The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Feeble and shabbily made kid’s film in which children are transported inside the world of their favourite dinosaur tv show. Featuring some terrible dinosaur effects
A children’s fantasy adventure that never strays beyond the environs of an American high school and comes with the lowbrow slapstick, excruciating comic caricatures and incredibly bad effects
A rather slight film spinoff red-furred Elmo, the popular character from Sesame Street. A film designed for very young children.
This is another one of Robert Rodriguez’s home made children’s films that takes off in a wackily gonzo manner. The results are uneven but often cutely appealing
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
Film version of a popular series of Dutch children’s books. The lonely bespectacled werewolf boy is the most adorable sight, while the film is a sweetly gentle delight, not making a single wrong misstep
Obscure animated children’s movie adaptation of Alice in Wonderland that commits the sin of modernising and Americanizing Alice
A banal David De Coteau directed kid’s film about two teens who find an arsenal of alien equipment and put the suits on to become superheroes
This is a video-released sequel to the Don Bluth animated film with dogs again returning from the afterlife. This is churned out with passable effort
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
This Victorian-set children’s film has not been widely seen and has gained a small cult reputation for many years its ambitious plot involving a ghost story and time travel
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 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
Children manage to incarnate the soul of their late father inside a robot body. A children’s film where the title is the most imaginative thing about the show.
A modest and quite well written children’s film about a gifted twelve year-old (Martha Byrne) who gradually discovers that she is a clone
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
One of several animated films based on the popular comic-book characters Asterix and Obelix made by Dargaud Films
One of the sillier among the animated Asterix films maintained at a high-level of slapstick and with badly dubbed voices that do not suit the characters
An inane French/Canadian-made children’s film about three cute creatures that come to help a boy stop the resurrection of the Tower of Babel on the eve of the millennium
One of the first of Mainframe’s animated Barbie films, this creates a fairytale where reasonable effort gone into the animation and characters
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
The second of the animated Barbie films, this casts her as the title character in the popular Brothers Grimm fairytale, which has been considerably embellished. This suffers the glassy plasticity of the early Mainframe films
Another of the animated Barbie films, this casts her as a desert island castaway accompanied by a retinue of talking animals. Visually colourful but slight
Here the Barbie films turn to Mark Twain’s classic (non-fantasy) tale of rags and riches and spins it as a fairytale This has the same blank, plastic style of the early Barbie films and is otherwise bland
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
Sequel to the earlier Barbie animated film Barbie Fairytopia. Extremely colourful but essentially a fantasy version of a teenage girl high school drama that quickly slips into pre-packaged formula
The first in a long series of animated films based on Mattel’s girl’s doll Barbie. This casts Barbie as a lead in an adaptation of The Nutcracker ballet
Another of Mainframe’s interminable Barbie films that soon slip into a sameness. This is at least directed with a visual sweep
Seventh of the animated Barbie films, spinoff of the earlier Barbie Fairytopia, all delivered in sugary upbeat sentiments amid pastel colour schemes that would look eye-poppingly psychedelic if one were high
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
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
Animator Don Bluth conducts a spinoff from his previous film Anastasia, focusing on the adventures of the talking bat sidekick
A children’s ghost story that is written with uncommon depth and care and directed with reasonable effect
Animated version of the Roald Dahl tale about the friendship between a young girl and a Big Griendly Giant, this is simply made but has an appealing mix of eccentricity and sweet charms
Entirely unrelated to the forgettable 1973 film, this is a children’s film for the Nickelodeon Channel. Merely adequate but no more. Brooke Shields seems to be having the time of her life vamping it up with Bela Lugosi accent
Michael Powell was one of the greatest and most underrated post-War British directors. This was his last film, a bizarre children’s film about a boy being turned yellow and visited by an alien
