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Director: Lee Unkrich
Release date: October 20, 2017
Rating: ★★★★★ ♕
Review:
The 2010s were a disappointing decade for the Pixar studio: the studio largely lost its role as game changer, spitting out a lot of sequels and meagre films that couldn’t stand the comparison with their great movies of the 2000s. Yet, three of their films shone far brighter than the others and showed that the studio still had it: Toy Story 3 from 2010, ‘Inside Out’ from 2015, and ‘Coco’ from 2017.
With ‘Coco’ the studio followed a recent Disney trend to give American minorities their own animated movie. After Afro-Americans (‘The Princess and the Frog’, 2009) and Polynesians (‘Moana’, 2016), ‘Coco’ stars Mexicans only, taking place in Mexico, and focusing on the typically Mexican holiday ‘Día de muertos’, the Mexican variant on All Souls’ Day and All Saints’ Day (1 and 2 November).
Now ‘Coco’ wasn’t the first animated feature film around Día de Muertos, which was 20th Century Fox’s ‘The Book of Life’ (2014), and like the former film ‘Coco’ takes partly place in the land of the dead. But there the comparison stops, and while ‘The Book of Life’ boasts more daring design choices, ‘Coco’ is by far the better film in terms of animation, art direction, background art and storytelling.
Moreover, the animated depiction of the dead as vivid skeletons is even older, as they also appear in ‘Corpse Bride’ (2005) and in the charming stop motion shorts ‘Hasta los huesos’ (René Castillo, 2001) and ‘Día de los muertos’ (Kirk Kelley, 2002). One can safely say, both Mexico’s idiosyncratic holiday and the depiction of the afterlife are of a particular interest to film makers. Let’s not venture into earlier depictions of the afterlife, in cinema or otherwise, although I have to say the concept of the afterlife in Coco has much in common with that of Kevin Brockmeier’s novel ‘The Brief History of the Dead’ from 2006: in both afterworlds one only really dies when he’s not remembered.
‘Coco’ tells about young boy Miguel, who aspires to be a musician, but who grows up in a family of shoemakers in which music is banned. When on ‘Día de muertos’ Miguel steals a guitar from the grave of his idol Ernesto de la Cruz he gets into much more trouble than he had bargained for…
Why the film is called ‘Coco’ instead of ‘Miguel’ only becomes clear at the very end of the film, in a scene that forms the emotional highlight of the movie, and is one of the most moving scenes in animation, overall.
But from the beginning ‘Coco’ evokes wonder. Even the background story is told superbly, with the help of garlands depicting the life of Miguel’s ancestors in attractive 2D animation. Miguel’s own world, too, is of unsurpassed richness. His family house, his village, the graveyard – all are complex and elaborate sets, depicted in the richest detail, which render them instantly believable. But nothing prepares the viewer for the jaw dropping depiction of the netherworld – which is more colorful and more fantastic than anything depicted on the animated screen before. The color designs are superb throughout anyway, with a strong focus on orange. The lighting, too, never ceases to amaze – there’s a beautiful golden glaze in the evening scenes. And yet, the graveyard scenes are even more awe inspiring, with their complex lighting by numerous flickering candles.
But all this would be in vain if the film’s story wasn’t good, as well. But ‘Coco’ can boast a story that is as entertaining as it is emotional. The story is rich and surprising and knows no dead moment at all. Sure, there are a few obligate scenes (like the breakup scene – omnipresent in American feature animation), but for once they do work. For example, the tiring family message, an obligatory Disney feature, is more interesting than usual, because Miguel’s family is actually hindering him in his dreams, and he can only reconcile with them after his family members have changed, too. The only complaints I have is that Miguel runs all too easily into his former ancestor, not only once, but twice. This is a coincidence too good to be true, and one hard to swallow. Moreover, it’s a quite unclear how the gentle romantic Hector changed into the opportunistic bum he apparently became in the afterworld.
The film boasts some great humor, too, for example Miguel runs into a skeleton nude, and there’s a great scene involving the deceased Frida Kahlo. Much of the humor comes from Hector’s antics, and of a street dog called Dante, which mysteriously follows Miguel into the afterlife (the Blu-Ray reveals that Dante is a so-called Xoloitzcuintle, a dog race traditionally guiding the dead to the Aztec underworld – when one sees the real thing one is amazed how well Dante resembles his real-life counterparts).
Less successful, especially in a film about the power of music, are the songs, with Miguel’s finale song being particularly annoying. But even the song ‘Remember me’, which takes a very important place in the story, is not half the classic song it supposed to be. That it’s sung in English instead of Spanish is a missed opportunity and contributes to the feeling of a deluded version of the real Ranchera thing.
Nevertheless, this is nit-picking, and these minor flaws hardly hamper a film, which is of a most magical nature. ‘Coco’ takes full advantage of the power of animation, and never ceases to amaze. The film is not only one of Pixar’s best films of the 2010s, but it should also be included into the studio’s all-time best list, as well as being one of the best films of the 2010s by any studio.
Watch the trailer for ‘Coco’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Coco’ is available on Blu-Ray and DVD
Directors: Charlie Bean, Paul Fisher & Bob Logan
Release date: September 22, 2017
Rating: ★★
Review:
One of the biggest feature animation surprises of 2014 was ‘The Lego Movie’. On paper this joint venture between Warner Animation and the famous toy company from Denmark should have been something terrible. After all, it was based on an existing toy line, a recipe for disaster. But the opposite happened and ‘The Lego Movie’ turned out to be one of the funniest, most sophisticated, and deepest animation film of the 21st century. The film was followed in 2017 by the equally funny ‘The Lego Batman Movie’, deepening the title character as he appeared in ‘The Lego Movie’. Warner Animation and Lego were clearly on a roll.
Or were they? Appearing in the very same year as ‘The Lego Batman Movie’, ‘The Lego Ninjago Movie’ uses several of the ingredients of the previous films, but with a remarkably disappointing result. True, there are some good gags, especially those referring to the characters being made of Lego, but more often such gags feel like they have been done before, and better. Even worse, compared to the two earlier films, both the story, the world and the characters are very weakly developed. Apparently, the film was based on a long-lasting television series, but the film hardly betrays that fact. Instead, the movie feels as only half-baked, and assembled too quickly for its own good.
The problems of ‘The Lego Ninjago Movie’ are legion. The film uses elements of both wuxia and mecha films, but can’t satisfy lovers of either genre, as the film makers do very little with these elements. The whole setting of Lloyd being both the leader of the Ninjago squad and the son of Garmadon, the very nemesis they continually combat, is preposterous to start with. That these Ninjago warriors are also some teenager friends at a high school (even though one is a robot) only adds to the implausibility. So does the fact that Garmadon has four hands. The plot gets particularly silly when ‘the monster’ arrives, but when the Ninjago squad goes on a quest in a forest, the film seriously starts to drag. The son-dad relationship becomes a tried and tiresome cliché, and halfway one realizes he doesn’t care for these characters, at all. And then the overlong finale must start, yet…
On the top side the film starts with Jackie Chan, who is always pleasant to watch, even though he’s completely wasted in this film. And the textures of the Lego elements are surprisingly good, rendering them very tactile, indeed. Moreover, the film makes some surprising and rather silly choices in its use of pop music. But it should be clear that none of this can rescue a sloppy, lazy film that seriously lacks the heart and attention given to the first two Lego movies.
Watch the trailer for ‘The Lego Ninjago Movie’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘The Lego Ninjago Movie’ is available on Blu-Ray and DVD
Director: Nora Twomey
Release date: September 8, 2017
Rating: ★★★★★
Review:
2017 was a good year for the animated feature film: Warner Bros., Dreamworks and the French Polivari and Panique studios gave us great laughs with ‘The Lego Batman Movie’, ‘Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie’, and ‘ Le grand méchant renard et autres contes…’ (The Big Bad Fox and Other Tales), respectively; Pixar amazed us with the magnificent ‘Coco’, and the Japanese Science Saru studio made quite an impression with the mind-blowing film‘Night Is Short, Walk on Girl’.
However, the most important and most moving animated feature film was the Irish-Canadian-Luxembourgian co-production ‘The Breadwinner’. This was the third feature by the Irish Cartoon Saloon studio, which can be regarded as the most welcome and most original studio additions to the animated feature field of the 21st century, thus far. The Breadwinner’ shares with their previous two films, ‘The Secret of Kells’ (2009) and ‘The ‘Song of the Sea’ (2014) a very charming traditional animation style, and a surprisingly graphic overall design, although the latter is rather toned down in ‘The Breadwinner‘ when compared to the earlier two movies. But unlike the other two, ‘The Breadwinner’ completely lacks the Irish flavor, being set in, of all places, Afghanistan.
