Worst to Best Animated Films of 2016 Part 3

(If you like what you see, you can go to camseyeview.biz to see more of my work on video game reviews, editorials, lists, Kickstarters, developer interviews, and review/talk about animated films. If you would like, consider contributing to my Patreon at patreon.com. It would help support my work, and keeps the website up. Thanks for checking out my work, and I hope you like this editorial!)

Welcome back, everyone, to part 3 of this very long list. As usual, if you haven’t seen part 2, here is a link to it. I’m counting down the worst-to-the-best animated films that I saw from 2016, and we shall now move onto the films that are really good, and I would start highly recommending them as not just rentals, but purchases. These are the films that you should have in your movie collection.

18. Batman: The Return of the Caped Crusaders

I think it’s safe to say that The Return of the Caped Crusaders was the most universally loved of the films DC put out in 2016. While yes, it did go off of nostalgia of the Adam West TV series, it still was able to hold its own with very clever writing and commentary about how Batman has been portrayed in recent history. The jokes are hilarious, and the cast of actors are all pretty good. The film does start to lose steam in the final act, and sometimes the actors deliver some clunky lines, but don’t let that get in the way of you from checking out the best DC film from 2016.

17. Mune: Guardian of the Moon

I consider this to be the The Book of Life of 2016. Mune: Guardian of the Moon has a really great CGI visual style, a cool world, and it does that thing I like about foreign animated films, and dips into both CGI and 2D animation. I love the idea about how everything is a cooperative effort, and one side can’t do everything without having some setbacks. I also think it does the foreign CGI animation the best alongside The Painting, since it looks great with a truly unique visual style. It’s a shame though, that it suffers from the same problems that The Book of Life suffers from in that the lead characters aren’t that interesting and the token female is very bland. The world also need a tiny bit more fleshing out, since the beginning of the film sort of rushes you into it. They also could have taken out some characters, and they would not be missed. Still, I overlooked those flaws, because I had a blast watching a film that also gave off a bad first impression. Once GKids releases this film in August, I would definitely recommend watching it.

16. 25 April

If you wanted something to compliment your copy of Hacksaw Ridge, then this is the film for you. 25 April tackles a real-life battle from World War 1 known as the Gallipoli Campaign. Like a lot of foreign animated CGI films, they use motion-capture, but pair it up with a rather colorful and vibrant comic book-style art to the characters. However, you shouldn’t think this is going to be nothing but rainbows and cupcakes that spew kittens. Why? Because the battle they show is brutal, violent, but since it’s animation, it also brings in some very pretty and creative visuals. I was really hooked on the characters, and learning a bit about the history of the battle since I’m not fully familiar with what went on during the first World War. However, the motion-capture movements can come off as wonky, and there are a few odd decisions in the story that did take me out of the viewing experience. I haven’t seen an official US release announcement of the film yet, but I hope to hear about it soon, so hopefully, everyone else can check out a rather unique film.

15. Your Name

When I was making this list, and everyone was saying this was the best film of 2016 along with the best animated film of 2016, I knew I was going to upset everyone when I put Your Name so “low” on the list. I still very much enjoyed the movie. The animation was gorgeous, the scenery was beautiful, I enjoyed the chemistry between the two leads, and I think the overall idea and experience is one everyone should check out. Unfortunately, I found the story to fall apart by the second half. They also needed to explain some elements better, like the body-swapping, and what exactly is going on in the second half after the big twist. I was still invested by the end, and I still enjoy this movie, but personally, this film was overhyped. It’s flawed, but I still liked it, and people should indeed go support it.

14. Phantom Boy

You mean the duo of directors behind A Cat in Paris made a new movie? Of course, I’m going to watch it and buy it. This tale about a sick boy who can leave his body, and gets wrapped up in a crime thriller is one of the more fun animated films of 2016. The kid is great, the police officer is great, and Vincent D’Onofrio is just perfectly hammy as the villain. It has the same charming chemistry and alluring atmosphere that kept me invested all the way through A Cat in Paris. It does have some issues, like I think they could have gone deeper and more complex with the lead’s ability to leave his body, and the ending is sort of confusing, but I still had a fun time with this creative crime thriller.

