry observations on humanity by pets – and this is one amongst the current plague of animated sequels that emerges equally likably
Animated film in which a girl befriends a Yeti. Essentially a rewrite of E.T. that never much rises out of banal formula. On the other hand, I do have an issue with a children’s film pushing blatant political propaganda
A DC Universe Original Animated Movie that introduces the Legion of Superheroes, their nemeses The Fatal Five and an assortment of new Justice League members to widen diversity
The second of the DC Universe Animated Original Movies made as a standalone entry for Wonder Woman, clearly building on the success of the Gal Gadot film
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.
Pixar sequelise their very first film for a third time but the surprise is a film that creates a range of eccentric characters and finds the wit and warmth that has been missing through their last few films
Frozen was the most successful animated film of all time. It also felt the most formulaic and least inspired Disney film of the 2000s. As part of Disney’s new business policy of recycling everything, this is a sequel.
Here the less-than-serious Teen Titans Go! conduct an Into the Spider-Verse-type crossover with their serious counterparts from the multiverse
One of the most beautifully made formula animated films of recent vintage but at the end of the day no more than a film that is by the numbers where the artistry is unsupported by the banal script
An animated crossover where you cannot help but think that the two styles of either – a grim loner who lives in a dark milieu vs a team of manic teenagers spouting surfer speak – are only going to end up clashing
A surprisingly good animated film about the relationship between a caveman and a dinosaur, all without a line of dialogue. From the director of the Hotel Transylvania films
Second half of the two-part animated adaptation of The Death of Superman, which depicts the aftermath where Metropolis is puzzled over the appearance of four impostors all claiming to be the real Superman
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