Based on the book by Deborah Ellis from 2000 ‘The Breadwinner’ is set in Kabul, the unfortunate country’s capital during the first Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (better known as the Taliban regime, 1996-2001). By the time the film was made, this extremely oppressive regime was a ghost of the past, at least in Kabul (the Taliban never fully disappeared from the country), but sadly, since August 2021 this misogynist, backward movement is in full charge of the country, once again.
‘The Breadwinner’ makes no mistake how hard it is to live in such a violent, insecure country, where arbitrariness prevails, and where women have no rights, at all, whatsoever. The film follows the eleven-year-old Afghan girl Parvana, who lives with her disabled father, her mother, elder sister Soraya, and a baby brother called Zaki in a tiny house in Kabul. When the father gets arrested and thrown into a prison far outside town, the family quickly get into way more problems than they already had: as women cannot do anything outside without a man, their means to even obtain food completely come to a standstill. At this point Parvana takes an important decision to save her family’s life…
‘The Breadwinner’ is a very believable story, much more subtle than almost anything coming out of the United States. For example, the Afghan people are portrayed as real people, with a rich an ancient culture. Added to the sense of authenticity is the use of Afghan voices (except for the brabbling Zaki), while Mychael and Jeff Danna’s score clearly borrows from the Afghan musical tradition. Thus, the film’s Afghanistan is a convincing one, not a caricature seen through Western eyes. Moreover, although the film makes no mistake about the oppressive and misogynist nature of the Taliban regime, there are many shades of gray between the heroes and villains. Even the villain that causes Parvana’s family’s demise is shown in one last shot as not only evil, but insecure and afraid, too. Moreover, Parvana remains a relatable character, throughout. Despite her courage and adult responsibility, she remains a child, and is shown delighting in childish behavior, especially with her friend Shauzia.
Contrasted with Parvana’s dire circumstances are the images of a story she tells her beloved (her first audience is her baby brother, but she also tells the tale to others, and others even blend in, altering the direction of the story while doing so. These images are rendered in the most colorful, storybook illustration-like, faux cut-out animation, and tell about a boy who goes on a quest to retrieve his village’s seeds from an evil elephant king. This fantastical tale is picked up several times during the movie, and often reflects the events depicted in real life. Especially in the finale, in which the two seem to come together, this dual story telling comes to a harrowing conclusion.
As said, the film’s design is less graphic than that of Cartoon Saloon’s Celtic features. The background art is semi-realistic, with depressing greys, browns and yellows depicting the seemingly treeless town of Kabul. The character design is more graphic, with especially Zaki being an echo of the character designs from the earlier films. Noteworthy is the background art of a rather surreal scene in which Parvana and Shauzia are seen in a field full of abandoned tanks. The traditional animation is a delight, not only the very moving animation of the main characters, but also the cartoony quasi-cut-out animation of Parvana’s story. There’s only a little computer animation present, mostly for crowd scenes.
In all, ‘The Breadwinner’ is one of the best, most adult and most moving animation films to come out of any animation studio, and should be considered a modern classic.
According to director Nora Twomey ‘The Breadwinner’ may be set in Afghanistan but tells a universal story of all children growing up in oppressive countries, everywhere. Yet, we are still waiting for the animated depictions of their stories, while Afghanistan has been the subject of no less than three other animated feature films since then: ‘The Swallows of Kabul’ from 2019 and ‘My Sunny Maad’ and ‘Flee’ from 2021. Surely, the people of say North Korea, Syria, Eritrea, the Central African Republic, or Yemen deserve better.
Watch the trailer for ‘The Breadwinner’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘The Breadwinner’ is available on Blu-Ray and DVD
Director: Hiromasa Yonebayashi
Release date: July 8, 2017
Rating: ★★★½
Review:
‘Mary and the Witch’s Flower’ is the first film by Studio Ponoc, founded by Yoshiaki Nishimura, who was a producer for Studio Ghibli before. Director Hiromasa Yonebayashi, too, is a Studio Ghibli alumnus, being an animator for the famed studio since 1997, and directing the studio’s 21st feature film ‘When Marnie Was There’ (2014).
It comes to no surprise then that ‘Mary and the Witch’s Flower’ is very, very Ghibli-like. Already the packaging of the DVD would fool anyone. But the similarity doesn’t stop there: even the opening titles emulate Ghibli; the character designs, too, are very Ghibli-like; the film is based on a British children’s book, just like Ghibli’s ‘Howl’s Moving Castle’ (2004), ‘Arrietty’ (2010) and ‘When Marnie Was There’; the film stars a young female protagonist (Mary) who has to survive without her parents, just like ‘Kiki’s Delivery Service’ (1997), ‘Spirited Away’ (2001) and ‘From Up on Poppy Hill’ (2010); Mary is a witch like Kiki; she’s accompanied by a cat who plays an important part just like Kiki and like Shizuku in ‘Whisper of the Heart’ (1995), and the film is partly set in a fantasy world, just like ‘Spirited Away’.
Now, this is immediately the film’s main flaw: studio Ponoc imitates Ghibli very well but doesn’t bring anything original of its own. The final product is practically indistinguishable from the source of inspiration. That doesn’t mean, however, that ‘Mary and the Witch’s Flower’ is a bad movie. The story is told well enough, the animation is top notch, and the fantasy world looks great. I certainly had a good time watching it, and would recommend the movie to all lovers of the Studio Ghibli product. But Studio Ponoc’s debut could and should have been something much more of their own. If you compare, for example, ‘Mary and the Witch’s Flower’ to the idiosyncratic ‘Night Is Short, Walk on Girl’ from the same year, it becomes clear which studio brings something original to the world, and which one does not.
Watch the trailer for ‘Mary and the Witch’s Flower’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Mary and the Witch’s Flower’ is available on Blu-Ray and DVD
Directors: Patrick Imbert & Benjamin Renner
Release date: June 15, 2017
Rating: ★★★★★
Review:
One of the more pleasant developments of the 21st century was the coming of animated feature films, the whole purpose of which was to make people laugh. One could say this trend started off with the successful ‘South Park, Bigger, Longer & Uncut’ (1999), and like that film these films were mostly off-shoots from series (‘The Simpsons Movie’ and the Spongebob Squarepants movies from 2004, 2015 and 2021) or offshoots from other films (‘Minions’ from 2015, ‘The Lego Batman Movie’ from 2017).
But occasionally, a film comes to you, which is both very funny, and totally original, even if it’s based on an earlier comic strip, like the Franco-Belgian feature ‘Le grand méchant renard et autres contes…’. The film is co-directed by Benjamin Renner, one of the producers of the attractive, if flawed ‘Ernest et Célèstine’ from 2012, and the original author of the comic strip, ‘Le grand méchant renard et autres contes…’. . Both comic strip and movie aim for the laughs, and are highly successful at it, too.
The film is advertised as a children’s film, and it certainly is fit for all ages, but don’t let this fool you. There’s nothing childish about this film. Instead, we get high quality cartoon comedy, perfectly animated and perfectly timed.
Based on three separate stories, ‘Le grand méchant renard et autres contes…’ is an anthology film, bridged by the idea of a play performed by the main characters. As soon as the first tale starts, the backdrop changes into the scenery in which all three stories take place: a farm in the countryside.
In the first film a stork talks a pig, a duck, and a rabbit into delivering a baby for him to his parents. Unfortunately, the baby must be delivered in faraway Avignon, and sadly for the pig both the duck and the rabbit are as incapable as they are optimistic. This tale is chockfull of cartoon slapstick, as the duck and the rabbit keep on thinking more and more outlandish schemes to deliver the baby, while the pig desperately tries to keep the little one safe.
The next story is a little cuter and involves a totally inept fox who teams up with a lazy and selfish wolf. The wolf talks the fox into stealing some eggs to raise them into fat chickens, but of course the fox grows attached to the little ones. Nevertheless, this tale, too, moves and shifts into surprising directions, and is less straightforward than this summary.
The third and final story is a genuine Christmas story, which sees the happy return of the pig, duck, and rabbit trio of the first part. This time, duck and rabbit think they’ve killed Father Christmas, and make resolutions to deliver the presents themselves… General mayhem is ensured.
The film uses a very charming drawing style, which like the earlier ‘Ernest et Célèstine’ consists of watercolor backgrounds and fake watercolor-coloring of characters, open lines and appealing character designs, which more or less fit in a long and diverse Franco-Belgian cartoon style tradition. The film is continuously pleasant to look at, and the attractive score, by Robert Marcel Lepage, adds to the film’s charm, as well. Scored for a small ensemble, Lepage makes excellent use of some familiar themes, like the morning theme from Giachino Rossini’s Overture ‘William Tell’, the wolf theme from Sergei Prokofiev’s ‘Peter and the Wolf’, and in the last story, ‘Jingle Bells’.
In all, ‘Le grand méchant renard et autres contes…’ once again shows that France is one of the most interesting animation film-producing countries around. Recommended to all.
