The Other Side of Animation 113: Minions 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!)

Spin-offs are something I don’t envy people having to make. With the popularity of a certain product or franchise, you know that the executives see nothing but dollar signs, and want to find a way to make even more fat stacks of cash. It’s why we don’t have a lot of good sequels or spin-off series or films that do well. They don’t really have heart or passion put into them. Still, you always want something to be good, because we know no one sets out to intentionally make a bad movie. So, where does Minions land on the scale of sequels, spin-offs, and prequels? Directed by Pierre Coffin and Kyle Balda, this prequel/spin-off was now focused on the most marketable characters of the franchise, the already mentioned Minions. It came out July 10^th, 2015, a month or so after Pixar’s amazing Inside Out. While not getting the best reviews with it sitting at a total aggregate score of 56%, it was a first for the animation company to break a little over a billion dollars at the box office. So, where do I stand with this film? Do I stand on the side of the Minions? Or do I stand on the side of the critics? Let’s check it out!

The story follows the evolution and life span of the Minions, little yellow beings that look for the biggest villains to work for. Throughout their existence, they have served many evil empires, while also coincidentally ending them in darkly comedic ways. Over time, they found shelter, and made their own civilization, but soon found no purpose without serving a villain. Three specific Minions named Kevin, Stuart, and Bob, all voiced by Pierre Coffin, decide to go off on an adventure to find a new super-villain to work under. This leads the three to a convention for super-villains, and they meet Scarlet Overkill, an infamous female super-villain voiced by Sandra Bullock. Can they help Scarlet become the queen of England? Or will they get into more comedic hijinks? I mean, what do you expect from Minions other than comedic hijinks?

As usual, let’s start with the positive aspects of the film. Once again, the animation is still pretty good. It even looks a little better than the second film. Again, I have to give Illumination Entertainment the respect and admiration that they improved very quickly on their animation. The comedy is fast, snappy, creative, silly, and amusing. It’s actually surprising how many dark comedic jokes and slightly adult jokes are in this movie. Not every suggestively adult joke works, but I, at the very least, respect that they tried out different types of jokes. For a film that’s once again trading story for comedy, I was definitely finding this film much funnier than the previous films in the franchise.

I think the best aspect of the film is the first third. It was fairly risky to start the film, and have the lead characters that don’t speak English. It reminds me of what would happen a few months or so later during 2015, when Shaun the Sheep Movie was released, another animated film that had no real dialogue. Sure, you get a narration, but for the most part, a huge chunk of the film is told through movements, gibberish, and clever visuals. The Minions don’t speak English, so you have to make sure their gibberish can be easily understandable. It reminds me of some of my favorite films from the 2000s to now with Boy and the World, The Illusionist, and The Triplets of Belleville. It actually showed that Illumination wasn’t scared to try something different. It makes the film feel unique, and the three Minions that we do follow are kept simple enough to get their individual personalities. It’s a lot of fun to watch, since you aren’t being distracted by a huge amount of goofy humor and dialogue. Now, in terms of Scarlett Overkill as a villain, Sandra Bullock hits it right out of the park. Scarlett Overkill is a great comedic villain. Sadly, while there isn’t much to her powers-wise, her design is great, her lines are funny, her delivery is perfectly timed, and she is even better than the last villain. Even her husband in the film played by Jon Hamm is very funny in his own way. You get a family the Minions meet up with, where the couple is played by Allison Janney and Michael Keaton, that are entertaining. Even Steve Carrell returns for a small cameo that is actually built up during the villain convention, and his appearance later on pays off.

Sadly, while I can definitely praise a lot of this film, I’m going to start heavily criticizing it. This is when the cracks in the base of the franchise really start to show. For every good idea this film has, it has a downside to it. Minions can be funny, but the humor becomes too much, due to the lack of any real emotional engagement later on in the film. The three characters are likable, but the Minions as a whole can’t carry an entire movie on their shoulders. Scarlett is a fun villain, but there isn’t too much to her, outside some cool tech and kung fu. The first third is very well-executed, but the other two thirds are not, due to the lack of story, heart, and energy. It’s not 100% downhill after the first third, but it becomes less interesting as the plot moves forward. I know that it’s a movie about the Minions, but it’s still a movie with a budget as big as the main films, and is competing with the other big films. It’s like the creators behind the film didn’t want to fully commit to some of the ideas they threw down on the table.

In the end, Minions is fine. It’s silly, harmless, and entertaining, but unless you have kids that enjoy Minions, I see no reason to see it. I understand why it made a lot of money, and why we are getting a sequel. If you haven’t seen it yet, there is no harm in checking it out, but if you want a good comedic animated film with heart and laughs, I would check out Ernest & Celestine, LEGO Batman, or The Cat Returns. Well, we might be going overboard with Despicable Me, but we are down to one more movie in the franchise with the next review being Despicable Me 3. Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed the article, and I will see you all next time.

Rating: Rent 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.

