Category: Animation

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Animation Features Movies

The Iron Giant

Director – Brad Bird – 1999 – US – Cert. U – 88m

*****

1957. A giant robot falls out of the sky and is befriended by a young boy in Maine. However, the US government proves less sympathetic – animated feature is out in UK cinemas from Friday, December 17th, 1999

This has all the hallmarks of classic fifties sci-fi outings – giant monster, small American town, paranoid government agent, mobilised militia. For those demanding still more, it has a single working mum and a sympathetic beat sculptor, neither of whom would be out of place in a period Roger Corman cheapie.

But you shouldn’t pigeonhole The Iron Giant by genre because a further two factors mark it out as very different. Freely adapted from Ted Hughes’ marvellous children’s book The Iron Man but given a decidedly American spin by director Brad Bird (cartoon TV series The Simpsons, 2 eps, 1990-91; creator of Family Dog, 1993), this is without doubt the animated film of the year and arguably the film of the year period. We’ve grown so used to the Disney blockbuster model – cute characters (and merchandise), hit songs – that anything else (this employs neither device) comes as a shock.… Read the rest

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Animation Features Movies

Watership Down
(new 4K restoration)

Director – Martin Rosen – 1978 – UK – Cert. PG – 92m

*****

When a young rabbit visionary foresees doom for those who remain, some of the rabbits leave their warren in search of a safer home, encountering many life-threatening perils along the way – new 4K restoration of animated feature is out in UK cinemas on Friday, October 25th, following its World Premiere in the London Film Festival on Saturday, October 12th

LFF: Sat 12 Oct 12:20 World Premiere, Tues 15 Oct 12:15,
both BFI Southbank NFT1.

This opens with a mythological segment involving a powerful God, represented as the sun, and rabbitkind, specifically the archetypal rabbit El-ahrairah. It’s drawn and painted in an arresting, non-naturalistic style involving coloured lines animated against a white background to create the impression of moving, primitive drawings, due in large part to uncredited director John Hubley, whose vision for the film was at odds with that of producer Martin Rosen. The latter ended up firing the former as he wanted something grittier and less lightweight.

It’s arguable this has worked to the film’s advantage: the fable sequence works as otherworldly rabbit mythology, suggesting a race of intelligent creatures capable of constructing creation myths about their species much as human beings do.… Read the rest

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Animation Features Movies

Transformers One

Director – Josh Cooley – 2023 – US – Cert. PG – 104m

***

The origin story of the hero and villain of the Transformers in a long-distant past on their home planet – animated prequel is out in UK cinemas on Friday, October 11th

In a city deep in the bowels of his planet, one of its Transformer residents, Orion Pax (voice: Chris Hemsworth), obsessed with learning all he can about the history of his people, breaches the security of an historical archive only to be chased by guards who find him as he starts reading. Like many others, Orion is a mining bot, and as such lacks the ability to transform that is possessed only by true Transformers. Trying to do the right thing even when it’s against regulations, he is often getting into trouble on his mining shift. His immediate superior Elita-1 (voice: Scarlett Johansson) consistently covers for him.

That doesn’t stop Orion Pax from breaking with tradition and getting himself and his friend D-16 (voice: Brian Tyree Henry) to participate in a Transformers race through the city, for participation in which, benevolent ruler Sentinel (voice: Jon Hamm) promises to reward them – although as it turns out, they are almost immediately sent to a deep level waste dump for stepping out of line.… Read the rest

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Animation Features Live Action Movies

Joker
Folie à Deux

Director – Todd Phillips – 2023 – US – Cert. 15 – 138m

****1/2

Get Happy… Get Ready for the Judgement Day! Prison movie, courtroom drama, musical… the new Joker movie is something of a wild card – out in UK cinemas on Friday, October 4th

The big surprise about this sequel to Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019), if indeed it is a sequel rather than another standalone film reimagining the same character, is not one but two big surprises. In no order of anything… One, it is a courtroom drama. Two, it is a musical. This is extraordinary. Less of a surprise is that, like its predecessor, it is also a character study. More of a surprise is that it completely breaks the mould as to what a comic book superhero – or, in this case, supervillain – movie might be.

