Worst to Best Animated Films of 2018 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/camseyeview. It would help support my work, and keeps the website up. Thanks for checking out my work, and I hope you like this editorial/list!)

I really need to get these out faster. Anyway, let’s get started with part 3 of the Worst to Best Animated Films of 2018! We are now diving into the films that I really enjoyed. Let’s get started!

23. Teen Titans Go! To the Movies

While it might not be anything too special for a show based on a “controversial” show, they took advantage of being feature length, and had some of the biggest laughs out of any animated film from 2018. It was basically the same kind of film as 2019’s The Angry Birds Movie 2. It’s a light-weight story with good character chemistry and a lot of different kinds of jokes. It’s a fun time, even if it does fall back on a lot of juvenile jokes, and the mid-credit scene will be trolling fans of the franchise until the end of time.

22. Mindgame

While this may be a 2004 film, the US finally got an official release last year, and that means it counts for this list. This was Masaaki Yuasa’s first major film, and it is a wild ride with diverse visuals and a set of complex themes. It might not be told the best in terms of storytelling, but I’m so happy that we now have an official release for this flick. Just go in knowing little-to-nothing.

21. Batman Ninja

Man, the best DC-animated film was the one that went out of its way to be different. Gee, it’s like people love unexpected projects like this. While Batman Ninja is all style and little substance, who is going to really complain about a movie where Batman is transported to feudal-era Japan, and has to basically go all ninja on the Joker? Yeah I thought so. It might not have the best CGI animation, its visuals and action set-pieces are a delight to watch unfold. This is easily one of the most fun, and probably my favorite DC-animated feature so far.

20. Flavors of Youth

While this film may have been better if they didn’t try so hard to copy Makoto Shinkai’s style, I still admire the types of stories they wanted to tell about childhood, identity, and you get the idea. The animation doesn’t fully match Shinkai’s gorgeous art direction, but the fact we got a small-scale anthology film is nice, and something we wouldn’t really see in theaters.

19. Seder Masochism

Listen, I get why many are not on board with the director’s Nina Paley’s personal beliefs. I get why many would absolutely not want to check out her work, but I’m a critic, and I have to review stuff like this whether we agree or not with the beliefs. So, outside of that, I enjoyed Seder! I found it an interesting and quaint little film with some great visuals, fun music mixed into the scenes, the commentary about religious extremism was fascinating, and the recordings of her and her father talking about religion were easily the best parts about the film due to how personal they felt. While many may not like her personal opinions, I still recommend people check out the film.

18. Next Gen

While Netflix is still working its way into having a good animated film line-up, Next Gen is that, well, next step into the animation scene. While many called it a mix of Big Hero 6 and The Iron Giant, I found Next Gen to stand on its own. It has a fun female lead, commentary about the overreliance on technology, and a touching friendship between the girl and the robot in the film. It’s also one of the few animated mainstream films to have major action beats in it. It might not be perfect, but Next Gen is a fun little ride, and a hidden gem for animation fans.

17. Early Man

While this film absolutely did not deserve to bomb, and was wrongfully crushed under the incredible Black Panther, Early Man is still another feather in Aardman’s cap. It might not be the best written, and the third act is the film’s weakest part, it’s still full of that Aardman charm and wonderful animation that you have come to know from the studio. Sadly, it’s mostly forgotten, because audience members think stop-motion is dated. Oh well, I still enjoyed my time in the Stone Age.

16. Incredibles 2

After years of waiting, we finally got a sequel to Brad Bird’s The Incredibles. I mean, I could talk about why it took so long, but that’s for another time, and while I have plenty of issues with this film, I still did like it. It might have a weak villain and concepts that aren’t fully fleshed out, but the film has gorgeous animation, strong writing, more great family chemistry, and the action is fun. It’s definitely not Brad Bird’s best film, but it’s a great film, and I’m glad it did well.

15. Smallfoot

It’s a shame that Smallfoot was a victim to bad marketing that made out a rather ambitious film to be no more than a dumb comedy. The comedy aspects are themselves hit or miss, along with the musical numbers as well, but the main story and what it tackles about identity and what is the right thing to do, is so refreshing. It’s also a gorgeous film with a fun cast and likable characters.

14. White Fang

This is one of 2018’s biggest surprises and one of 2018’s most underrated gems. It has a gorgeous art style, a more mature and quiet atmosphere, and a solid voice cast. It might be a bit lightweight, but I still highly recommend watching this lovely film from Netflix.

13. Tito and the Birds

It’s nice that we are getting some high quality animation from Brazil, and Tito and the Birds is a good first introduction to that country’s animation scene. It might be a bit familiar to those who are fans of 80s films, but its message of overcoming and not letting fear mongers get their way gels well with the beautiful animation.

12. Modest Heroes

It might suffer from being an anthology film where one of the shorts isn’t as good as the others, but the fact that Studio Ponoc was able to craft three different stories about being a hero with varying art styles, and giving some new voices in the animation industry a chance to tell a story is delightful.

