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Director: Miguel Jiron
Release date: February 26, 2019
Stars: Spider-Ham
Rating: ★★★
Review:
‘Spider-Ham – Caught in a Ham’ is an attempt to show how a ‘Spider-Ham’ animated cartoon would look like.
The result is a clear homage to the classic Warner Bros. Cartoons, although there’s also a Tex Avery style corridor with doors gag, while the background art harks back to the 1990s work of Genndy Tarkovsky and Craig McCracken, and the evil scientists to the work of John Kricfalusi for ‘Ren & Stimpy’. This shows that the 1990s renaissance has become as much as a reference point for contemporary film makers as the original cartoons of the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s were.
‘Spider-Ham – Caught in a Ham’ is not particularly funny, and the character is way too talkative, but there’s a series of nice ‘Duck Amuck‘-like meta-gags before the short turns out to be a prequel to the ‘Spider-man into the Spider-verse’ main movie, which the short accompanies on the DVD.
Watch ‘Spider-Ham – Caught in a Ham’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Spider-Ham – Caught in a Ham’ is available on the Blu-Ray and DVD of ‘Spider-Man – Into the Spider-Verse’
Directors: Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey & Rodney Rothman
Release date: December 14, 2018
Rating: ★★★½
Review:
For American feature animation 2018 was mostly a rather uneventful year. True, the year started off well with the release of ‘Isle of Dogs’, and it was also the year of Nina Paley’s second animation feature, ‘Seder-Masochism’, but for the rest it was a year of uninventive sequels (Pixar’s ‘Incredibles 2’, Disney’s ‘Ralph Breaks the Internet, Sony’s ‘Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation’) and mediocre stand-alones (Warner Bros.’ ‘Smallfoot’ and Illumination’s ‘The Grinch’).
But then, at the closing of the year suddenly a complete game-changer entered the scene: ‘Spider-Man into the Spider-Verse’. The film was brought by Sony Animation, the most evasive from all major animation studios, releasing both gruesomely bad movies like ‘The Smurfs’ (2013) and ‘The Emoji Movie’ (2017), as well as more interesting experiments, like ‘Surf’s Up’ (2007). This animated Spider-Man feature certainly falls into the latter category, bringing the animation world a totally new aesthetic.
Like all other films mentioned (sans ‘Seder-Machochism’) ‘Spider-Man into the Spider-Verse’ is a 3D computer-animated film, but unlike all others this feature has a distinct comic book style, complete with clearly visible halftone dots, and even color-shifts that look like misprinting of color layers when the ‘camera’ gets out of focus. The film even adds other stylistic elements from comic books, like page-turning effects, text panels and panel-like split screens to enhance the comic book feel. Even though traditional texturing and rendering is completely in place, never does the art aspire to be realistic, but always to keep the comic book feel intact.
‘Spider-Man into the Spider-Verse’ thus is a delight to watch, and a welcome fresh take on traditional 3D computer animation. In fact, the excitement the film stirred in the animation world is comparable to that of ‘The Matrix’ (1999) in the live action film industry. That its stylistic innovation was not an isolated event was proved by subsequent films like ‘Puss in Boots: The Last Wish’ (Dreamworks, 2022) and ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem’ (Paramount, 2023). Certainly the latter took heed of the lessons from ‘Spider-Man’.
The story of ‘Spider-Man into the Spider-Verse’ is another reboot of the then 56 years old comic. This time we follow a black teenager from Brooklyn called Miles, who is a son from an over-protective cop, but who leans more towards his less well-behaved uncle Aaron. The most remarkable event in the film is that the original Spider-Man, Peter Parker, actually dies, and Miles, who due to unexplained events is bitten by a radio-active spider, too, must take his place.
In fact, the plot is much more complicated, and involves villain Kingpin trying to get his deceased wife and son back from a parallel universe opened by a portal devised by Doctor Olivia “Liv” Octavius, another villain who apparently is the successor to Doc Ock (I’m hardly familiar with the Spider-Man world, so these villains are unknown to me).
The portal also imports five spider-men from alternate universes (and I guess, the Alchemax spider that bit Miles), most importantly a less successful middle-aged Peter Parker and a young Spider-Woman called Gwen, but also a manga girl-spider-man, a black and white film-noir Spider-man and even a looney tune-like spider-man-pig called ‘Spider-Ham’. Part of the fun is the play with these alternate universe characters, some of which are gleefully silly, but I must say the main story is told pretty heavy-handedly.