13. Kung Fu Panda 3

Be prepared everyone, this is the last good DreamWorks film we are going to get for a while. Seriously though, all joking aside, I really did like the third film with its emphasis on the father-to-son relationship, and the father-to-stepfather relationship. It was really the heart of the movie on top of the great humor, fun action, and gorgeous animation. There is a reason why this is one of DreamWorks best franchises. Unfortunately, it fell a tad flat, due to a weak if enjoyable villain, and it had a few too many familiar story elements from the previous films. I still love this movie, but it’s one of those films that got hit by the sequel-itis bug, and couldn’t fully escape it. Even then, I really loved this film and it showed you can have good movies in January.

12. Finding Dory

I know this was also a very popular movie, since it was one of the most financially profitable films of 2016, but like Kung Fu Panda 3, Finding Dory did fall into a tiny bit of sequel-itis that holds it back from me fully enjoying it. Sure, it’s just the first 20 minutes, but still. I also just love Finding Nemo so much, and no matter how good this film was going to be, it was never going to top the original. However, even with all that said, Finding Dory is still really good. I love Dory’s story arc, and how the themes are aimed more at adults than the children, the animation is downright amazing, the colors are vibrant, the voice cast is perfect, and the characters are very memorable. It’s a movie that touches the heart and soul, even if it wasn’t my favorite film of the year.

11. The Red Turtle

While it is a bummer that this film didn’t make more money, since it’s one of the most unique films of the year, it’s understandable, since for some reason or another, people don’t really know how to react to films with minimal or no dialogue. It means that with no witty or creative dialogue to rely on for the overall experience, the film’s animation and story has to be tight. For the most part, The Red Turtle does succeed in completing such a task. It’s a beautiful and emotional meditation on life, and how one goes through the hardships and challenges that life can put in front of you. I think the story could have been a bit tighter, and some elements could have been explained better. I also don’t see myself watching this Oscar-nominated film a lot, but I still really think people should support it.

Stay tuned for the final part of the list coming out in the future.

The Other Side of Animation 71: Phantom Boy Review

(If you like what you see, you can go to camseyeview.biz to see more of my work on video game reviews, editorials, lists, Kickstarters, developer interviews, and review/talk about animated films. If you would like, consider contributing to my Patreon at patreon.com. It would help support my work, and keeps the website up. Thanks for checking out my work, and I hope you like this review!)

Well, since January is pretty much a month in which you stay the heck out of theaters, I decided to use this month to catch up on movies I didn’t get to review last year, and review them for this year. Let’s begin! A while back, I mentioned that the directors of A Cat in Paris were making a new movie called Phantom Boy. The Academy Award nominated directors, Jean-Loup Felicioli and Alain Gagnol pretty much stepped up their game with their feature-length action crime thriller. Phantom Boy was released in the states in 2016 by our buddies at GKids, and brought in a solid cast that included Fred Armisen, Vincent D’Onofrio, Jared Padalecki, Marcus D’Angelo, Melissa Disney, and Dana Snyder. It’s definitely a bit more ambitious than the directors’ previous film, but does it mean it’s better? Well, let’s just say that it’s in my top 20 of the year for a reason.

The story revolves around this young boy in New York named Leo, voiced by Marcus D’Angelo. He is currently going through type of treatment, and while doing so, gained the ability to leave his body, and fly around like a phantom. Leo will need to use this ability of his, because while this is going on, a terrorist known as The Face, voiced by Vincent D’Onofrio, is threatening to shut down the entire city and cause chaos. Leo must team up with a young police officer named Alex Tanner voiced by Supernatural star, Jared Padalecki, and stop The Face from taking over the city.

Like it’s sibling from earlier in 2016, April and the Extraordinary World, Phantom Boy can be summed up with a few words. Those words are “charming, funny, and entertaining”. It’s a film that is easy to get into, since it has a bit of everything. Its premise is interesting, the chemistry between the characters is great, the action is fun, and it can be quite a thrilling ride to watch the clock go down, and observe the two leads deal with The Face as they try to stop his plan. The vibe and mood you get with this film is like a really entertaining 80s family film. It’s dark and atmospheric like in the same vein of a crime thriller, but it has its well-written light-hearted moments. It’s creative, but not hard to grasp in how it works. It’s a movie that doesn’t drag its heels, but it also gives time for the characters to breathe, and have some of the events that are going on, sink in with them.