Watch the trailer for Le grand méchant renard et autres contes… (The Big Bad Fox and Other Tales) yourself and tell me what you think:
Le grand méchant renard et autres contes… (The Big Bad Fox and Other Tales) is available on Blu-Ray and DVD
Directors: Pierre Coffin & Kyle Balda
Release date: June 14, 2017
Rating: ★★★
Review:
The third installment of the Despicable Me franchise (not counting the spin-off ‘Minions‘ from 2015) is also the weakest of the trio. Like the other two the film is a fun ride, full of humor and action, but this time the film makers simply wanted to tell too much in one film. There are no less than six plot lines in this film divided over different main characters.
The first, and most enjoyable one considers Gru and his apparent arch nemesis Evil Bratt, a former child-actor from the 1980s gone bad. Evil Bratt, excellently voiced by Trey Parker of South Park fame, is a delightful villain, and the film makers indulge in 1980s tropes to make this character. For example, Evil Bratt sports a mustache and a mullet, and his weapons are based e.g., on bubblegum, Rubik’s cube, and a keytar. Moreover, whenever he appears, he’s accompanied by a 1980s hit, e.g., ‘Jump’ by Van Halen, ‘Take on Me’ by A-Ha, ‘Into the Groove’ by Madonna, and even ’99 Luftballons’ by German star Nena. The film immediately starts with this character, and it’s thanks to this wonderful villain that ‘Despicable me 3’ keeps on the right side between failure and entertainment, if barely so.
Much less interesting are the other story lines: Gru and Lucy are fired, and Gru desperately tries to get his former job back. In a third and totally unexpected twist Gru suddenly discovers he has a twin brother (also voiced by Steve Carrell, voice of Gru), who wants to be a villain, like Gru used to be, but who clearly lacks the skills. The fourth story line involves the minions, who walk out of Gru, a fifth involves Agnes (the youngest of Gru’s three adopted children) and her wish to see a unicorn. And the sixth is about Lucy, and how she tries to be a substitute mom for the girls, especially to Margo, the eldest of the three.
Now, the first three plot lines, all involving Gru, at least intertwine into one, albeit rather loose narrative, but the other three feel forced and superfluous: they’re only there to give the other characters something to do. And even then, Judith, the middle one, is lost in the plot.
Much of the action takes place in ‘Freedonia’ (a clear nod to the Marx Brothers), while the finale takes place in Hollywood. Freedonia clearly is modelled as some French Mediterranean island, and betrays the Illumination studio’s French origin.
The character animation, like in the other installments, is delightfully cartoony and over the top, and better suited for the broad comedy than for the more subtle moments, and only Margo is animated straight, acting like a normal girl, and not like a cartoon character. By now, the effect animation is so good that one hardly notices. For example, the water and smoke animation is excellent and feels so natural, one easily forgets it’s animated, too. I also liked how the film makers made the 1980s Evil Bratt episodes look like old video recordings. The cinematography, too, is top notch, throughout.
But all the quality cannot rescue an overcrowded film that scores high on action, but very low on originality and heart. There’s even an obligatory breakup scene, which feels extra unnecessary, because it lasts so shortly. ‘Despicable Me 3’ is well made, but also mediocre, and with the exception of Evil Bratt, forgettable.
Watch the trailer for ‘Despicable Me 3’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Despicable Me 3’ is available on Blu-Ray and DVD
Director: Brian Fee
Release date: March 28, 2017
Rating: ★★★
Review:
‘Cars’ was the first Pixar film after Toy Story to get a sequel in 2011. Unfortunately, ‘Cars 2’ was as much as a digression from the original narrative as it was disappointing. With ‘Cars 3’ the studio returned to the original source material, once again focusing on Lightning McQueen.
The film takes a brave step in showing the effects of getting older and realizing that you’re not young anymore, and thus is a film more appealing to parents than to youngsters. The whole idea of characters getting older is a bold one in animation land, and the film does a good job in the depiction of passing the torch from one generation to a new one.
Unfortunately, Lightning McQueen never was a wholly sympathetic character, and he certainly isn’t in this film. When his reign on the racetrack is threatened by a new generation of rookies, he desperately tries to stay in place. But his reckless and selfish behavior leads to disaster, and when he’s offered a training program, he’s too impatient and too self-centered to follow the rules, wrecking some expensive equipment and putting his younger trainer into danger.
In fact, this trainer, the female car Cruz Ramirez (wonderfully voiced by Cristela Alonzo), by far is the most interesting character of the movie. She’s apparently from a humbler background and shows McQueen that some people must struggle hard to achieve the confidence and success he took for granted. But the film is not her story, and this important message is pushed aside by McQueen’s struggle with his own ageing and mortality.
In this, the film relies heavily on McQueen’s relation to his own mentor, Doc Hudson. This character was voiced by Paul Newman, who passed away in 2008, so his dialogue comes from unused recordings for the first film. This mentor-theme is pushed rather forcefully and heavy-handedly into the story, with a series of flashbacks in which McQueen realizes how he has mistreated Cruz as a low point of stating the obvious.
Moreover, for a large part the film blindly follows the rules of the sports film, with an unlikely outsider winning from the established and unsympathetic competitor thanks to an unconventional training scheme. This training part, under the auspices of Smokey, Doc Hudson’s former partner, is by far the weakest part of the film. This cliché path fills most of the second part of the film, hampering a story that could have been more daring and more original.
The characters from the first film are hardly present in ‘Cars 3’. Even Mater’s role is surprisingly modest, considering he was the leading character of ‘Cars 2’. Especially disappointing is the role of Sally, McQueen’s girlfriend. In fact, McQueen hardly behaves as if he were in a relationship, at all. There’s no conflict at all between him and Sally when he goes training at the other side of the continent, nor when he sees the younger woman Cruz more than he sees her. This somehow feels like a missed opportunity.
Meanwhile, the effect animation, the background art, the scene setting, and lighting are all of the highest quality. The world building of ‘Cars 3’ feels so effortlessly, one can focus on the characters and forget how well it is done. In fact, the character animation of the cars themselves remain the weakest element of the animation, as the car-living-being-combination remains a bit uncanny and unconvincing, with those large continuous eyes filling the front window, and those odd mouths in the bumper regions.
‘Cars 3’ pleasantly rounds up McQueen’s story, from an all too hasty rookie in ‘Cars’ to a veteran who realizes his days are over, but who manages to pass his knowledge to a new generation. I certainly hope Pixar does not make the same mistake as with ‘Toy Story’ and leaves the franchise with a perfect ending after three films.
Watch the trailer for ‘Cars 3’ yourself and tell me what you think:
Director: David Soren
Release date: May 21, 2017
Rating: ★★★★★
Review:
In Captain Underpants two boys, George Beard and Harold Hutchins, write and draw comic book stories together. Unfortunately, their elementary school is the dullest, most depressing place on earth, thanks to the mean principal, Mr. Krupp. But then one day, somehow their comic book hero, Captain Underpants, comes alive, and he is even dumber than George and Harold had imagined…
This movie was one of the surprises of 2017. I saw this movie in a plane, not expecting much from a film with such a childish title, but boy, was I pleasantly surprised! Compared to this film most of the American computer-animated output of the 2010s feels pretty generic. Dreamworks’ ‘Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie’, on the other hand, boasts visuals that are incomparable to any other animated feature.
Moreover, the film’s story is delightfully unpredictable, and knows neither dull moment nor any of the cliches invading almost every American animated feature of the era. Even the moral, the value of laughter and that of friendship, is played rather casually, and never takes over from the sheer mayhem put on the screen. On the contrary, a lot of what’s happening on the screen is pleasantly over the top. I liked the use of Yello’s song ‘Oh Yeah’ when the two children make a particularly cool entrance, and when later an Einstein-like villain from ‘New Switzerland’ joins in, mayhem is ensured.
Most of the film is genuinely silly, and even though its target audience obviously is about as old as George and Harold, the film is enjoyable to everyone. What certainly helps is the great voice cast. Both George and Harold are voiced by adults (Kevin Hart and Thomas Middleditch), and Ed Helms does a great job as both Mr. Krupp and Captain Underpants. It’s also interesting to note that Mr. Krupp isn’t only bad, he’s depicted as a shy and lonesome human, too.
Of course, much of the charm of ‘Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie’ comes from the original source material, the illustrated children’s book series by American author and illustrator Dav Pilkey, which already counted twelve volumes by the time this movie was made. The film is apparently based on the first and fourth volume first four volumes [thanks Jonathan Wilson for the correction]. During production Pilkey worked closely together with director David Soren, and that certainly has paid off.
The film has translated Pilkey’s charming drawing style into 3D computer animation surprisingly well. What’s better, several parts are animated in 2D, in the children’s comic book style, there’s even a sequence in cut-out animation. Even the animation during the end titles is nice to watch. But the most outlandish sequence comes when Harold’s imagination of the future runs away with him. This scene was done by Screen Novelties in live action, with sock puppets, with hilarious results.