In fact, the film’s story is hardly as good as the visuals: it’s hard to follow, it’s full of plot-holes, it has some rather forced scenes (most notably the utterly improbable scene in May Parker’s basement, and a believe-in-yourself-like scene in which Miles really becomes a Spider-Man), and a large dose of melodrama that I could hardly stand. Moreover, the finale is taking place in such a messy setting, I had no idea what was going on.
No, did ‘Spider-Man into the Spider-Verse’ not have the astonishing looks it has, I wouldn’t have been entertained so much, the fun parallel world plot notwithstanding. But as it is, ‘Spider-Man into the Spider-Verse’ is one of the most important animated features from the 2010s, a status corroborated by its equally praised sequel, ‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’ from 2023.
Watch the trailer for ‘Spider-Man into the Spider-Verse’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Spider-Man into the Spider-Verse’ is available on Blu-Ray and DVD
Director: Sarah Smith
Release date: November 11, 2011
Rating: ★★½
Review:
After making ‘Flushed Away’ (2006) in cooperation with Dreamworks, the British animation studio Aardman made another computer animated film, this time in cooperation with Sony, as part of a three year contract with the American production company. Upon its release ‘Arthur Christmas’ was a box office success, but since then it has rather went into oblivion, and I can see why, because the film unfortunately is a flawed one.
In the world of ‘Arthur Christmas’ Father Christmas is not an eternal figure, but a dynasty, with Santa Clauses succeeding each other in time. The film tells about Arthur, whose father is the current Santa Claus, but whose mission are much controlled by his son, Arthur’s elder brother Steve, with military precision. In contrast, Arthur is clumsy, cowardly, afraid of heights and thus totally useless to the Santa Claus clan. Or is he? When, despite all military precision, one present is not delivered, Arthur comes into action.
I’ve once read an article in which someone from Aardman complained that ‘Arthur Christmas’ was not even nominated for an Academy Award, blaming it on the fact that their film was overlooked because it was a holiday film. But the truth is, ‘Arthur Christmas’ is just not that good.
The film’s characters aren’t that sympathetic. The current Santa is as incapable, as he is irresponsible. His son Steve is more ambitious than he is caring, and Arthur may have his heart in the right place, he stumbles through most of the film, which is rather tiring to watch. The finale, in which all elder Santa Clauses realize Arthur’s worth, feels forced and obligatory, and one hardly believes Arthur’s clumsy days are now over.
But the film’s biggest problem is its lack of originality. The film lacks the quirky charm of the British studio’s stop motion work (there are some nice touches here and there, like a wobbly toy on Grandsanta’s sleigh, but these are rare). And despite the British voice cast and mostly European setting, the film feels very, very American. Plot-wise the film ticks all familiar boxes, without straining from tried paths.
Moreover, the designs are erratic and inconsistent: the humans are all cartoony, but the reindeer have realistic designs, and the film features some pretty ugly lions. In fact, the film is utterly unrecognizable as an Aardman product, the only feature film in their catalogue being so generic and bland in its looks.
Luckily, ‘Arthur Christmas’ would be Aardman’s last computer animated movie. With their next project the studio returned to more familiar and much more satisfying waters with ‘The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists!’ (2012).
Watch the trailer for ‘Arthur Christmas’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Arthur Christmas’ is available on Blu-Ray and DVD
Director: Genndy Tartakovsky
Release Date: October 26, 2012
Rating: ★★★
Review:
This short is set in Hotel Transylvania from the film of the same name and features Bigfoot trying to sleep, while being hindered by a green witch, who in fact tries to keep him sleeping.
Surprisingly, Tartakovsky’s crew animated this cartoon in 2D, not 3D, and the short features Tartakovsky’s comedy style as we know it from his television series ‘Dexter’s Laboratory’. Thus we watch strong poses, outrageous takes and jumpy animation.
Unfortunately, the film is too short to build up some great comedy. The witch essentially wakes Bigfoot only twice. If you compare this to say Tex Avery’s ‘The Legend of Rockabye Point’ it’s easy to see where this film remains stuck in being a nice attempt, while Tex Avery’s is the pinnacle of comedy. Funny animation alone isn’t enough, a film needs gags, too.
Watch ‘Goodnight Mr. Foot’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Goodnight Mr. Foot is available on Blu-Ray and DVD ‘Hotel Transylvania’
Director: Genndy Tartakovsky
Release Date: September 8, 2012
Rating: ★★★
Review:
2012 was the year of animated horror. No less than three American animated feature films of that year were horror themed: Laika’s ‘Paranorman’, Disney’s ‘Frankenweenie’ and Sony’s ‘Hotel Transylvania’. Of these three ‘Hotel Transylvania’ is the least scary (it isn’t scary at all), the least original and the least impressive.