The animation is great. It’s essentially the same art style used in A Cat in Paris, and it’s once again beautiful. The scenes where Leo is flying around are whimsical, and a joy to watch. While it might not have inventive scenes like the blackout scene from A Cat in Paris, it trades that in for probably some of the best villain chemistry in any animated film. The Face is a great comedic villain, and his comradery with his two goons and everyone else is one of the best highlights of the film. They even throw in this funny long-running gag where The Face tries to tell his dramatic backstory, and you never get to hear it. It’s like reading a Buzzfeed title, but not getting the actual article. The film even brings back an Easter egg from the director’s previous film, and gives that little fuzzball a lot of screen time.

If I had to complain about one major problem I have with the film, it’s that it’s once again a rather simple story. On one hand, it should be kept simple, since you don’t want to overcomplicate the setting and make the rules of Leo’s powers super-confusing. On the other hand, I feel like there could have been more done with the powers, like what else could he do, or how did he specifically get the powers? It really seems like there was meant to be more deep themes about Leo leaving his sick body to get away from it, but they didn’t know how to expand on it. I also got confused by the ending. I won’t spoil what happens, but I never understood what exactly happened. It’s hard to explain without spoiling, but I don’t feel like telling you all how it ends. You will have to find a copy of the film and rent it for yourself.

Still, despite the flaws, I really liked Phantom Boy. It’s creative, and still has a lot of the charm from the director’s previous film. It’s another high quality GKids release that I think everyone should own. It’s a good example of an animated gem that you can find if you choose to follow the indie or smaller animation releases and not just the big releases. Well, we got the good movie out of the way, how about we go into one of the biggest hit animated films from last year with The Secret Life of Pets? Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed the review, and I will see you all next time!

Rating: Go See it!

Was It Really Our Fault For The Death of 2D Animation?

(If you like what you see, you can go to camseyeview.biz to see more of my work on video game reviews, editorials, lists, Kickstarters, developer interviews, and review/talk about animated films. If you would like, consider contributing to my Patreon at patreon.com. It would help support my work, and keeps the website up. Thanks for checking out my work, and I hope you like this editorial!)

Around the mid-2000s, 2D animated films were struggling, with a majority of the flops coming from Disney and DreamWorks. This was when their 2D animated films were not bringing in waves of delicious greenback bills, and were instead being critically panned, and flopping/underperforming. This list of films include Home on the Range, Brother Bear, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, Treasure Planet, Atlantis: The Lost Empire, and you get the idea. The only 2D animated films that were doing really well during this time period were the films made by Studio Ghibli, like Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle. When Home on the Range and Sinbad came out, both Disney and DreamWorks told the world that 2D animation was not a profitable way of filmmaking anymore, no one was seeing 2D animated films, and the new profitable form of animation was CGI-animation. This was essentially throwing 2D animation under the bus. So, was it really the public’s fault that 2D animation was dead? Is there a reason Europe and the rest of the world is keeping it alive and not getting wide releases? Well, let’s talk about what was going on around this time period.

On one side of the spectrum during the early to mid-2000s, the only financially/critically successful animated films that were being made were of CGI, and Pixar and DreamWorks were leading the charge. This was when we were getting films like Shrek 2, Finding Nemo, and The Incredibles. All of these films were critical darlings, and are pretty fantastic films. On the other spectrum, you were unfortunately getting Disney and DreamWorks 2D animated films that were not doing well with audiences and the bank. Like I said above, the 2D animated films were not making enough of a profit, and were getting critically panned at the same time. Sure, you would get a film like Lilo & Stich, Emperor’s New Groove, and Spirits: Stallion of the Cimarron, but those films were few and far between in terms of being successful 2D animated films. The point is Disney and DreamWorks were losing money, and the only thing that was bringing in the cash besides their live-action films were their CGI animated films. Not to say that each CGI animated film during this period was a success, since this was when DreamWorks was trying to compete with Disney/Pixar, but the numbers and money talked.

