Worst to Best Animated Films of 2016 Part 1

(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, one and all, to my worst to best animated films of 2016! As a whole, 2016 was fantastic, and if it wasn’t for the theatrical release of a couple of films, it would have been a perfect year. The ground rules are the same as last time. They had to have been released in the states in 2016. This means any foreign films that are released in 2016, but not in the states, do not count. I will also be very strict with straight-to-DVD releases, since the only way they are going to show up on this list is if they had a lot of hype or praise put behind them. If I tackled every straight-to-DVD release, it would be one gigantic pile of schlock and garbage that would be wasting not only your time, but mine, as well. The films also need to have had theatrical releases or digital distribution releases, so that means films like Belladonna of Sadness and The Little Prince make the list. It’s once again, my opinion and my opinion only, because I’m the only one making the list! If you disagree or agree, that’s perfectly fine. I just request you don’t be a jerk about it. Let’s get started with the worst shall we?

37. Norm of the North

If there was one movie this year that would make me want to curse loudly into the heavens, and want Hollywood to be shut down, revamped, and run by more competent people, it would be Norm of the North. This has everything that is horrible, not only about the animation industry, but the film industry overall. It doesn’t have a story, no likable characters, horrible animation, and is the most offensive, cynical, creatively bankrupt, and condescending film I have seen in a long time. It’s Jem and the Holograms 2015 levels of insulting. The only reason it’s not the worst film I have ever seen is because to me, Delgo and Violence Jack are worse, but this is still the third worst animated film of all time, and easily, the worst animated film of 2016. Anyone who worked on this should be ashamed that it got released in theaters, when it had no right to be.

36. Underdogs

The smartest thing this film ever did was stay straight-to-DVD, because this movie is just as bad as Norm of the North. However, it ruins that notion with one smart move of being put directly on Netflix. It might have slightly better animation, but it’s still not cinema-worthy, which makes me think that the Weinsteins knew what they had. The animation is clunky, the designs are ugly, the voice acting is nonexistent, since none of the actors are putting in the effort, it all sounds like it was done in a day, the plot is terrible, there are story bits that are never brought up again, the villain is stupid, the film tries to end on a Rocky-like ending when it doesn’t deserve it, and you can really see why The Weinstein Company tried to cover this film up. Hope they don’t pull this kind of garbage with Leap!

35. Bling

It’s a film that is surprisingly forgettable, but is just as aggravating to think about, when I do remember this cheap Korean knock-off. Yes, I did say that the fights can be decent, and James Woods is the only enjoyable thing about this film. However, Tom Green sounds like he got hit by a tranquilizer, there are way too many fart jokes, too many side characters, bad humor, a horrible moral that pushes materialism over actual love/being in a loving relationship, and no one does a believable performance. Then again, if I was told I was going to be voicing a character in a movie that had the writer behind the first Alpha & Omega in it, I would also not give a rat’s behind in giving a good performance.

 34. The Wild Life

It’s quite shocking that Lionsgate had the utter gall in 2016 to release two obviously straight-to-DVD-made animated films into theaters. While The Wild Life does have better textures, better designs and animation than the previous films on this list, it’s still pretty robotic, and you can just feel the film try to be more animated than it can be. The story is stupid, the characters are one-note to a huge fault, it’s not really funny, the villains are even more pathetic than the one in Underdogs, and, well, really, Lionsgate? Was this film worth bringing to the theaters, when you are pretty much fine with wasting money on buying straight-to-DVD garbagefests? I respect the film stayed away from a lot of the tropes that make bad animated films, and at the very least, it was trying to be as good as it could be. But just because I say that doesn’t mean it’s a good movie. Just ignore this film.