The Other Side of Animation: The Triplets of Belleville 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!)

WARNING/PARENTAL HEADS UP!: There is some female nudity, but not a whole lot of it. Viewer’s discretion is advised. Enjoy the review!

So, we have seen crazy and insane storytelling done badly that was entertaining to watch in a “so good, it’s bad”  kind of way, but what about watching an animated film that is all sorts of crazy, but was done well enough to be considered one of the all-time great animated films? As we have seen in a lot of animated movies and shows, it seems like the most popular form of comedy is being fast-paced, over-the-top, or flat-out crazy. Even then, there is an art and style to said creative comedy. You can’t just be loud and visually weird and unusual. If you are all just flash and no substance, why should we waste our time with you? Yeah, shows like Adventure Time, Steven Universe, and films like The LEGO Movie are over-the-top, unique in their visuals, and have interesting senses of humor, but they all have good stories and characters you love and want to invest into. This is why, after that trainwreck of glorious/horrible animation that was MD Geist, I wanted to look at an odd, surreal, but amazing movie like The Triplets of Belleville. This movie was released back in 2003, winning critical acclaim and multiple award nominations. The Triplets of Belleville was directed by Sylvain Chomet, the man behind the 1991 animated film, The Old Lady and the Pigeons, and the 2010 animated, The Illusionist. So, is this film as good now as it was back in 2003? Well, let’s find out!

The story revolves around a grandmother named Madam Souza and her grandson named Champion. They live a simple life, until the day she finds out her grandson has a fascination with cycling. After getting her grandson a tricycle, the years pass, and we see the son is training for the grand pike race known as the Tour de France. During the race, Champion gets kidnapped by the French Mafia, and taken over to a romanticized version of New York. Madan Souza and her dog go after him, only to find themselves lost in the big city. Luckily for them, they end up encountering the famed Triplets of Belleville, three famous vaudeville singers from back in the day. Can they get Souza’s son back from the French Mafia?

So, this is a French 2D animated film about a grandmother, her dog, and three old ladies taking on the French Mafia to get the grandmother’s grandson back, with some of the most unusual and ugly (in a good way) artstyles ever implemented. Yeah, it’s a weird and sort of crazy film, but it all works! Why does it work? Well, maybe because while it has some unusual and crazy visuals, the story and characters are kept simple and easy to understand. You really get invested in and charmed by the individual characters, and this is amazing since there is basically no dialogue in the film. There is some at the beginning and end, but they are there to pretty much bookmark the start and end of the film. The only dialogue you hear is from the radio. Luckily, the execution of the animation and art design makes it quite clear to know what is going on with all of the character’s goals and intentions.

Speaking of animation, it is beautifully done. The art direction is what really makes this film stand out. It’s about as anti-Disney and DreamWorks as you can get, with humans that are quite frankly over-exaggerated and gross-looking. However, I mean that in the best way possible. Unlike the third-party tripe you get, the characters are well designed and have very memorable looks and diverse animations. I think some of my favorite character designs come from the grunts of the French Mafia. They look like walking dominos, and are just cool to look at. The overall presentation, like I have mentioned, is over-the-top and reminds me of caricatures. It’s rather beautiful in that regard. I love it when I get to see different art styles put into play, and in my opinion, more films need to do this instead of trying to be another DreamWorks and Pixar knock-off. The music is just groovy and jazzy. I love the original song that was nominated for best original song. It’s catchy and just a fun song to listen to.

If I had to complain about something, it would be this weird little hiccup that I saw with the English subtitles. Even though there is no talking, when you see the TV or radio sequences where there is dialogue, the English subtitles turn to French subtitles when you watch the film in English. Why is that a thing? I even watched it in French and the English subtitles are still French. That is such a huge hiccup in terms of the tech department that it’s kind of baffling that some employee didn’t quality control this part. Hopefully they fix this with a Criterion or Blu-Ray release. Heck, why isn’t this film part of the Criterion collection? It would look amazing.

The Triplets of Belleville is nothing short of a modern classic. It deserves to be talked about more than it does. I know it’s a famous movie, but man, this film got better the more times I watched it. Sadly, you can only get this movie in a DVD format, but if you can get it, I would highly recommend it. It’s pretty cheap and I even found a collector’s edition of sorts that had a ton of extras and both the French and English version of the film. I just want to keep praising this film for hours, but I would then be repeating myself. So, let’s move onto a film that could have been something better than expected, even with bad advertising, but was just a bad film overall. Next time, we look at Hell and Back. Thanks for checking out my work, and see you all next time!