In all, ‘Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie’ is a pleasant and very welcome diversion from Dreamworks, and one of the best animated movies of 2017, which with e.g., ‘Coco’ and ‘The Breadwinner’ was a strong animated feature year, anyway.
Watch the trailer for the ‘Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie’ is available on Blu-Ray and DVD
Director: Masaaki Yuasa
Release date: April 7, 2017
Rating: ★★★★★
Review:
Japan knows several distinguished animation directors, from Hayao Miyazaki to Mamoru Hosoda, but perhaps no feature director* is so original as Masaaki Yuasa. He created quite a stir with ‘Mind Game’ (2004) and kept on pouring out original work since then.
What’s striking about Yuasa’s films is that they don’t follow the general anime aesthetic, at all, on the contrary. ‘Night Is Short, Walk on’ is an excellent example in that respect. This mind-blowing feature film boasts human designs that are very different from your typical anime, highly original color schemes, more offbeat background art, interludes in a line-less style with vibrant digital coloring, wild, even grotesque animation (for example, watch people swallow in the first scene), and a highly original, almost stream-of-consciousness-like way of storytelling, using unpredictable editing techniques, and an occasional split screen, surprising camera angles, extreme perspectives, and moving background art, when necessary (there’s a very impressive example when Senpai runs up an exterior staircase).
Apart from Yuasa’s way of storytelling the plot of ‘Night Is Short, Walk on’ is highly original in its own right. The two main protagonists don’t even have names but are referred to as Otome (maiden) and Senpa (senior). We follow the two for one night, a night in which apparently anything can happen. Otome, a young woman, is ready to discover the adult world, while Senpa, who’s madly in love with her, has decided to finally express his feelings to her. Meanwhile, during this one night, both people meet a plethora of strange people, bizarre situations, and odd gatherings in a free-flowing narrative that nevertheless can be cut into four parts, which naturally flow into each other. Nevertheless, it’s best not to know anything about the plot, and just let it come to you. You’ll be in for quite a ride. What’s more, despite all its weirdness, ‘Night Is Short, Walk on Girl’ is essentially a film about love, and unexpectedly gentle despite all the mayhem surrounding the main story.
Surprisingly for such a visually stunning film, ‘Night Is Short, Walk on Girl’ is based on a novel, by Tomihiko Morimi. His novel was divided into four seasons, which explains the high number of events in the film version. Morimi was also responsible for the novel on which Yuasa’s earlier series ‘The Tatami Galaxy’ (2010) was based, and the series and ‘Night Is Short, Walk on Girl’ are very similar in visual style and general atmosphere.
In all ‘Night Is Short, Walk on Girl’ is hardly like anything you’ve seen before, and a great testimony of what can be done in animation. In my opinion this is one of the most important animation films of the decade. Highly recommended.
* There are also several highly original independent Japanese directors of shorts, e.g. Kōji Yamamura, Atsushi Wara & Mirai Mizue. Check them out!
Watch the trailer for ‘Night Is Short, Walk on Girl’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Night Is Short, Walk on Girl’ is available on Blu-Ray and DVD
Director: Chris McKay
Release date: January 29, 2017
Rating: ★★★★★
Review:
After the successful and surprisingly intelligent ‘The Lego Movie’ it was only natural for Warner Bros. to make another Lego themed movie. This time they took the character of Batman, who also co-stars ‘The Lego Movie’ and made the dark knight the star of a very funny sequel.
Compared to ‘The Lego Movie’, ‘The Lego Batman Movie’ is less deep and less layered, and the film wears its family theme on its sleeve, but like ‘The Lego Movie’ this sequel is really, really funny. The film makers play with all the batman tropes, and never take the superhero too seriously. In that respect, the film immediately starts off greatly, with Batman himself commenting on the opening titles. Another hilarious scene arrives a little bit later when we watch Batman waiting for the microwave.
Batman is a superhero, but pretty much a loser, as well. In fact, during most of the film, Batman is an ass, more of a self-centered, egotistic obligate loner than the usual tormented superhero. The Joker, too, is not just a supervillain, but one who longs for a special love-hate relationship with his foe. The film also introduces Robin and kickass female character Barbara Gordon (who’ll later turn into Batgirl). Part of the success of all these characters and how they are presented lies in the great voice acting. Especially, Will Arnett is a treat as the over-serious, pompous, self-important gravelling voice of Batman himself. Zach Galifianakis is a surprisingly emotional Joker, while Michael Cera shines as the overenthusiastic, geeky Robin. Rosario Dawson gives us a strong Barbara Gordon, and Ralph Fiennes a worthy Alfred, Batman’s butler.
Apart from the family theme, the plot revolves around the Joker letting all supervillains free from the Phantom Zone (a prison inside another dimension, borrowed from the Superman world). Because the film makers could browse the complete Warner Bros. catalogue, the villains include King Kong, the Wicked Witch from the West, Sauron, Voldemort, the Gremlins, the dinosaurs from Jurassic Park, Agent Smith from ‘The Matrix’, and the Dalek from Dr. Who. Like Batman none of these villains are treated with respect. For example, the Dalek are introduced as “British Robots! (ask your nerd friends)”.
Being a Lego movie, the character animation is pretty jumpy, while some of the special effects are done in Lego, too (flames, lava). But both the world building, the textures, the lighting and camera movements are top notch, and together with Lorne Balfe’s epic score contribute to the action part of the movie. The result is a deft combination of exciting adrenaline-rich action and plain silliness. In any case, the film moves at a reckless speed, pouring gags over the audience almost non-stop, while retaining the family theme at heart. Even if it’s not as good as ‘The Lego Movie’ was, this is a fun film all the way. In fact, I prefer ‘The Lego Batman’ over the all too dark and serious recent Batman movies any time.
Watch the trailer for the ‘The Lego Batman Movie’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘The Lego Batman Movie’ is available on Blu-Ray and DVD
Director: Bibo Bergeron
Release date: October 12, 2011
Rating: ★★★½
Review:
‘Un monstre à Paris’ is a charming and friendly French computer animation film by Bibo Bergeron who not only directed the film, but also wrote both the story and the screenplay.
The film is set in Paris in the winter of 1910 when the river Seine caused an enormous flood in the French capital. During this winter small and timid projectionist Émile and brassy, irresponsible delivery driver and inventor Raoul create a monster by accident. But cabaret singer Lucille discovers that this monster has surprising talents. Meanwhile, arrogant, and ambitious police commissioner Victor Maynott has his own plans with both Lucille, the monster, and the Great Flood. There’s also a proboscis monkey called Charles, who talks with reference cards, an idea that also occurs in Aardman’s ‘The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists!’ from a year later.
‘Un monstre à Paris’ knows quite a number of characters and has arguably three main protagonists. But Bergeron plays out his story surprisingly well, giving ample time and background stories to all three of them, even if the one of Raoul and Lucille only arrives during the end titles. The film is very talkative, but not too much so, and has its focus and heart firm in place. The action and drama are further ornamented with several little gags, which never ask too much attention. The best gag may be when Maynott’s balloon starts to lose helium.
In fact, Bergeron envisioned the city of Paris as the film’s main character, and indeed, the movie uses wonderful images of the great city, not only in computer animation, but also by classic matte paintings. Bergeron’s Paris, realized by Sébastian Piquet, is crooked, asymmetrical, and rather ramshackle character, which is always pleasant to look at. In addition, in several scenes the metropolis is clouded in mist, which give the backgrounds and settings an extra poetical atmosphere. Moreover, Bergeron’s Paris is a very, very familiar Paris, also to people who’ve never been there: the film takes mostly place in Montmartre, with the finale taking place on the Eiffel tower, both locations well-known to almost everyone.
Christophe Lourdelet’s character designs are a bit of a mixed bag: the male characters are all firmly rooted in the Franco-Belgian comic tradition, especially Raoul and inspector Pâté. The women Lucille and Maud (Émile’s love interest) on the other hand, have more generic 3D computer animation designs, with all too large eyes and all too slender bodies. The monster is well-designed, being both large and overpowering and delicate and friendly. He looks best when given an Aristide Bruant-like hat and shawl. In that respect the later zoot suit is way off for a film set in 1910.
The animation, directed by Fabrice Joubert, is fair, but not outstanding, and although the film makers are very proud of the dance scenes, the dance moves herein come over as stiff and unnatural. Worse are Lucille’s performances of the song ‘La Seine’. It seems the film makers didn’t know what to do with her long slender arms, which are all over the place. Compare the animation of Lucille with Preston Blair’s animation of Red in e.g., ‘Red Hot Riding Hood’ (1943) and the difference between an approximation of natural movement and natural song and dance animation becomes clear. The effect animation, on the other hand is fine: the water, the clouds and the mist all look very fine.