‘Hotel Transylvania’ marked the feature direction debut of Genndy Tartakovsky, the Russian-American genius behind Cartoon Network hits Dexter’s Laboratory and Samurai Jack. Both series were impressive efforts of style and animation, being conceived in a strong idiosyncratic and very attractive style, making full use of limited animation in the best UPA sense, instead of the dull cheapstake sense of Saturday morning television television of the 1970s and 1980s.
In that respect, ‘Hotel Transylvania’ is quite a letdown. Neither the design nor the 3D computer animation shows anything betraying Tartakovsky’s style, and are, in fact, pretty generic. True, the animation style is very cartoony, with wild takes and jerky movements, and this undoubtedly at least partly betrays his influence, but Sony Pictures Animation already had adopted this style in ‘Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs’ (2009). The most interesting piece of cartoony animation is the absurdly smooth way Count Dracula strides, which looks like a homage to Dora Standpipe’s moves in ‘The Dover Boys at Pimento University or The Rivals of Roquefort Hall’ (1942), but may also have been inspired by the Martian woman in ‘Mars Attacks!’ (1996) .
‘Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs’ (2009) also was a more stylized film than ‘Hotel Transylvania’, which struggles with the homogeneity of its design. Some characters retain some plastic cartoony appearance (Count Dracula, the Monster of Frankenstein), while others are over-textured, adding unnecessary realism to their appearance (Wayne the Werewolf, Murray the mummy).
There’s even an unsettling difference between the two love interests who form the heart of the film: the rather goofy youngster Johnny is designed and animated broadly, and hard to take seriously. During the first half of the film he comes across as incredibly stupid and empty, and his transition into a genuine love interest isn’t entirely convincing. Dracula’s daughter Mavis, on the other hand, shows some real depth, and she is the only character animated straight and sincerely between a multitude of cartoony monsters. In fact, Mavis is the only character one cares for, and it’s a shame we see so little of her.
This is because ‘Hotel Transylvania’ is not her story, but that of her father, count Dracula, and this tale of a single, overprotective father owes a little too much to ‘Finding Nemo’ (2003). Somehow this theme was in the air, because the next year Illumination would follow suit with ‘Despicable Me 2’. Count Dracula’s progress unfortunately is pretty formulaic, as are the themes of friendly monsters (done better by Dreamworks in ‘Monsters vs. Aliens’ from 2009) and ‘the ‘enemy is not as bad as he seems’ (done more successfully in ‘Paranorman’). And by 2012 the happy musical finale, so fresh as it had been in ‘Shrek’ (2001) already was an all too tried way to end things. Also, the premise of the hotel isn’t entirely convincing. Count Dracula may be convinced the outer world is a threat, but his guest flock from all over the globe – they surely should know better?
Don’t get me wrong. ‘Hotel Transylvania’ is not a bad movie. It’s even quite enjoyable. On the up side the voice cast is quite good. Adam Sandler actually does a good job as Count Dracula, Selena Gomez is excellent as Mavis, and Kevin James, Steve Buscemi and Cee-Lo Green fit their characters Frankenstein, Wayne and Murray very well. There are some fine gags, the film moves at a lively pace, and the story at least moves forward without any sidetracks.
But all the tropes, the almost obligatory fart joke, all the formulaic plot twists, the uninspired designs and stock characters and the generic music make that the film doesn’t stand out from the crowd. This film is just mediocre. Surely, Genndy Tartakovsky should be able to do better. At least it didn’t help that he was only the sixth (!) director involved in this film. At least we can enjoy some of his appealing 2D artwork during the titles, but that’s of course cold comfort after the real thing. Nevertheless, ‘Hotel Transylvania’ would sprout two sequels, with a third coming this way this year.
Watch the trailer for ‘Hotel Transylvania’ and tell me what you think:
‘Hotel Transylvania’ is available on Blu-Ray and DVD
Director: Cody Cameron
Release Date: August 8, 2007
Rating: ★★
Review:
‘The ChubbChubbs Save Xmas’ sees the return of the ChubbChubbs, the title heroes of Sony’s Academy Award winning short ‘The ChubbChubbs!‘ from 2002, and their alien keeper Meeper.