33. Ice Age: Collision Course

Finally! We get to talk about a film that rightfully deserved to be in theaters. Sadly, it’s Ice Age: Collision Course. I don’t get why these are made, and Fox shouldn’t have greenlit this one. Hopefully, with the film underperforming, it means they can put a stop to the franchise, because if the next film is anything like Collision Course, then so help me, I’d rather eat the script to the director’s cut of Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy, than sit through another Ice Age film. The main characters are pointless, Nick Offerman as the main villain is wasted potential, the film relies way too much on butt and poop jokes, they make modern day references when there are no reasons to, everyone is annoying, and all the actors in this film are wasted on such a stupid, heartless script. Simon Pegg was great, but even then, his material couldn’t save the film. Avoid this one at all cost, and I feel badly for any parent who bought this movie and has to watch it with their kids.

32. Ratchet & Clank

The good news is that they got the look of the game down perfectly. The bad news is that this is a horrible movie. Sure, it’s not Norm of the North terrible, and it is at the very least, watchable, but that’s no excuse. It’s probably the biggest flop in terms of animated films from 2016, when it had the easiest job in terms of being a video game movie. It looks like the game, but the animation and texture quality is still not up-to-par, the lead duos don’t get a lot of screen time, the other characters can be annoying, the jokes are more miss than hit, and I feel like fans of the games are defending this film for no reason. It’s a bad movie, no matter how you look at it.

31. Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV

This is probably the prettiest film on this entire list. It also has the most realistic-looking humans that you will see. Sadly, in terms of the context of the main Final Fantasy XV experience, it’s all seems very pointless. You see characters die who had no real development to them, the big celebrity voices they hired had no purpose other than name recognition, and due to this being a prequel, you are just stuck wondering if you should be invested with anything or not. The fight scenes can be decent, but let’s just say when I do start to play Final Fantasy XV, I will have fonder memories in that game than Kingsglaive.

30. Batman: The Killing Joke.

If there was one animated film in 2016, that could be considered the most disappointing, it would probably be Batman: The Killing Joke. All this hype for a film adaptation of one of comic history’s most infamous stories, the original 90s Batman animated series’ actors like Tara Strong, Kevin Conroy, and Mark Hamill were reprising their roles, and it was getting an edgy R rating. Too bad it became one of 2016 and DC’s biggest laughing stocks. The additional 30 minutes added to the story was pointless, the infamous sex scene was creepy and terrible, the actual Killing Joke part got hampered by the additional story, the animation was terrible, and the whole film felt like it rode on the hype without being worth it. Oh, and this film had no right in being rated R. It was nowhere close to that level of shocking or mature. I get some people are trying to defend Batman and Batgirl’s notorious sex scene, but come on. There is no reason to defend this film. If you like it, more power to you, but for me, I don’t think I could ever muster up enough effort to watch Batman: The Killing Joke ever again.

29. Snowtime!

A film that could have been a harmless bit of fluff, ends up being just that, but with an unneeded tragic third act. I don’t think I have ever seen such a horrible change of tone in any film from 2016. It also doesn’t help that the film has boring characters, and any potential in being more than fluff is wasted. It’s not a great film, but considering that it’s higher up on the list, you can tell I have seen worse.

28. Batman: Bad Blood

This just felt like a Marvel filler movie. And I mean, in a way that this felt like this story was told just to make way for a better future story. Then again, this was right after Batman vs. Robin, which is a great watch. I just got bored watching the movie, and while it does do some firsts, like introduce Batwoman in the new DC animated film universe, but it’s not enough. Don’t get me wrong, Bad Blood still has good voice work and some fun action scenes. I just don’t see myself watching Bad Blood in the near future.

Thanks for checking out Part One! Stay tuned for Part Two in the future!

The Other Side of Animation 58: Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV 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!)

