Review – Nimona

I’m a big fan of Noelle Stevenson’s source novel, so I admit I was nervous about how Netflix might adapt it. Turns out they did a good job with it, not completely faithful but close enough to preserve the spirit of the story. The digital animation worked well, too. Worth seeing

Review – Rango

The animation is good, especially for 2011. And normally I’d be a sucker for any story set in a world where small, anthropomorphic animals have made a town for themselves out of trash. But the “dumbass who lucks his way into becoming a hero” is just too hard for me to swallow. The cast includes a ton of familiar voices, including Johnny Depp as the title character, Ned Beatty as the main villain and Timothy Olyphant as a a thinly-veiled Clint Eastwood cameo. It’s also heavily peppered with blink-and-you-miss-it allusions to other movies. In more than one way this is an apt transition between Gore Verbinsky’s collaborations with Depp on the popular Pirates of the Caribbean movies and their disastrous turn in The Lone Ranger. Mildly amusing

Review – Strange World

I can only imagine what Uncle Walt would have thought of Disney making a pro-environment animation featuring an interracial couple and their gay son. They spent a lot of time and money on the animation, but the script is weak and the story consequently confusing. Though the movie is pleasant enough, I’m having trouble imagining it showing up as a ride in any of the theme parks anytime soon. Mildly amusing

Review – Fun and Fancy Free

Emerging from its wartime loss of materials and animators, Disney re-enters the realm of theatrical-release by combining two shorter productions that were originally both supposed to be feature length. The first, “Bongo,” marks one of the rare occasions the studio ever paid royalties to the author of a source story. Alas, Sinclair Lewis’s dumb story about a bear who escapes from a circus rattles on for quite some time without ever supplying enough entertainment to justify its existence. The second half – “Mickey and the Beanstalk” – features a familiar story and stars a trio of familiar characters. Even so, it takes some strange twists (why does the giant have to be a shapeshifter in addition to being huge?). And it gets interrupted frequently by the live-action comedy stylings of Edgar Bergen and his dummies. The result is more nostalgic than it is entertaining. Mildly amusing

Review – Man in Space

This is an episode from the Disneyland TV series from 1955, so I shouldn’t be reviewing it as a stand-alone production. But it’s just such an intriguingly specific moment in the history of the space program, airing two years before Sputnik and six years before Yuri Gagarin. Plus the animated speculation about space travel was made possible in part by good old American know-how supplied by Dr. Wernher von Braun, who appears onscreen and served as a paid consultant. Mildly amusing

Review – Onward

This picture will likely be best remembered for its release date. It hit theaters right as the COVID lock-down began in 2020, forcing the studio to take a big box office hit and move the movie straight to Disney Plus. On its own merits, this is a reasonably entertaining situation comedy/drama about two elf brothers trying to magically resurrect their dead father. Dungeons and Dragons fans will derive endless entertainment from seeking out the dozens of sub-references to the game. Mildly amusing

Review – Strange Magic

Because Barbie Fairytopia would be way better if it got a Rock of Ages treatment with a ton of Boomer-and-Gen-X-era love songs. But then again no. See if desperate

Review – The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad

Two familiar tales get the late-1940s Disney treatment. The opening bit from The Wind in the Willows tells the anthropomorphic animal story of a rich a-hole who loses everything due to his own folly, imperils his friends and learns nothing from the experience. At least it’s narrated by Basil Rathbone. The second half is better, at least when it finally gets around to the part of the story with the Headless Horseman. Both bits relied heavily on physical comedy, making this seem less like a Disney approach to literary adaptation and more like the work being done by the rival Warner Brothers animation studio at the time. Mildly amusing

Review – Encanto

What a beautiful, awful movie. The story is absolutely uncomfortable: a magical family lives in a magical house. They bully the sister who doesn’t have magic powers, and they ostracize the brother whose gift is precognition of bad fortune. Sure, by the end everybody learns to be better people in an oh-so-Disney way. But it’s a long, sad time getting there. On the other hand, the visuals are incredibly complex and colorful. I wish there had been a way to watch the animation without following the plot at all. Mildly amusing