The songs are quite out of tune with the otherwise faithful 1910 setting, being all too modern and typical products of 2011, not 1910. Composer M (Matthieu Chedid) also provides the monster’s voice, singing in a very high voice, apparently to accentuate the creature’s innocent, childish and fragile nature. Lucille is lovely voiced by Belgian singer Vanessa Paradis of Eurovision Song Contest fame, and her rendering of ‘La Seine’ is very pleasant, even if the song doesn’t sound like a French cabaret song of the 1910s, at all.
In all, ‘Un monstre à Paris’ is not perfect, but certainly well-told and entertaining. The film may be more conventional than contemporary French films like ‘Une vie de chat’ (2010), ‘Le tableau’ (2011) or ‘Ernest & Célestine’ (2012), it still shows the extraordinary rich breeding ground of animation that France has been in the 21st century thus far.
Watch the trailer for ‘A Monster in Paris’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘A Monster in Paris’ is available on Blu-Ray and DVD
Directors: Kresten Vestbjerg Andersen, Thorbjørn Christoffersen & Philip Einstein Lipski
Release date: September 29, 2011
Rating: ★★★
Review:
Arguably the least serious animated feature to be released in 2011 is a surprising little entry from Denmark called ‘Ronal the Barbarian’. The film is set in a bare fantasy world called ‘Metallonia’, and makes fun of many sword and sorcery tropes, as well as ‘Lord of the Rings’ and several leather metal cliches from the early eighties. Especially fans of Judas Priest should be delighted. In this respect, the end song accompanying the end titles is one of the film’s highlights, spoofing e.g. Led Zeppelin and Queen.
With its men walking around in tiny strings, with its lusty amazonians, with an oracle on a toilet, and with its many references to sex this could be a film too immature for its own good, but actually, the film makers play their story surprisingly straight, and despite all the parody and nonsense the film does have heart. It does help that fun is made of both male and female characters, and neither the overblown machos nor the incapable amazonians can be taken too seriously.
‘Ronal the Barbarian’ tells about Ronal, the only barbarian of ‘the tribe of Kron’ to be feeble, cowardly, and weak. When on one day his whole tribe is kidnapped and taken away, he must go on a dreaded quest, helped by an oversexed teenager bard called Alibert, by a very strong and heroic “shield maiden” called Zandra, and by a rather silly hippie-like elf called Elric.
Unfortunately, the characters are little more than vignettes. Ronal, to begin with, has little to counter his weakness. He seems to be a bit smarter than his fellow tribe members, but he’s far from cunning, and certainly not instantly likeable: during the first half of the film, he’s often whining and moaning, which makes the budding love story between him and Zandra hard to believe. Ronal’s transition to a more heroic character is more believable, especially because he remains clumsy and weak until the very end.
Alibert, too, is a character on the shallow side: his interest in dames is practically his only character trait, but he fails as comic relief, but not as a friend. In the end, he is as loyal to Ronal as Sam to Frodo. Elric isn’t a round character at all, but a pure caricature of everything elfish as depicted in Peter Jackson’s ‘The Lord of the Rings’ trilogy. Most interesting of the four is shield maiden Zandra, because she must deal with a tradition that is a curse to her. Zandra’s subplot is vital to the film and make it into a deeper product than could be expected.
Unfortunately, Zandra is not designed too well. Her eyes remind too often those of South Park characters, and as she’s depicted as being quite stout and clearly older than the puny Ronal, making their romance less likely, again.
The quest story ticks all the familiar boxes: there’s an evil and almost invincible opponent, there’s a heavily guarded hidden kingdom, there’s a legend important to the plot, and there’s even room for the all too obligate breakup scene so common in animation films these years. And, of course, Ronal does grow into the hero he has to be in the end. But I must say the film makers tell their tale well, and there are no dead points or superfluous scenes during the film whatsoever. The focus stays with Ronal most of the time, and even when it doesn’t, the scenes still serve the plot completely.
For a European film the 3D computer animation is fair, if not outstanding. The rendering is on the poor side, but it does its job, and the world building is convincing enough for the story. The animation, too, is most of the time okay if nothing to write home about. Especially the animation on lesser characters is visibly mediocre, and there’s little character animation, although the animators do their best in two scenes in which the thought processes of respectively Ronal and Zandra are depicted. But, as most of the action is far from serious, and even rather silly, most of the animation does its job quite nicely. Like the designs, the animation is often broad and jerky, enhancing the comic effect. The effect animation itself, too, is excellent, and helps the world building a lot, especially during the finale.
‘Ronal the Barbarian’ is no masterpiece, but as said, the film is told well, and accounts for 90 minutes of pure fine entertainment. It’s no more than that, but the film clearly doesn’t aspire to. So I’d say: quest fulfilled!
Watch the trailer for ‘Ronal the Barbarian’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Ronal the Barbarian’ is available on Blu-Ray and DVD
Director: Hiroyuki Okiura
Release date: September 10, 2011
Rating: ★★★★★
Review:
To me the Japanese Production I.G. studio is a company hard to grasp what it’s about. Since 1987 the studio produces television series, OVAs, feature films, video games and even music. With its vast production quantity seems more important than quality, and production more important than vision or style. For example, of its fifty plus feature films only a very few created a stir in the West, and these are as diverse as ‘Ghost in the Shell’ (1995), ‘Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade’ (2000), ‘Giovanni’s Island’ (2014) and ‘Miss Hokusai’ (2015).
Of all these ‘A Letter to Momo’ comes closest to an author film. The film was conceived, written and directed by Hiroyuki Okiura, after he had directed the widely acclaimed ‘Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade’. The whole film took a staggering seven years to make, but the amount of work visibly pays off, because ‘A Letter to Momo’ can be placed among the best films ever to come out of Japan, being on the same level as the best from Ghibli, Momaru Hosoda or Makoto Shinkai. It’s therefore highly incomprehensible that the film remains Okiura’s only own creation.
‘A Letter to Momo’ takes place in one hot summer on the island, and tells about Momo, an eleven year old girl whose father has unexpectedly died, and who moves with her mother Ikuko from buzzling Tokyo to the place of her mother’s roots: a quiet rural town on the remote Osaki Shimojima island, somewhere Southeast of Hiroshima in the Seto inland sea. Both events are clearly traumatic experiences to the young teenager, who remains shy, stubborn, withdrawn, and taciturn, despite her mother’s efforts to befriend her with the local children, who surely are willing enough to let her join their group. These early scenes are shown on a leisurely speed, depicting Momo’s boredom, isolation, and loneliness very well.
But things get worse, Momo’s new home turns out to be haunted: there are voices in the attic, and some vague creature seems to follow her mom when she’s off to work. Soon, a trio of goblins manifest themselves to the young girl, and she has a hard time getting used to their presence. During the movie she must learn to live with them, and she finally figures out why they are there in the first place.
The fantasy sequences with the three dimwitted goblins are fun, but throughout the movie Momo’s emotions remain central to the story, especially the loss Momo experiences after her father’s death, her relationship with her mother, who’s also grief-stricken, and her slow opening to the island children. A recurring metaphor of Momo’s transition from being shy, miserable, and scared to a teenager capable of enjoying life once again is shown in a few swimming scenes, in which the island children jump from a high bridge into the sea.
The human drama and the fantasy finally come together in a breathtaking finale when a typhoon visits the island. This sequence is the most Ghibli-like of the whole film. This is the dramatic highlight of a film that otherwise remains modest in how it tells its sweet and moving tale.
The looks of ‘A Letter to Momo’ are no less than gorgeous. The film boasts a rather unique style, with a very high level of realism. The drawings are exceptional for their surprisingly attractive and very thin line work, and the animation, supervised by Masashi Ando, is no less than excellent. Especially, the command of the human form is breathtaking. It apparently took four years to animate the complete film, but every animation drawing of Momo and her mother is a beauty to look at, and absolutely conveys a wide range of emotions and expressions, rarely resorting to anime cliches, if ever. For example, it’s startling to watch someone cough as realistically as Ikuko does in this film. ‘A Letter to Momo’ is also one of those rare Japanese animation film in which the characters actually do look Japanese, with black hair, porcelain to yellow-brown skins and eyes of more realistic proportions than usually encountered in anime.
The background art, supervised by Hiroshi Ôno (who previously worked on ‘Kiki’s Delivery Service’) is gorgeous, too. It does not deviate from artwork of other Japanese animation films, but again, its level of realism is staggering. The documentary on the Blu-Ray I have of this film shows pictures of the real thing, and the film makers have captured the island of Osaki Shimojima astonishingly well. Moreover, they’ve managed to do so, while keeping the background paintings very attractive and always in service of the animated action. There’s a small dose of computer animation, which always remains modest and functional (a boat, a fan, some moving background art), and which doesn’t disrupt the graphic quality of the film.