In Short, multimedia projects are tricky to pull off. You could do well with the toys, comics, the movie, and TV show the multimedia project is based on, but one bad project could instantly spoil or give a bad first impression of said project. That’s what unfortunately happened to certain multimedia projects like Sonic Boom, which was all pretty solid until the Wii U tie-in game came out and ruined the first impressions of this new iteration of Sonic the Hedgehog. It was broken, not fun to play, not a well-designed game, and it is the worst selling game in the franchise. Luckily, everything else was pretty solid so, it saved itself from being an utter failure.  Well, Square Enix decided that they wanted to do something like Sonic Boom and decided to make an anime miniseries, and it is the topic of today’s review, Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV. This film that takes place in the upcoming games’ universe was directed by Takeshi Nozue, and has some surprisingly big actors in it, including Aaron Paul, Sean Bean, and Lena Headey. Normally, I wouldn’t review stuff like this, but since it had a limited run in theaters, and is connected to one of the biggest gaming franchises of all time, I definitely had to cover it. So, what do I think of the film? Well, unless you want to see some amazing realistic CGI, then you won’t get much unless you are planning on playing the video game.

Anyway, this film is a prequel film that takes place before the opening hours of the video game. It follows a group of elite guards known as the Kingsglaive. They help protect the king of Lucis, Regis Lucis Caelum CXIII, voiced by Sean Bean. The lead character that the plot revolves around is one of the Kingsglaive named Nyx Ulric, voiced by Aaron Paul. One day after a major battle against the kingdom of Niflheim, Nyx, along with his friends, is hired to help protect a female political figure named Lunafreya Nox Fleuret, voiced by Lena Headey. Of course, things begin to go wrong, and it’s a race to protect the giant crystal guarding Lucis, making sure Lunafreya doesn’t get killed or captured, and of course, set up the events that will lead into the video game.

So, what’s the best thing about this movie? Well, it’s the animation. While this might be a similar situation to Square Enix’s past CGI films, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within and Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, this is probably the best-looking of all the films. Its textures and animation are outstanding. This is easily some of the most realistic-looking character models and animation that I have ever seen done in terms of cgi-animated films. Everything looks amazing, and while it doesn’t fully do the whole “you won’t be able to tell this is cgi” kind of realistic, it’s still incredibly commendable with how good this looks. The fighting is also very flashy and fun to watch. I think it’s because of how agile the characters are, and how they use magic to throw their knives and be able to teleport to the knife. It’s definitely something you will have to see for yourself, or play the game to understand what I mean with the whole “teleporting combat”. The final act where the entire city is just torn apart and the enemies are invading is really intense, and it is a spectacle when you see the giant stone guardians of the city come to life.

Sadly, that is pretty much it for the compliments, because everything else is pointless. The lead characters are not memorable in the slightest. If you have seen any generic anime or action show with a team of characters including the bland male lead, the heavier-set well-intentioned best friend, the tough chick, and the snarky male. Heck, some of them don’t get to even be characters, like the tough chick gets killed so early in the film that it’s hard to care about her death. Heck, it’s hard to feel invested with a lot of these characters, because only a handful actually matter to the main story that will be in the video game. This means that unless you plan on picking up the game, you probably won’t or already don’t care about what happens to these characters. The only time you get to see the actual leads from the video game is at the very beginning and at the very end. Even if you look past the whole video game tie-in aspect of the film, it’s a painfully generic and boring film with only a few highlights of action and animation. I mean, at least this film is attached to the newest game in the franchise, and isn’t a pointless film like The Spirits Within, which is barely part of the Final Fantasy franchise.

I also found the film to be difficult to watch at times. It’s too flashy, and sometimes there is too much on screen to make it easy to watch. I think it’s because the film is overly detailed with its world and characters. It’s a beautiful movie that is just sometimes clustered with details and sometimes not-so-subtle product placements.

Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV is an almost pointless film that is part of a multi-media product. Unless you are a gamer and want to check this out, I would avoid it unless you want to see every animated film that was able to be in theaters. It’s a film that is flawed because it’s tied to a video game. If it had more freedom with its setting, and essentially, not being a part of a multi-media project, then it would have been better. As a film, I can think of much worse movies I have seen this year, like next week, we will look at one of the biggest U.S. bombs of 2016 and of all time, The Wild Life. Thanks for reading, I hope you all liked the article, and see you all next time.

Rating: Rent it!