Warner Bros. / DC appear to have unearthed a unique asset. DC Comics have a long tradition of alternate histories, something capitalised on in their Elseworlds imprint which have, for example, recast Batman on different occasions in as diverse roles as an historic American Civil War participant and a vampire. Thinking about such volumes in terms of the movies, such shifts of context as a musical built around a character like Joker makes perfect sense.… Read the rest

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Animation Features Movies

Belleville Rendez-Vous
(US: The Triplets of Belleville,
Les Triplettes de Belleville)

Director – Sylvain Chomet – 2003 – France – Cert. 12a – 80m
*****

Hailing from France, this animated fable is a heady concoction of nightclub singers, long distance cyclists, doting matriarchs and ruthless mobsters – out in UK cinemas from Friday, August 23rd, 2003

Like the animator’s earlier short The Old Lady And The Pigeons (1996), Sylvain Chomet’s animated fable is a highly personal work driven by intense character study.

Champion is a small boy obsessed by bicycles, put through a rigorous training programme by grandmother Madame Souza (voice: Monica Viegas) and entered years later (voice as an adult: Michel Robin) in the Tour de France. When during the race he and some fellow competitors are kidnapped by gangsters, the trail leads granny and faithful hound Bruno to Belleville, where aging chanteuses Les Triplets De Belleville agree to help them rescue Champion.

It isn’t so much the plot that makes this great as the detail large and small that Chomet hangs upon it. From its opening, joyous, Fleischeresque jazz number through slow, overcast grey sequences where railway trains roar past the upper floor of the family house to the unexpected car chase finale with broad-shouldered gunmen in unbelievably long cars, the little touches grab the attention and never let go.… Read the rest

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Animation Features Movies

Dragonkeeper
(Gardiana de Dragones)

Director – Li Jianping, Salvador Simó – 2023 – Spain, China – Cert. PG – 98m

****

Faced by powerful forces of empire and a ruthless traitor, a girl must accompany an old dragon to ensure the survival of its egg – out in UK cinemas on Friday, September 27th

Ancient China. As revealed in a voice-over and an ancient, panoramic, wall-hanging scroll, the empire of the humans united with the dragons to successfully defeat necromancy. But then, the Emperor turned on the dragons, hunting them.

A long time after these events have occurred, a hard-nosed trader Master Lan (voice in the English language version: Tony Jayawardena) and his wallas are receiving some goods at a trading post when they stumble upon an abandoned baby girl. One of the wallas notices strange, blue-lit rocks floating near the baby. The group take the girl back across mountain ranges and vast plains to their small town.

Around eight years later, Ping (voice: Mayalinee Griffith) is living in that town, in the care of an old lady Lao Ma (voice: Sarah Lam), and feeding her pet rat Hua Hua (non-dialogue voice: Jonathan David Mellors) who lives in a hole in a storehouse and often goes with her in her jacket or any container or bag she might be carrying.… Read the rest

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Animation Features Live Action Movies

The Young Taoism Fighter
(Ying Yang Qi Bin,
阴阳奇兵)

Director – Chen Chi-Hwa – 1986 – Taiwan – Cert. 15 – 84m

***1/2

A lazy martial arts student experimenting with magic finds himself helping a girl warrior against a sorcerer and his master – on Blu-ray from Monday, September 23rd

At the Taoist martial arts training school Ying Yang Hall, two students are wont to skip rigorous training to hang out with the drunken sorceror in the

It’s probably a mistake to attempt to describe this in terms of its plot, because while it borrows lots of staple generic ideas from all over the place, it frequently abandons one to go off and develop another. It’s ostensibly a story about students from a martial arts school confronted by an evil sorcerer, but it’s nothing like as coherent as, say, the Mr. Vampire films. In fact, it’s just an excuse to throw together fight scenes, special effects and knockabout humour, all of which, against the odds, somehow cohere into some sort of whole to prove spectacularly entertaining.