11. Liz and the Blue Bird

This is easily one of Kyoto Animation’s best films. While it might be a spin-off of an anime series, you can watch it without knowing about the series on which it’s based. That’s because when you break it down, it’s a coming-of-age romance and friendship story between the two female leads. It’s a sweet little film that I think everyone should buy a copy of.

Next time, we will break down what I consider to be the 10 best animated films of 2018! Thank you for checking out this list, and if you want to help support my work, you can go to my Patreon at patreon.com/camseyeview. I will see you all next time!

The Other Side of Animation 119: Early Man 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!)

There is something always exciting when Aardman makes a new film. While not financially successful here in the states for some sadly understandable/annoying reasons, I always get excited, since it brings something fresh and interesting to the table, even if the films have elements that we have seen before. I make sure to always see their films, because I want to support the studio. That’s no different here, with their newest film, Early Man. Directed by Nick Park, Early Man was his first theatrical directing gig since his Oscar-winning Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. It was released on February 16^th, but is not doing well at all in the box office. It is getting positive reviews, but its financial take is discouraging. Granted, when you go against something like the important Black Panther and the decently reviewed Peter Rabbit, you are going to get into some trouble, especially if you are Lionsgate/Summit Entertainment, and you don’t market your movie! I can get into that bit of stupid, but I’ll save that for a different article. For now, let’s review Early Man!

Eddie Redmayne plays our hero Dug, a caveman living with his tribe in a crater that, generations ago, was formed by a meteorite. He’s getting complacent about how his tribe only hunts rabbits. One day, after a successful rabbit hunt, their tribe gets invaded by a more evolved group of humans. This evolved group of individuals is led by a man named Lord Nooth, voiced by Tom Hiddleston. Dug accidentally gets himself “taken” to the new civilization, meets a woman named Goona, voiced by Maisie Williams, and finds out that his entire valley is being mined out for its metal. After interrupting a soccer game (and yes, I am going to call it soccer), Dug challenges Nooth to a soccer game. Unfortunately, Dug and his tribe don’t know how to play soccer. Dug then enlists the help of Goona, and they train to win their valley back!

Let’s talk about the positives.  Since this is Aardman, the animation is fantastic. Each character has a unique design, and they each move beautifully. The sets are also vibrant, lush, and huge. These might even beat out The Curse of the Were-Rabbit and Pirates: Band of Misfits. As with most British comedy, it’s well-written, clever, and there are lots of foreground and background jokes. I found myself laughing at multiple points in the movie, along with others in my audience. I think a lot of the jokes flew over the kids in my group’s heads, but they still laughed quite a lot. Much of the humor works because the characters are fun to be around. While some are simple, which is a problem to a degree, I never found myself getting annoyed by them. They were fairly likable. Dug is a kind optimist, the tribe leader played by Timothy Spall is delightfully daft, Nooth is a blast as a villain who seems to enjoy being a villain, Goona is the strong female archetype, and Dug’s tribe all have their own amusing moments. I know the film’s humor is mostly pun-related, but if you can execute them properly, then I don’t mind it. I can understand if it’s not your type of humor, but I loved it. They even stay away from the more modern-style of humor you would see in films from Illumination and Blue Sky Studios. It’s great that they did that, since it makes the film more enjoyable to watch as time goes by. The performances were also really good. Eddie Redmayne captures the hopeful and maybe ignorant optimistic side of Dug, Tom Hiddleston gives Nooth a wonderfully cheesy and not-at-all accurate French accent that leads to many of the film’s best jokes, Maisie Williams does a good job at being a tough individual, and the rest of the cast, including Richard Ayoade, Selina Griffiths, Johnny Vegas, Mark Williams, Gina Yashere, Simon Greenall, Richard Webber, Rob Brydon, Kayvan Novak, Miriam Margoyles, all have humorous performances.

As much as I love Aardman and the fact we got a stop-motion film this year, I am going to criticize this film a bit. The film is, for the most part, hugely entertaining, clever, funny, and well-written. However, it does start to lose steam, when you get to the actual soccer part of the plot. It goes through a few sports clichés and puns that don’t work unless you know the sport, and it goes into sports film territory with the underdogs versus the champions. You can pick up on what’s going to happen very easily during this part. While I love a lot of the tribe members, many of them don’t get much development. About half of them get stuck with a single character trait. That also goes for the champion team that they compete against.  I also felt like the story could have been a bit more complex. I love that Aardman keeps things simple, but sometimes, that hurts them, since some of their stories become predictable. I know I can blame some of this film’s underperformance to Lionsgate/Summit Entertainment, since this should have been a big deal for their animation output, but they treated like it was just another direct-to-video animated film. However, Aardman is also partly to blame for a couple of this film’s problems. I just wonder how much better this film would have been received if they had chosen a more…world-loved sport, since the US doesn’t really care about soccer, or simply stuck with the caveman and Bronze Age civilization meet-up. I didn’t mind it being about soccer, since I caught a lot of the soccer jokes, but I know that won’t be for everyone.