After five years these personas are still as annoying as they had been in 2002, but surprisingly, ‘The ChubbChubbs Save Xmas’ is a better movie than the original short had been. Things at Sony animation clearly had improved in the five years that separate the two films, and both character design, color schemes and overall design are much more consistent in the new film than in the original. Consequence is that Meeper and his friends are rather out of tune with their more modern and slicker surroundings, which makes them even more obnoxious.
The short’s story is utterly forgettable, but there are some good gags, even if some are pretty violent for a Christmas film. Nevertheless, ‘The ChubbChubbs Save Christmas’ is only one notch up from the earlier film, and remains mediocre, if only because Meeper and the ChubbChubbs themselves are such ugly-voiced and annoying characters.
Watch ‘The ChubbChubbs Save Xmas’ yourself and tell me what you think:
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x94zq9
‘The ChubbChubbs Save Xmas’ is available as a bonus on the DVD ‘Surfs Up’
Director: Eric Armstrong
Release Date: July 3, 2002
Rating: ★
Review:
The star of ‘The ChubbChubbs!’ is a humble alien who swipes the floor of a nightclub on some planet.
When the nightclub is threatened by some monsters, the alien repeatedly tries to warn its clientele, but only manages to ruin the singer’s act three times. In the end the alien disposes of the approaching army of monsters with help of some yellow animals, the ChubbChubbs of the title. These turn out to have rotating razor-blade mouths, belying their cute appearance.
‘The ChubbChubbs!’ was a sort of test film for Sony Pictures Imageworks, and thus it’s not a very deep film. In fact, the film feels rather childish and immature, and the only source of humor stems from the cameos of familiar science fiction movie characters, like Darth Vader, Yoda, Alien and E.T.. The rest of the cartoon humor feels forced and overtly cliche.
The film isn’t helped by a trite story, a too talkative soundtrack, ugly voice designs (especially of the alien itself), ugly color designs, mediocre animation, and very inconsistent computer art, blending an array of styles from cartoony to realistic into a far from convincing world. That this utterly forgettable film managed to win an Academy Award is beyond me, especially when considering that one of the other nominees was Kōji Yamamura’s classic short ‘Mt. Head’.
Watch ‘The ChubbChubbs!’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘The ChubbChubbs!’ is available as a bonus on the DVD ‘Surfs Up’
Directors: Jill Culton, Roger Allers & Anthony Stacchi
Release Date: September 29, 2006
Rating: ★★★
Review:
With ‘Open Season’ Sony Pictures joined the American computer animated feature pool, being the fourth major company to do so. And because in this world American animation films from the same year share the same features, ‘Open Season’ is about forest animals living near the civilized world, just like Dreamworks’s ‘Over The Hedge‘.
The story of ‘Open Season’ (a domesticated bear called Boog is left in the wild and tries to find his way back home) is fairly original (although similar to ‘Cars’), but like its setting, its execution is not. Like ‘Shrek’ (2001) and ‘Ice Age‘ (2002) it’s a buddy film full of fast-talking, wisecracking animals, with the sap deer Elliott (voiced by Ashton Kutcher) being all too similar to Donkey in ‘Shrek’.
Moreover, some scenes are rather formulaic, like the break-up scene after the waterfall ride (see also ‘Shrek’, ‘Monsters, Inc.‘), the ‘we-can-do-this-together-scene’ (see ‘A Bug’s Life’, ‘Robots‘), and the almost obligate near-death of Elliott in the end, which goes all the way back to Disney’s ‘The Jungle Book’ (1967).
The film’s designs are okay, and are more akin to Dreamworks and Blue Sky than to Pixar. The studio’s the animation is mostly of a high standard, if not inventive. The effect animation is adequate, with convincing lights, waters and smokes. Especially the furs look good, but the human hairs are very bad, and in one scene one can watch some very unrealistically animated bank notes flying around.
In the end, ‘Open Season’ is an entertaining film, but too standard to be a classic. Its foremost selling-point may be that it is one of those rare animated features in which the main protagonist (Boog) is voiced by an Afro-American (Martin Lawrence).
After this modest start Sony Animation would do better with its next feature, ‘Surf’s Up’ (2007), with its ‘documentary’ style. But the company really hit its stride with ‘Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs’ (2009) with its overtly cartoony animation approach.
Meanwhile the reuse of formulaic story building blocks like the ones in ‘Open Season’ came to hamper more and more American computer animated features, with Disney’s ‘Planes’ (2013) as the ultimate low-point, as it consists of nothing but cliches…
Watch the tailer for ‘Open Season’ yourself and tell me what you think:
Dr. Grob's Animation Review 