Two slacker students bunk off to hang out with a drunken master in the kitchen, in the course of which he momentarily sets one of them on fire while the other one pulls a live snake from his trousers, and prepares it as a culinary delicacy.… Read the rest

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Animation Features Movies

Boonie Bears Time Twist
(Xiong Chu Mo
Ni Zhuan Shi Kong,
熊出沒·逆轉時空)

Director – Lin Huida – 2024 – China – Cert. PG – 105m

***1/2

The Boonie Bears’ friend Vick is tricked into giving up his memories of the bears in exchange for working at an office job far away in the city – in a dubbed format for family audiences – out in UK and Ireland cinemas on Friday, September 13th

Although it works perfectly well as a standalone film, Time Twist is an odd place to start for anyone new to China’s long-running Boonie Bears franchise because the Boonie Bears are here relegated to secondary character status in a story about their friend Vick (once again voiced in the English language version by Paul ‘Maxx’ Rinehart). Here he’s introduced as ‘the logger’ who first fell in and became friends with the Bears (in what those already familiar with the franchise will know as their Pine Tree Mountain forest / national park home) before becoming, as a slogan hand-stamped on the image puts it, a ‘Certified Loser’.

He boards the bus to nearby Shen City, after momentarily looking wistfully at a flier on a telegraph pole reading ‘Lumberjacks / Hiring’. There, he picks up a job as an intern in an office, where his computer keyboard skills and overall ingenuity get his ‘intern’ tag replaced by one for ‘engineer’.… Read the rest

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Animation Features Movies Music

The Island

Director – Anca Damian – 2021 – Romania, France, Belgium – 84m

*****

A reimagining of the Robinson Crusoe story with Robinson as a doctor on an island where Friday is the only survivor of a refugee ship – plays with the accompaniment of the Bălănescu Ensemble at BFI Southbank on Friday, September 6th 2024 – from the Annecy 2022 Animation Festival in the Official Competition section

The story of Robinson Crusoe, the man shipwrecked on a desert island befriended by a native he calls Friday, is here turned on its head by director Damian (Marona’s Fantastic Tale, 2019) bringing to life a clever script using an inventive mixture of 2D and CG animation techniques. Robinson (voiced by musician Alexander Bălănescu, who composed the music and songs with Ada Milea) is a Westerner, a well-off doctor who spends most of his time lounging around on an island with an i-Pad. He might be a shipwreck survivor, at least metaphorically. He sings about dreaming of shopping when hungry, and after a while we wonder if he’s simply disillusioned with the Western materialist way of life.

He finds himself in the company of Friday (Lucian Ionescu), sole survivor of a refugee boat who treats the doctor as his saviour.… Read the rest

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Animation Features Live Action Movies

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

Director – Tim Burton – 2024 – US – Cert. 12a – 104m

***1/2

The hyperactive ghost from the afterlife returns, along with a number of characters from the original – sequel to the 1988 film is out in UK and Ireland cinemas on Friday, September 6th

When the original Beetlejuice (Tim Burton, 1988) came out, no-one had quite worked out what Tim Burton was about, and the film was arresting, shocking, completely out there, utterly bonkers and like nothing anyone had ever seen. It’s difficult to know exactly what one could do to achieve that same effect in a sequel, or whether one should even try that approach. In the interim, Burton has had a lengthy and successful Hollywood career, arguably the system’s resident maverick director. When he’s good he’s very good; when he’s not, you wait for the next one and it’s usually an improvement.

In the event, perhaps inevitably, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice doesn’t have the same shock of the new as its predecessor, but it’s similarly out there and bonkers and recognisably a sequel. It takes a while to get going – the first hour lumbers along with flashes of brilliance, such as a memorable, 3D-animated passenger aircraft crash at sea sequence, but the final third or so (from the point where one of the characters is lured in to the afterlife by another who turns out to be a ghost) is much more effective.… Read the rest