A very young Dean Stockwell stars in this strange anti-war fable about a boy who wakes up to find his hair has turned green
Third of the Brave Little Toaster films, this takes the talking appliances to Mars and comes with an appealingly zany sense of humour
The first of two Brave Little Toaster sequels, this plays more along the lines of a regular animated film formula but has its charms
The second of the Care Bears films, light, insubstantial and rather sweet as pre-adolescent creatures of indeterminate gender romp around in their cloud kingdom banishing bad feelings
The third of the Care Bears film conducts a crossover with Alice in Wonderland, although it is an adaptation that is liberal in its treatment of Lewis Carroll to say the least
Cheaply made and mind bogglingly bizarre Quebecois film about a Martian who takes two children on a journey around the world at Christmas
An incredibly dreary Christmas film directed by actor Rosanno Brazzi where the South Pole in bought by a miser (played by Brazzi) and Santa ends up being evicted
A one idea film about a device that can stop time. In the directorial hands of Star Trek: The Next Generation actor Jonathan Frakes, this is given a juvenile focus where the device serves no more ends than a series of slapstick pratfalls
An animated film based on a popular series of children’s books about a mischievous monkey. Amiable but a film mostly intended for the pre-school set
British children’s film in which a dog is made giant sized after being fed a growth formula by scientist Spike Milligan. Amiable but nothing great
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 a popular children’s animated tv series Doug about a kid and his observations on life. The film’s story has the title character befriending a local lake monster
One of the better films produced by Charles Band. Despite variable dragon effects, this is a children’s film that captures a genteel sense of innocence
Another of the cheap made-for-video Disney animated sequels that were made during the 1990s/2000s, they tries to get by on association with its predecessor’s name
Entirely charming French animated film from the directors of A Town Called Panic. This is a children’s film that comes with a beautiful simplicity, a duo of winning characters and some side-splitting visual gags
Based on a popular children’s book, this is a simplistic animated film for very young children about a toy mouse that goes on a quest to find freedom
A Peruvian children’s animated film about a device that allows people to enter an author’s imagination. This mostly has children having adventures in a facsimile of Jules Verne
Amiable animated film about a juvenile inventor that only serves to show how more polished Pixar’s films are by comparison
The Asylum offer up their own mockbuster copy of the Jurassic World films, an amiable children’s film where a young boy hatches a dinosaur egg he finds
The most ridiculous work to bear Kong’s name – an animated film with songs where Kong has two buddies who says “dude” and “bro” a lot and Kong fights the lizard people from Atlantis
Czech puppet fantasy about a toy’s journey through a forest filled with a bizarre menagerie of creatures that are both cutely affecting and sinisterly threatening in the Maurice Sendak vein
Likeable but lightweight talking dinosaur film. This aims to be a prehistoric Bambi but never quite finds the depth. A large number of video-released sequels followed
Third of The Land Before Time animated films about talking dinosaurs, made for very young children
The fourth of The Land Before Time animated films about talking dinosaurs, having been made for very young children
The fifth of The Land Before Time animated films about talking dinosaurs, all having been made for very young children
Anime film based on Winsor McCay’s celebrated comic strip about a boy’s adventures in dreams. Despite a script from Ray Bradbury, the film waters the comic-strip down to the formula of the modern children’s film
Animated film based on the popular series of children’s stories about a kid who befriends a vampire boy. The same stories had previously appeared as a live-action fllm
Amiable Danish-made Arabian Nights fantasy for children that has the benefit from being shot on location in Turkey
Beautifully made children’s film that is a refreshing change from most of the formulaic product released in the US mainstream. Comes with a sweet simplicity and an enormous freshness, while the animation is rendered with a considerable beauty that makes it just as much a film for adults
Ill-conceived US version of the popular children’s book character created by Astrid Lindgren. The result feels less a film as it does a kindergarten playground gone entirely out of control
Strange Canadian children’s film about a boy who goes bald and is then given a peanut butter solution that causes wild uncontrolled hair growth