So, does this mean that 2D animation was 100% dead? Of course not! Even if Disney, Pixar, and DreamWorks were moving toward full-on CGI animation, due to the masses leaning more to CGI animation by overall audience appeal, there were a few studios and directors that were passionate or really stubborn about Hollywood’s sudden lack of 2D animation. This was when we were getting a lot of the Studio Ghibli films brought over by Disney, like Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle, and Porco Rosso to name a few. Other directors like Sylvain Chomet gave the public The Triplets of Belleville, one of the best pieces of 2D animation around, and was a critical and Oscar winner. Japan has a multitude of amazing animated films during this time period, and even today we have incredible 2D animated films, like the late Satoshi Kon’s Paprika, Mamoru Hosoda’s Wolf Children, The Boy and the Beast, and Summer Wars, Makoto Shinkai’s The Garden of Words, and of course, Katsuhiro Otomo’s slew of films like Steamboy, and anthology project, Short Peace.  Europe has been rocking the 2D animation, with films from France, Spain, Scotland, and other areas including Song of the Sea, The Secret of Kells, A Cat in Paris, Phantom Boy, Ernest & Celestine, The Illusionist, Nocturna, Wrinkles, and Chico and Rita. Even Disney came back with two 2D animated films, with The Princess and the Frog and Winnie the Pooh. Sure, they didn’t break a gigantic amount of bank, but I love that Disney at first was going to do one 2D film, then a CGI film, and go on like that until they went full-on CGI animated. Even Brazil gave us Boy and the World, one of the most visually amazing films, not just animated films, I have ever seen.

 

So, if 2D isn’t technically dead, since the rest of the world and the indie scene are treating it with the respect it deserves, then what really killed it? Well, it’s actually pretty obvious and simple. There is no reason to go into a college-based philosophical journey for the answer. Really, it’s the Hollywood machine, and the studios’ fault for killing off 2D animation.

Yeah, I know it sounds like a hipster thing to do, and blame the bigwigs for killing off a style of animation, but it’s quite frankly the truth. So, during the mid-2000s of 2000-2005 or so, what were the companies releasing during this time that was 2D? This was when Disney was releasing films like Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Brother Bear, Treasure Planet, Lilo & Stich, Emperor’s new Groove, and Home on the Range. On top of that, this was also the tail end of their Straight-to-DVD fling, where they released a bunch of mediocre sequels to their popular Disney films. I’m sure you can find merit and something positive to say about certain elements of these films, but they were really scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of quality with these straight-to-DVD flicks. DreamWorks on the other hand only released about two 2D animated films, with one being a hit, and the other causing the infamous “2D animation is dead” quote with Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron and Sinbad. Now then, we’ve got our suspects from the 2D side of things from both companies, what went wrong with the studios making these films? After watching them recently, with the few exceptions that I have mentioned above, the rest feel like movies that were ruined by the higher-ups putting their focus-grouped hands into the mix. Films like Brother Bear, Sinbad, Treasure Planet, and Atlantis: The Los Empire could have been incredible movies, but what you get are films with bits and pieces of greatness and things to like, but then have to get past the elements that are distracting or not very interesting. Most of the time, the biggest blunder these films made was within its dialogue. When the characters talked like they were part of that time or setting, it was great and engaging. You felt like you were there with them. However, when the modern dialogue, Disney whimsy, and hip lingo pops into time periods where it isn’t remotely appropriate, and is only put there because some idiot higher-up thinks everyone would like it, it’s frustrating. It’s like they couldn’t fully stay invested in their own tones. If you want to be dark in Atlantis, then you need to keep the mature tone, and not throw in so many side characters, humor, and a weak bad guy. How much better could Brother Bear be if he didn’t turn into a bear and he was kept just as a human? I could say all of this with the other films like Treasure Planet and Sinbad. These studios, for the most part, would rather throw someone or something under the bus to avoid the honest truth that they made a bad movie that no one wanted to see, or have to admit that they were trying to cater to the lowest common denominator, and it wasn’t working. Oh, and was anyone really asking for Home on the Range? I mean, really?

Yeah, I don’t buy that 2D animation died because people stopped caring about it. I think it died because studios here in the states kept giving us films that either couldn’t stay in the tone they set out for, higher-ups got their meddling hands into the pie, or were just terrible movies. Luckily, with the huge success of films like Zootopia, The Secret Life of Pets, Finding Dory, and the animated films distributed by GKIDS, animation has become a huge success during 2016, where with a few exceptions; a mass majority of the 2016 big Hollywood flicks are not panning out. Sure, you could argue it’s just the summer movies, but I feel like the animated films and indie films have been getting more of the spotlight and praise. Hopefully, this means that the bigger companies can try and come back to 2D someday, but due to how current Hollywood is run, it will probably take some time. Just remember, it’s not always your fault Hollywood made a stupid mistake. Thanks for reading, I hope you liked the article, and see you all next time.