Rating: Criterion/Essentials

The Other Side of Animation: Ernest & Celestine Review

 

For the first review for The Other Side of Animation, I struggled to pick the first film to talk about. I could have talked about one of my recent favorites, Tom Moore’s Song of the Sea, which was nominated for an Oscar, but lost to Disney’s Big Hero 6. I could have also talked about the vibrantly beautiful Azur and Asmar: The Princes’ Quest by famed French writer and director Michel Ocelot. However, while I will get to those movies in due time, I wanted this first review to be special. This Oscar-nominated film, Ernest & Celestine, was directed by Stèphane Aubier, Vincent Patar, and French cartoonist Benjamin Renner. If you have heard of the first two directors, Aubier and Patar, that is because they made a stop-motion animated film called A Town Called Panic back in 2009. The film was produced by Didier Brunner, who has been around the French animation scene with collaborations with Michel Ocelot on Tales of the Night, Sylvain Chomet’s The Old Lady and the Pigeons and The Triplets of Belleville, and Michel Ocelot’s Kirikou and the Sorceress. Not only that, but he also helped out Tom Moore with his first major film, The Secret of Kells. Now then, shall we get started? Is Ernest & Celestine a classic that should have gotten more attention?

 

The story is set in this strange world where mice live underground, and bears live above-ground. The main focus is on a little mouse girl named Celestine, voiced by Makenzie Foy of Twilight fame. The adult mice send Celestine above-ground to obtain a cub’s tooth from a family of bears who live above the candy store, in order to replace their own teeth. In the process, she gets trapped in a trash can. The next day, she ends up meeting a hungry bear named Ernest, voiced by Forest Whitaker. What results in this meet-up is a powerful bond of friendship, outrunning the police, and tackling the challenges that their societies have brought upon them.

 

So, what do I really love about Ernest & Celestine? I mean, I started this series off with this one movie, so it must be pretty fantastic, right? Well, not to spoil anything, but I am going to explain why this movie is amazing. First off, let’s talk about the story. It’s pure and simple, but its execution is where it shines. It doesn’t have an overarching villain, or annoying side characters, or musical numbers. The main appeal of the story is the focus on the relationship between Ernest and Celestine. It’s charming, heartwarming, funny, and it feels genuine. Both Ernest and Celestine are likable characters that you can connect with, due to them being in a world where society tells them that they should do one thing and not another. Due to how simple the story is, there is more time spent on focusing on the relationship between Ernest and Celestine. It’s nothing romantic or off-putting, it’s a wholesome and easy-to-relate-to friendship. You get such a warm feeling when you watch the two of them bond. This is especially true with the final scene in the film. There is also a clever bit of commentary about discrimination, and running a business racket. What do I mean by that last example of commentary? Well, Nick Offerman’s character is a candy store owner. He makes sure to rot people’s teeth out with delicious sweets. That’s fine and all, but where do the bears go to get replacements? Why not head over right across the street to the teeth store that is owned by the wife of Nick Offerman’s character? I found this bit of commentary funny.

 

The animation is outstanding. This is some of the slickest animation I have ever seen. The fact that it looks like watercolor makes it stand out even more. Every character is incredibly expressive, and a good example of that is when Ernest and Celestine are in Ernest’s house, and she is expressing her hatred for glue traps. The expression on Ernest’s face as Celestine goes into detail about why the glue traps are torturous is hilarious. The slick animation also helps out with some of the best scenes from the movie, like the underground to above-ground chase scene. It just screams old-fashioned movie making, with well-executed stunts and slapstick that you would see in the very early days of film. The animation also leads to some incredibly artistic and creative sequences. For example, there is a scene where the two need to hide the delivery fan that they got away in. Instead of just putting a cloth over it, they paint the entire vehicle to look like the environment around them. Another great scene where the animation is expressive is when Ernest plays the violin. It reminds me of something out of Fantasia, where the artist animated what they heard through the music.

 

The voicework is phenomenal. Each character in the English dub is well-casted. Forest Whitaker voices Ernest, Makenzie Foy is Celestine, and the rest of the cast includes big names like William H. Macy, Nick Offerman, Megan Mullally, Paul Giamatti, Jeffrey Wright, and the late Lauren Bacall.  The music is also extremely well-executed. Composer Vincent Courtois brings us music that is elegant, charming, heartwarming, and energetic when needed. If I had to pick my favorite track, I think it has to be the song at the end of the film, and rightfully so, is the film’s theme song. I might not understand the French lyrics, but I always feel calm and collected, and have a smile on my face each time I listen to it.

 

If I had to say one little nitpick that doesn’t detract anything from the movie, there is a sequence where both Ernest and Celestine go through a nightmare where they each know that they are both there for one another. It happens in a span of five minutes, and I felt like they could have put maybe a minute or two more between both nightmare sequences.

 

Outside of that, Ernest & Celestine is a fantastic movie. It’s one of my favorite movies, and one of the best animated films of the past couple of years. If you are tired of seeing films done in the same formulaic Disney style, and want something more in the vein of when Pixar is on a roll, then I would highly recommend you buy this movie. I don’t know what else to say, but get a copy and enjoy it! Now then, how about I dip my toes into some Irish animation next with Song of the Sea? See you next time on The Other Side of Animation!

Rating: Criterion/Essentials