A painfully bad Charles Band production for children about a strange couple that set up a pet shop selling alien creatures
A Disney Channel film, this has the amusing idea of translating The Phantom of the Opera to a modern multiplex and telling it as a children’s story
Australian animation about a boy’s adventure on an island amid pirates, inventors and magic creatures that in its better moments suggests a collision between Peter Pan and Pufnstuf. Unfortunately, the film is made with a budget that must have been well within four figures
The second of the excruciatingly dull Swedish-made Pippi Longstocking live-action films
Third of the Swedish live-action Pippi Longstocking films and more likeable than the others due to capturing some of Astrid Lindgren’s absurdism
First of a series of Swedish-made live-action films based on Astrid Lindgren’s anarchic child heroine
A likeable animated adaptation of Astrid Lindgren’s popular children’s character from the Canadian company Nelvana
Fourth and final of the Swedish live-action films based on Astrid Lindgren’s child heroine Pippi Longstocking
Another of Disney’s Tinker Bell spinoff adventures. This has some slickly produced animation and does some occasionally cute pieces of fanservice that tie in to Peter Pan but is ultimately fantasy being produced for the single digit age groups
In the aftermath of the success of Jurassic Park, Albert and Charles Band quickly responded with this children’s dinosaur film that contains some of the most pitiful effects in any film of this era
The second and worst of Albert and Charles Band’s dinosaur films made for children, this suffers from the most pitiful and immobile effects of any film of the era
The third and probably the best of the children’s dinosaur films from Charles Band where the pitiful effects are at least compensated for by an eccentric sense of humour
Mind-spinning film spinoff of the tv series H.R. Pufnstuf, this plays out like The Wizard of Oz on hallucinogens
A directorial outing from actor Bob Hoskins where a kid travels up a rainbow but his doing up sets nature in a heavy-handed environmentalist message
Slight but colourful animated film for the very young based on the popular series of Hallmark cards and Mattel toys about a magical horse
This is an appealingly strange Charles Band produced children’s film about a kid who discovers a miniature magical kingdom that is located under the kitchen sink
Another of Robert Rodriguez’s children’s films about the wacky chaos caused by the discovery of a magic wishing stone. Nothing earth-shattering but Rodriguez has a lot of fun with the visual absurdities
Robert Rodriguez has a huge amount of fun by recasting James Bond antics with kids. The film was a success that spawned several sequels
The second of Robert Rodriguez’s Spy Kids films is slightly the lesser of its predecessor – it makes the mistake of stripping out the gadgets – but is still fun and has the wacky surrealism Rodriguez gave the first film
The third in the series is no longer even a Spy Kids film but a Virtual Reality videogame film. Robert Rodriguez has some fun creating the virtual worlds but the parody that the other films engaged in is missing
A series that reached its maximum level of cuteness two films ago is dragged out for another pointless entry that nobody was asking for. Robert Rodriguez delivers shabby juvenile slapstick
Robert Rodriguez revisits his juvenile spy capers franchise after a twelve year absence. Not perfect but it improves over the last couple of sequels
Cheaply made video-released sequel to Lilo & Stitch, which is only a rehash but does surprisingly reunite all the voice talents
Theatrical film spinoff from the Thomas the Tank Engine tv series using several imported American actors
This must have been a marketing nightmare for Disney – a film about a kid who operates as a private detective along with his polar bear imaginary companion. The result has an oddball charm
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
Incredibly insipid animated film from Don Bluth about a kind-hearted troll that relocates to Central Park. This feels like a wannabe Disney film that is merely going through the moves.
This may quite possibly be the worst vampire film ever made – a children’s film about a boy and a cute vampire dog. Being a children’s film, the vampire dog is not allowed to drink blood so has to have a ravenous hunger for red jelly! The slapstick is excruciating and the film painful on every level
Robert Rodriguez appears to have gotten the oversized non-event that was Alita: Battle Angel out of his system by making another of his seat of the pants home movies – this is less Spy Kids than Superhero Kids – and brings back one element Alita forgot, a sense of fun
Likeable puppet animated film about a time-travelling boy and his monkey companion