In all, ‘A Letter to Momo’ is a heart-warming tale on loss and grief, very well made and one of the most gorgeous animation films to come out of Japan to look at. Highly recommended.
Watch the trailer for ‘A Letter to Momo’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘A Letter to Momo’ is available on Blu-Ray and DVD
Director: Oh Sung-Yoon
Release date: July 28, 2011
Rating: ★★★
Review:
I once grabbed a copy of this film from a Tesco’s in Northern Ireland because it looked visually interesting. But I must be one of the very few people who have seen this movie: the film remains totally obscure: I’ve never encountered this feature on any animation festival, review site or such, and it’s not even getting 1000 viewers on the IMDb. This film certainly deserves better, as we shall see below.
‘Daisy, a Hen into the Wild’ turns out to be a Korean film: it was made by Lotte Entertainment and Myung Films, both based in South Korea, and indeed the film’s visuals are a strange mix of Western and Eastern tropes. Especially the character designs are a mixed bag, with some animals looking very Disneyesque (e.g., the little Duckling), others genuinely Asian (e.g., the barnyard ducks and the otter mayor). Most ridiculous is the heroic gander Wilson, who’s a strange combination of a duck and a handsome anime hero, with a waving hairdo.
Nevertheless, ‘Daisy a Hen into the Wild’ is a very attractive film to look at. The coloring is bold and glowing, with bright oranges and greens popping from the screen. Moreover, all characters have an airbrushed coloring, rendering them soft and rich in color. Even better is the background art, which consist of soft, poetical story book-like painting, unlike anything you’ll encounter in either American or Japanese cinema. In fact, the background painting style reminded me most of Jimmy Murakami’s films based on Raymond Briggs’s stories. Some of this background art is extraordinarily beautiful and a real feast to the eye. The animation is of a high level, too, if not too outstanding, often strangely blending naturalism with both Disneyesque character animation and Japanese anime animation styles. There’s a splash of functional computer animation, most interesting when showing moving sceneries.
The story is very surprising, too, and unlike any American animation film. The story takes place within one year, and tells about Daisy, one of countless hens in a battery cage. Daisy’s clearly pining away in this depressing environment. At the start of the movie, she looks sickly and sad, and yearning for the outside world, especially that of some prime fowl that can walk the barnyard freely. At one point she plays dead to escape. The escape succeeds, but if you’d think this would be a film on freedom, you’re mistaken.
It soon becomes clear the loud and naïve Daisy is ill-suited for the outside world. The barnyard fowl expels her and there’s a one-eyed weasel roaming about. Luckily, the gander Wilson helps her, as does the otter, mayor of a large pond, even though the waterfowl despise the newcomer, too. Then things take an unexpected dramatic turn, and the Daisy’s tale becomes one of motherhood, selflessness and even sacrifice.
It’s best not to reveal too much, for this film’s story takes surprising directions up to a final twist unheard of in any animation film from the Western world. For example, Daisy faces some real limits to her possibilities in the outside world, so unlike the limitless American Dream so often depicted in American animated cinema. Even if she wanted to, she can’t be everything she wants to be, and part of the film is about making brave decisions, nonetheless. The only cliché part all too familiar to Western eyes is that of an outsider winning an important competition.
The story is surprisingly serious, and the film contains very little comic relief (only in the form of the otter and some of the barnyard fowl). The Korean makers don’t shun the cruelty of nature and show that every creature has its own very good reasons for what it does, even if it’s killing other species. And they’re able to do so in a moving tale with an attractive visual design.
In all, ‘Daisy, a Hen into the Wild’ is an original and unconventional film that deserves to be seen more. The movie shows that South Korea can have a strong own voice in the animation world, independent of either Western or Japanese animation traditions, or least blending these to a unique style of its own.
Watch the trailer for ‘Daisy, a Hen into the Wild’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Daisy, a Hen into the Wild’ is available on DVD
Director: Gorō Miyazaki
Release date: July 17, 2011
Rating: ★★★★
Review:
Like ‘Ocean Waves’ (1993) and ‘Whisper of the Heart‘ (1995) ‘From Up on Poppy Hill’ is one of those Ghibli films that could do well without animation. There’s no fantasy or metamorphosis around. Instead, the film is a modest little human drama. In fact, the film has much in common with the two earlier Ghibli features. Like ‘Whisper of the Heart’ ‘From Upon Poppy Hill’ has a female teenager star, and like ‘Ocean Waves’ there’s a strong air of nostalgia pervading the movie, especially in the gorgeous and evocative background art.
‘From Upon Poppy Hill’ takes place in harbor town Yokohama, somewhere between 1961 and 1963, before the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo and after the release of the melancholic song ‘I Look Up as I Walk’ by Japanese crooner Kyu Sakamoto, which is heard several times during the movie, and which even became famous in the West back then, with the silly and out-of-place title ‘the Sukiyaki song’.
‘From Upon Poppy Hill’ focuses on teenager Umi Matsuzaki who lives with her grandmother and little brother at a boarding house with five female boarders, for whom Umi cooks breakfast and dinner. Umi’s mother is a professor, who’s abroad most of the time, while her father, a seafarer, has died in the Korean war (1950-1953). Each day Umi raises some signal flags in remembrance of her father. These are seen by Shun Kazama, a schoolmate who works at a tugboat. Both Umi and Shun thus are hard working children, so typical for the Ghibli studio.
The story focuses on the love that grows between Umi and Shun, and some unforeseen complications it raises. But there’s also an important subplot in which Shun and his fellow students try to protect their old club house called ‘The Latin Quarter’ against demolishing. Only when Umi starts to help, leading an army of female students, the protest gains momentum. The clubhouse scenes provide some comic relief in an otherwise emotional deep and heart-breaking story of friendship, love, and loss.
It’s impressive how the film makers show the emotions in the subtlest of ways. For example, at one point Shun evades Umi’s presence, but we see her reaction to this neglect only sparingly on her face, and with the slightest of actions. Thus, when Umi finally lets her emotions flow, it hits the viewer all the harder.
Hayao Miyazaki’s son Gorō Miyazaki does an excellent job as a director, and the animation is top notch, especially on the main characters. There are a few flashback scenes and there’s a short dream sequence, but otherwise there’s a strong unity of time and place, with all the action taking place in only a few settings and in a limited time frame. The film thus stays focused all the time, even when showing minor deviations from the main plot, like one of the boarders leaving the house.
In all, ‘From Upon Poppy Hill’ may be a modest film, in its emotional depth it’s in no way less impressive than the studio’s more outlandish masterpieces like ‘Spirited Away’ (2001) or ‘Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea’ (2008). Highly recommended.
Watch the trailer for ‘From Up on Poppy Hill’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘From Up on Poppy Hill’ is available on Blu-Ray and DVD
Director: John Lasseter
Release date: June 24, 2011
Rating: ★★½
Review:
During the 2000s the Pixar studio without doubt was the leading American animation studio, pushing the envelope with classics like ‘Monsters, Inc.’ (2001), ‘Finding Nemo’ (2003), ‘The Incredibles’ (2004) and ‘Wall-E’ (2008). The 2010s, however, were a different affair, with the studio releasing a few disappointing originals (‘Brave’ from 2012 and ‘The Good Dinosaur’ from 2015), while regressing to a depressingly large number of sequels (seven out of eleven releases). Now, if they were all as good as ‘Toy Story 3’ (2010), then this would be a rather minor problem, but this is not a case.
‘Cars 2’ is the sad herald of the new era. Sure, the film knows high production values, boasting overwhelming visuals, fast cutting, professional cinematography, and storytelling, capable character animation etc. etc., but for the Pixar studio the film feels disappointingly unambitious and empty. Now, ‘Cars’ (2006) itself was the weakest feature of the 2000s, but commercially it was highly successful, not in the least in the merchandize area. So, it was a likely candidate for a sequel.
In retrospect, ‘Cars’ was a modest affair, with its rural setting. ‘Cars 2’on the other hand takes place all over the globe, with alternate versions of Tokyo, Paris, Italy (the fictive ‘Porto Corsa’) and London. These settings are highly colorful, but feel rather plastic and never become entirely convincing (for example, what’s the function of a Notre Dame in the Cars world? Even if a Pope Cars does exist as we can see in one of the scenes in Italy). The plot, too, is outrageously outlandish, modeled on the James Bond films and starring a British spy car called Finn McMissile (Michael Caine), who accidentally recruits Mater, whom he thinks is an American spy.
Thus ‘Cars 2’ is Mater’s film. There’s a minor subplot featuring Mater’s and Lightning McQueen’s friendship being put to the test, and indeed, this forms the rather shallow ‘heart’ of the film, and provides the film’s moral messages (e.g., by McQueen himself in the 84th minute), but this weakly developed plot cannot compete against the spy plot extravaganza. Mater blunders through the spy plot like a rather lame car version of Inspector Clouseau, but his knowledge of old cars does come in handy, and in the end Mater turns out to be less dimwitted than everybody thought.