While I think I prefer Shaun the Sheep The Movie and The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, I did love Early Man. Personally, it’s the first good animated film of the year, and even if you didn’t fully care about it, you know deep down, it’s going to be better than Sherlock Gnomes.  Early Man is a film that gets better the more I think about it. I definitely recommend checking it out. It’s an original film that’s not based on any pre-existing properties, and if you really want more original films to succeed, then you need to actually go see them. Well, it’s time to get to the 120^th review, and I have a lot to say about that movie when we get to it. Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed the review, and I will see you all next time!

Rating: Go See It!

Animation Tidbits #2: What’s Cam Looking Forward To? 5/5/17

(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!)

So, in my personal life, I love to make emails about a bunch of upcoming films for my family, who may or may not know much about what’s coming out. I recently did an email with all the upcoming animated films that are being released here in the states or somewhere around the world where I hope they get a stateside release. I decided to make a series of Animation Tidbits, where I show off some trailers or clips of upcoming animated films that have caught my eye. Now, some of these are already well known, but I’m sure many people have not heard of many of the films listed in this editorial. Let’s get started.

Early Man 

Up first is the trailer for Nick Park’s newest stop-motion feature, Early Man. I mean, I love Aardman Entertainment and all of their films. I don’t see why I shouldn’t be up for this one. While I don’t usually get super-hyped for big-named cast members in general anymore, I think Early Man has an incredible cast, including Tom Hiddleston (Marvel films, The Night Manager), Eddie Redmayne (The Danish Girl, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them), Timothy Spall (The Last Samurai, Enchanted, and Sweeney Todd), and Maisie Williams (Game of Thrones). Unfortunately, I have to wait until 2018 for this promising flick.

Coco

While Cars 3 doesn’t technically look terrible, and it does seem like Pixar wants to make a good movie from this flawed and merchandise-spewing trilogy, Pixar’s original film is what I’m looking forward to more. Yes, it’s another animated film based on Day of the Dead, and I do know the pointless turf war Coco fans and The Book of Life fans brought up with each other on Twitter with the two films’ directors, but it’s Pixar. I know their recent track record has been bumpy, but I usually feel like I can be excited and love their original content. The voice cast for this film is also pretty stellar with Benjamin Bratt, Gael Garcia Bernal, Renee Victor, and newcomer Anthony Gonzalez. Hopefully, this becomes another great original film in Pixar’s line up.

Wolfwalkers

I’m patiently waiting (badly) to hear a release date, and for GKids to pick this film up. Wolfwalkers is the next film by two-time Oscar-nominated director Tomm Moore, who was the director of Song of the Sea, and The Secret of Kells. The animation looks beautiful, you can sense and feel the atmosphere and Irish cultural elements, and it’s a downright gorgeous 2D animated film. I do wish the movie-going world would give this director and the super talented team at Cartoon Saloon a lot of support.

Gatta Cenerentola

Or as it’s known in English, Cat Cinderella. This is the first obscure film that I hope gets an English release. It’s an Italian CGI animated film, using mostly motion-capture for the animation. It’s a modern dark take on the Cinderella story, and it looks amazing. I know the movements can come off as clunky, since motion-capture can be finicky if not done correctly, but I think the tone, setting, and the idea will elevate it. Plus, it has a gorgeous art style, and I could listen to that song in the trailer all day.

The Big Bad Fox and Other Tales

If you watched the amazing Ernest & Celestine, the art style should look familiar to you, since one of the directors of the film, Benjamin Renner is behind this film. It’s based off of his comic, and while the trailer is in French, you can pretty much understand what is going on. It has good animation, a great sense of humor, and it’s just adorable. Hopefully, GKids can pick this one up.

Calamity

One of my favorite films from last year was the French film, Long Way North. While I think it went under the radar way too much last year, the same group that made Long Way North are back with another female lead-driven film. While it might be based on the historical figure, Calamity Jane, the filmmakers are taking on the character in their own story. I know that might be a bad idea in some cases, but Long Way North was so fantastic, and these guys know what they are doing.

 Icarus

While I love a lot of the films on this list, I think Icarus has me the most excited in terms of the setting. It’s a mixed-media animated film, using CGI and beautiful 2D animation. It makes the three Greek Gods, Zeus, Poseidon, and Aphrodite not just Gods, but Newspaper Journalist Gods as they try to weave interesting tales out of Greek Mythology for the paper. First off, the idea itself is awesome. I could see a lot of commentary about journalistic integrity, and how a lot of sites like to use clickbait-style headlines for not very interesting stories. I also love the combination of CGI and the lovely 2D animation. You just watch the trailer, and you get a lot of great visual eye candy. It also helps that there is a Pixar Veteran directing the film named Carlos Volgele. I just love the idea, and I definitely want GKids or Shout! Factory to bring it over.

Well, there you have it. These are the animated films that I am looking forward to at this point in time. I will do these from time to time when I find enough films to warrant a list like this, but do expect more of these. I might do these more so than a “Most Anticipated Films of –insert year here-“lists. Thanks for reading, and I hope you all have a good day!