Review – Turning Red

Disney puts a clever twist on the onset of menstruation in a precocious teenager’s life: rather than the typical effects, she starts transforming into a large red panda. The storytelling relies heavily on physical comedy, but along the way it makes some good points about growing up and maintaining connections to one’s heritage. And of course it’s nice to see any American-made media that centers around and remains sympathetic to its female characters. If this manages to increase red panda popularity, that alone would make it worthwhile. Mildly amusing

Review – Hotel Transylvania: Transformania

More cartoon douchebags placing their loved ones in jeopardy thanks to their personal insecurities and basic dishonesty. More loved ones forgiving douchebags for placing them in jeopardy. At least it was short and Adam Sandler free. See if desperate

Review – Peter Rabbit 2

Second verse, highly similar to the first. It’s impossible to watch this sequel without noting how often the jokes depend on the movie making fun of itself for commercially exploiting something charming, artistic and non-commercial. This left me wondering (and not for the first time) if a relentless meta-awareness of badness makes something not bad. That said, the animation is good. Some of the physical comedy is funny. And the parade of celebrity voice work is impressive. Mildly amusing

Review – Luca

Disney once again dives into the realm of merpeople who long to live on land. As with some previous Pixar productions, this movie does a better job of showing off what they can do with digital animation rather than bothering to tell much of a story. Mildly amusing

Review - Scoob!

It takes guts to make a dumb cartoon aimed at 50-year-old audience members.  In keeping with the current trend for packing pictures full of inside jokes, just about everything here is a reference to some element or another of the original Scooby Doo Where Are You? series. Plus they’ve thrown in a bunch of other H-B characters in a fairly transparent attempt to kick-start yet another cinematic universe. There’s a bit of clever business to be found here and there, but for the most part this is a movie designed for a pre-teen mentality yet designed to make sure anyone that age now won’t get many of the jokes. Mildly amusing

Review – Rise of the Guardians

Holiday mascots and other childhood fantasy figures band together to thwart a shadowy villain’s plot to take over the world. The production bets a lot on taking new approaches to familiar characters. The protagonist is Jack Frost, who obviously isn’t quite as popular as Santa Claus. And they got Hugh Jackman to voice an ill-tempered, feral-looking Easter Bunny. Overall this is polished bit of CGI, what you’d expect from The Nightmare Before Christmas re-imagined by Dreamworks Animation. Mildly amusing

Review – Rio

Buried somewhere in here is a message about the evils of the illegal international trade in exotic animals. But it gets largely buried under romcom and prison escape clichés. A rare blue macaw so domesticated he can’t even fly gets sent to Brazil to participate in a breeding program to save his species. When his intended mate would rather return to the wild than procreate, high jinks ensue. Overall this packed about as much entertainment value as its own Angry Birds game app adaptation. Mildly amusing

Review – The Good Dinosaur

This is one of the most beautiful animation showreels I’ve ever seen. The visuals – from the landscapes down to the tiny details – are remarkable feats of CGI. Unfortunately the story and characters are by no means the equal of the images. The classic Disney plot elements – dead parent, hero’s journey, and so on – are all here. They just aren’t used to any particular effect other than loosely stringing together a series of elaborately-constructed scenes. Mildly amusing

Review – The Secret Life of Pets 2

Animated animals face mild levels of peril, round two. See if desperate

Review – Ralph Breaks the Internet

Even the preview openly recognizes that Ralph Wrecks the Internet would have been a better title. But we’ve gotta stick with the trendy language the kids are all using, right? This time around our hero’s video game has become antiquated, lost audience and is in danger of being unplugged and replaced. So Ralph and friends take to the information superhighway to generate some retro buzz. Of course things get out of control, and of course there’s a sappy ending solution to the whole mess. Mildly amusing

Review – Wreck It Ralph

The premise is the star of the show here. Of course Disney did the whole what-if-video-game-characters-were-real-people with Tron decades ago. But the extra wrinkle here is fun: what if the bad guy got tired of being the bad guy? Sadly, after the question gets asked, the answer is mostly formulaic silliness. Mildly amusing