Now, Mater is little more than comic relief, and one hardly relates to him, even if he’s more sympathetic than Lightning McQueen ever was (and McQueen certainly isn’t in this film). Unfortunately, Mater’s antics are rather tiresome, not funny, and the film’s focus on this shallow character certainly contributes to its feeling of emptiness. In fact, the film is at its best when sticking to the spy plot itself, with the cool spy car Finn McMissile and his female help Holley Shiftwell trying to uncover an evil plot involving one Professor Zündapp (with Erich von Stroheim-like monocle). The plot, like in most James Bond films, is rather outlandish and over-the-top, not to say highly improbable, but the film makers clearly enjoy the spy spectacle, enhanced by Michael Giacchino’s excellent spy movie score.
These scenes are given much more love than the original Cars characters. In fact, apart from Mater and McQueen the rest of the gang is hardly seen and they only marginally contribute to the plot (Doc Hudson apparently has died, just like his voice actor Paul Newman, who passed away in 2008). Instead, we, like McQueen, must endure a boasting Italian race car called Francesco Bernoulli (John Turturo) and meet a grandfatherly old Fiat 500 called uncle Topolino, which is both the nickname of that car model and Mickey Mouse’s Italian name.
Being rich in spectacle, but disappointing in the humor department, and lacking great characters, and most of all heart, ‘Cars 2’ is as entertaining as it is empty and forgettable. Even the small background puns (Towkyo, a Ratatouillan Paris restaurant called ‘Gustow’, adverts for Lassetyre) cannot save the film. Even worse, ‘Cars 2’ also introduces boats and planes with faces. This development would lead to the abysmal spin-off ‘Planes’ (2013), not by Pixar but by the Disneytoon Studios, a film that is an embarrassment to both Disney and Pixar. With the equally unnecessary ‘Cars 3’ Pixar would luckily return to more rewarding waters, with its ‘A Star Is Born’-like plot.
Watch the trailer for ‘Cars 2’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Cars 2’ is available on Blu-Ray and DVD
Directors: Joann Sfarr & Antoine Delesvaux
Release date: June 1, 2011
Rating: ★★½
Review:
‘Le chat du Rabbin’ is the film version of the comic strip series of the same name, which comprises eleven volumes thus far. At the time the film was made there were five albums, and the film retells the contents of volume one, two and five very faithfully, with a lot of panels and dialogue being transformed directly from comic strip drawings to film scenes.
Perhaps this is no wonder, as the comic’s author Joann Sfar co-directed the film. He must have had an important vote in the production, because the film flawlessly transcends Sfar’s idiosyncratic drawings to the animated screen
‘Le chat du rabbin’ is set in Algiers, the capital of Algeria, when it was still a French colony. It’s a little hard to date the time setting film, but because carbon dating is mentioned and because of the presence of jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt this limits the time period between 1947 and 1953. In Algiers, the French, Jews, and Muslims all live together harmoniously, and we follow a rabbi of the Sephardic community, and his cat, who turns into a talking creature after swallowing a parrot.
It’s the cat who is the narrator of the film, and we see the events often through his eyes, although, unfortunately, this isn’t maintained consequently. The scenes with the talking cat, mostly recreating the first book, are the film’s best, for the cat turns out to be a skeptic and he asks his master philosophical and theological questions, which are all valid, but drive the poor rabbi mad.
Unfortunately, not only the cat, but the whole movie is rather talkative, and far too dialogue rich, a problem all too common in all French cinema. But this is not the movie’s main problem. No, regrettably, the film also shares the many story problems of the original comic books. Sfar seems to have started his comic book series without a plan, and the volumes are highly different in tone and content. Story ideas are introduced and dropped, and there’s a frustrating lack of focus.
The same accounts for the film. For example, halfway the cat loses his speech again, and with the film immediately loses its main attraction. Even worse, the most interesting character of both the comic books and the film is Zlabya, the rabbi’s daughter, but she lacks a story arc, and is rarely seen, especially during the second half of the film, which focuses on the contents of volume five, in which the attention shifts to a far less interesting character of Russian origin in search of a mythical city of Jews somewhere in Ethiopia. With this part we also leave Algiers and all hope of a consistent story. I actually find the Russian’s quest utterly boring, and I wish the film makers dared to stay in Algiers and tell more about Zlabya. What certainly doesn’t help is an irritating and incomprehensible encounter with famous comic book character Tintin, who turns out to be a complete dork in this film.
The film’s designs are gorgeous, transferring Sfar’s sketchy comic book’s drawings very well, and applying very attractive color schemes, which evoke the subtropical, Mediterranean, and North African settings excellently. Especially the background art is gorgeous. Although heavily hatched, and thus very graphical, the animation reads very well against those background drawings, and it’s nice to see such a consistency of style from animated drawings to background art. There are even some very attractive Van Gogh influences visible in some of the night scenes.Olivier Davaud’s music, too, attributes to the Arabian atmosphere, with its quasi-Arabic style elements.
The animation, on the other hand, is not always that good. For example, when Zlabya plays the piano, the animation and the music aren’t in tune, at all. The animation is at its best when deviating from realism, as in the cat’s dream. In this dream sequence a bolder style is explored, with a lot of metamorphosis, absent from the rest of the film. The finale, too, explores a bolder style, just like the comic book does in these scenes, and I guess with this Sfar tries to tell us by then we’ve abandoned reality and entered the realm of tall tales. These scenes are certainly interesting to look at, but as said before, by then I at least had lost all interest already.
In all, ‘Le chat du Rabbin’ is a visually very attractive film, showing what traditional animation still can do in terms of original styling, but its rambling tale and its lack of focus make the film a frustrating watch. But to be honest, when reading the original comic strips one will experience the same frustration, thus the original source material is to blame. One wishes Sfar was as good a story teller as a visual artist, but let’s face it, he isn’t.
Watch the trailer for ‘Le chat du Rabbin’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Le chat du Rabbin’ is available on Blu-Ray and DVD
Director: Jennifer Yuh Nelson
Release date: May 26, 2011
Rating: ★★★★½
Review:
‘Kung Fu Panda’ (2008) was a nice if not too outstanding film, so it came as a pleasant surprise that its successor was even a better film. In fact, I crown ‘Kung Fu Panda 2’ one of the best animated sequels ever, on par with ‘Toy Story 2’ (1999) and ‘Shrek 2’ (2004).
‘Kung Fu Panda 2’ te film immediately grabs attention with a Lord of the Rings-like introduction, rendered in gorgeous 2D animation, making clever use of cut-out techniques to simulate a shadow play. This sequence introduces the film’s villain, Lord Shen, a white peacock and one of the most layered villains one can find in animated film. Masterly voiced by Gary Oldman, in fact Lord Shen is comparable with other great villains like Saruman, with whom he shares a fortress full of furnaces, and Darth Vader, who also massacred the hero’s kin before the start of the film.
This background story also gives extra and necessary weight to the character of Po, who becomes more dimensional than in the first film, now having to battle the ghosts from the past inside his head, which clearly hinders him in finding the ‘inner peace’ Master Shifu tells him to seek. Moreover, we now have a background story for our hero. Indeed, the film end with a clear invitation to a sequel. Indeed, there would be a ‘Kung Fu Panda 3’ in which Po’s story was round up, if rather disappointingly.
Because of this deepening of Po’s character, ‘Kung Fu Panda 2’, much more than its predecessor, is a delightful combination of adventure, action, comedy, and drama (Po’s reminiscence scene is actually moving). Moreover, ‘Kung Fu Panda’ shares a theme with the classic wuxia movie ‘Once Upon a Time in China’ (1991) exploring the tensions between kung fu and firearms. In this respect Po delivers the movie’s best line when addressing two demoralized kung fu masters: “you stay in your prison of fear with bars made of hopelessness and all you get are three square meals a day of shame!”. Not that ‘Kung Fu Panda 2’ long dwells on Po’s inner turmoil, the film is very action-rich: the first great kung fu battle comes quickly, and is followed by several others, ending with a spectacular finale.
Overall, ‘Kung Fu Panda 2’ is an impressive piece of teamwork. Everything clicks in this film: the story is engaging and well-told, the animation is outstanding, especially the character animation on Po, Po’s dad, and Lord Shen. The cinematography is breathtaking, full of dynamic camera movements and fast cutting, the color schemes are daring and beautiful, and the soundtrack by Hans Zimmer & John Powell, with its mock-Chinese ingredients, very apt for both the action and the emotions involve. Their music during the paper dragon scene must get especially mention.
Not that ‘Kung Fu Panda 2’ is entirely without its flaws, however. By now Po has become nearly invincible, which renders him slightly flatter, despite the deepening of his emotional side. Moreover, the other characters are less prominent than in the first film (especially Master Shifu hardly gets any screen time), even if they still shine much more than in ‘Kung Fu Panda 3’, which reduces the five to mere background players. Then there’s an obligate ‘all is lost’ moment, so typical for modern Western computer animation films (see e.g., ‘Rango’ from the same year and ‘The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists!’ from a year later) and a scene in which the villain says ‘What?!’, replicated by the same studio in ‘How to Train Your Dragon 2’ (2014). But these are minor defects of an otherwise great piece of animated entertainment.
Watch the trailer for ‘Kung Fu Panda 2’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Kung Fu Panda 2’ is available on Blu-Ray and DVD
Director: Eric Khoo
Release Date: May 17, 2011
Rating: ★★★
Review:
The film ‘Tatsumi’ celebrates the work of Japanese manga artist Yoshihiro Tatsumi (1935-2015). Tatsumi is the inventor of the gegika manga style, a grittier, more alternative form of manga for adults. The film re-tells five of Tatsumi’s short stories in this this style, all from 1970-1972. These stories are bridged by excerpts from his drawn autobiography ‘A Drifting Life’ from 2008.
Thus, the film is completely drawn (only in the end we see the real Yoshihiro Tatsumi), but to keep the manga style intact the film was animated with Toon Boom Software, specialized in ‘animatics’, which brings story boards to life. Thus, full animation, although present, is rare, and most of the motion is rather basic, often lacking any realism of movement. The animation is enhanced by limited digital effects, and the first and last story are digitally manipulated to make the images look older.
The complete film thus is little more than slightly enhanced comic strips. One wonders if this is the best way to present Tatsumi’s work, as most probably his stories work better in their original manga form, but of course the movie is a great introduction to his work, which without doubt is fascinating and original.
Tatsumi’s manga style clearly deviates from his example, the great Osamu Tezaku. Tatsumi’s style is more raw, sketchier and knows nothing of the big eyes so common in manga. All but one story use a voice over narrator. And all but one are in the first person. The stories themselves are gritty, dark, depressing and bleak. The second story, ‘Beloved Monkey’, in which a factory worker falls in love with a girl at a zoo, is particularly bitter. The outer two take place just after the end of World War II and show the effects of Japan’s traumatic loss. All are about the losers in life, struggling at the bottom of society. As Tatsumi himself says near the end of the movie:
“The Japanese economy grew at a rapid pace. Part of the Japanese population enjoyed the new prosperity. The people had a great time. I couldn’t bear to watch it. I did not share in the wealth, and neither did the common people around me. My anger at this condition accumulated within me into a menacing black mass that I vomited into my stories.”
Surprisingly, the protagonists of all first-person stories, including the autobiography, all look more or less the same, as if Tatsumi couldn’t create more than one type of hero. Only the third story, ‘Just a Man’, the only one to use a third person narrator, stars a different and older man, while the last story, the utterly depressing ‘Good-bye’, is the only one to have a female protagonist. Tatsumi’s own life story is told in full color which contrasts with his short stories, which are mostly in black and white. Tatsumi’s autobiography is less compelling than his story work but adds to the understanding of the artist and his work.
Surprisingly, for such a Japanese film ‘Tatsumi’ was made in Singapore and animated in Indonesia. According to Wikipedia Singaporean director Eric Khoo was first introduced to the works of Yoshihiro Tatsumi during his military service, and immediately was stricken by his stories. When ‘A Drifting Life’ was published in Singapore in 2009, Khoo realized that Tatsumi still was alive and wanted to pay tribute to him. Tatsumi himself was greatly involved in the film and narrates his own life story. The movie is a great tribute to one of the more original voices in Japanese manga, and well worth watching, if you can tolerate a dose of sex and violence.
Watch the trailer for ‘Tatsumi’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Tatsumi’ is available on Blu-Ray and DVD
Director: Makoto Shinkai
Release date: May 7, 2011
Rating: ★★★
Review:
After the intimate and realistic ‘5 Centimeters per Second’ (2007) director Makoto Shinkai embarked on an ambitious, long and way more fantastical project, which is ‘Children Who Chase Lost Voices’. The film remains an oddball inside Shinkai’s oeuvre and shows a huge Ghibli-influence absent from his other films.
The film starts realistically enough, with little schoolgirl Asuna exploring some gorgeous nature at the other side of a railway bridge and visiting a secret hideout there. But the fantasy immediately kicks in when she brings forth a strange radio-like apparatus based on some sort of crystal. The use of this device triggers a series of events that eventually leads her to no less than the boundary between life and the afterlife.
‘Children Who Chase Lost Voices’ knows high production values. Like ‘5 Centimeters per Second’ the background art is no less than stunning to begin with, especially the views of and from Asuna’s hill are gorgeous pieces of mood and light. Other scenes are perfect renderings of a hot summer. And like in the previous films, some of these intricate background paintings are only visible for a few frames. Typically for Japanese films some shots are just short mood pieces, in this film surprisingly often depicting insects, like dragonflies and cicadas.
The animation, too, is excellent, as is the shading on the characters themselves. The character design, on the other hand, is less original, and remarkably reminiscent of Miyazaki’s and Takahata’s work at the Toei Studios during the 1970s.
But this is only one of the obvious Ghibli-influences. Asuna herself is almost a typical Miyazaki-heroin: living without a father and a largely absent mother she’s depicted cooking and caring for herself and doing all the household work. She’s thus one of those working children that crowd the old master’s films. She’s joined by a cat called Mimi, which immediately brings Jiji to mind from ‘Kiki’s Delivery Service’ (1989). There’s a villain that echoes colonel Muska from ‘Laputa: Castle in the Sky’ (1986), and there are some God-animal hybrids seemingly coming straight out of ‘Princess Mononoke’ (1997).
Shinkai absolutely succeeds in painting Asuna’s world. It’s a pity that most of the film takes place in Agartha, a mythical place underground the design of which is less compelling and even disappointing. When compared to the fantastical works of Ghibli’s ‘Laputa: The Castle in the Sky’, ‘Princess Mononoke’ or ‘Spirited Away’ (2001) Shinkai’s worldbuilding clearly is subpar. For example, this subterranean world knows blue skies, sunlight, clouds, and rain, which all go unexplained. Apparently, there are no stars, but that’s about it. The underworld characters live in some quasi-medieval society, but this too, is hardly worked out or explained to the viewer. Shinkai’s erratic handling of the underworld seriously harms its believability. After all, it’s hardly different from ours, and both its reason of existence and its purpose remain vague and undecided.
It doesn’t help that Asuna explores this world with one Mr. Morisaki, who is a member of some secret society, but who descends into the earth to retrieve his deceased wife. Both Morisaki’s background story and introduction make frustratingly little sense. For example, there’s a flashback which seems to indicate he was alive during world war I, and for no apparent reason and with little likelihood he poses as Asuna’s substitute teacher. The secret society is utterly unnecessary to the plot, which is too complex for its own good. Moreover, Morisaki remains a vague and unconvincing character getting much too much screen time, and he never turns into either the scary villain Muska was in ‘Laputa: The Castle in the Sky’ or one of those cleverly ambivalent antagonists of Miyazaki’s other films.
In fact, the scenes in Agartha start to drag, and the film loses focus, when leaving Asuna to concentrate on one of the underworld’s inmates, a boy called Shin. In the end Asuna is an all too will-less pawn in Morisaki’s scheme and she lacks her own clear story arc. This is in fact the film’s core problem: this should be Asuna’s story, but the film loses her halfway. It doesn’t help that Asuna’s own relationship to her deceased father is hardly developed, if at all. Particularly puzzling is a scene in which Asuna suddenly utters that Morisaki is like her father. Now where did that come from?!
The roles of Shin and the mute Manna remain vague, too, and feel half-baked. For example, Manna is abandoned halfway the film not to return. Instead, they add to the complexity of the story, further obscuring Asuna’s story arc. During the finale, in which Morisaki finally meets God (!) and Asuna is even depicted in the afterlife (!!) the last traces of believability go out of the window. Compare this rather blunt and all too direct storytelling with the Orpheus myth itself, which is clearly one of its inspirational sources, and one regrets Shinkai didn’t go for much more mystery.
The aftermath, in which our protagonists wander all the way back home is even worse, done in a short montage the story deflates over the end titles, accompanied by a cheesy song. This is a disappointing ending of an overlong and poorly timed film, indeed. Add some unnecessary gore, a plethora of unresolved story lines, three all too forced explanation scenes, and one can only conclude that Shinkai utterly fails where Miyazaki succeeds.
Luckily, ‘Childern Who Chase Lost Voices’ remained a one-time experiment. With his next film, ‘The Garden of Words’ Shinkai returned to much more familiar terrain, with far better results.
Watch the trailer for ‘Children Who Chase Lost Voices’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Children Who Chase Lost Voices’ is available on Blu-Ray and DVD
Dr. Grob's Animation Review 