Tag: animation
Marmaduke review – Pete Davidson-voiced Netflix animation is a real dog
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In the greener days of the internet, a proto-meme image bouncing around forums and chat boards depicted a crudely computer-animated Marmaduke sitting at an Italian restaurant, getting yelled at by a bearded man: “SIGN...
Sing 2 review – the hit jukebox animation sticks to a winning formula
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Like many of the irresistibly catchy pop songs it showcases, Sing 2 follows a tried and tested formula. Hapless koala bear promoter Buster Moon (Matthew McConaughey) must risk failure, humiliation and being chucked ou...
Life drawing: why is adult animation bigger than ever?
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It’s hard to say when it happened, but somewhere in the past five or so years, anime got so entrenched in the mainstream that articles announcing this development as a new discovery are inevitably mocked online for th...
Cryptozoo review – trippy animation about magical creatures packs a punch
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Utterly bizarre in the best possible way, this lovingly handmade animated feature by writer-director Dash Shaw (originally a comic book/graphic novelist) isn’t like anything you’ve seen before. Unless, that is, you’ve...
‘I wouldn’t take my kids to this’: Star Wars’ Phil Tippett on his hellish animation Mad God
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You definitely know Phil Tippett’s work even if you don’t know his name. The 3D chess game in Star Wars, the AT-ATs and Tauntauns in Empire Strikes Back, ED-209 in Robocop, the bugs from Starship Troopers and the dino...
The Croods: A New Age – scrappy prehistoric animation sequel
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In this sequel to the 2013 animated film The Croods, caveman Grug ( voiced by Nicolas Cage) and his family are introduced to the modern concept of privacy when they stumble across a walled garden. It belongs to the Be...
America: the Motion Picture review – puerile Netflix animation
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A spirit of literal playfulness, in the anarchic smashing-action-figures-into-one-another sense, typifies the cinema of Phil Lord and Chris Miller. The current kings reigning over what remains of the studio comedy got...
Violet Evergarden: The Movie review – a breathtaking return for Kyoto Animation
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The first film completed by Kyoto Animation after the arson attack in 2019, this carries a lot of emotional weight both on and off-screen. Starting out as a “light novel”, Violet Evergarden was later adapted into an a...
Felix and the Hidden Treasure – family animation flounders as satire
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This is a semi-entertaining, reasonably decent family animation that begins promisingly with a swell of adventure as a young boy sets sail in a boat in search of his missing dad. But after a couple of hastily resolved...
Shrek at 20: an unfunny and overrated low for blockbuster animation
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Shrek has an outhouse with a working toilet. It is not part of the film’s cynical brand of “irreverence” that an ogre’s latrine is supported by modern plumbing. And it’s certainly not consistent with the hygiene of a ...
The Mitchells vs the Machines review – frantic and fun Netflix animation
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Over the last year, it seemed for a while that any vague vision of big-screen normality would be so far into the future that we’d best get used to watching new movies on our smartphones instead, a fear for us that was...
Cranston Academy: Monster Zone review – colourful if derivative Hogwartsian animation
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The two nominal main characters of this derivative but reasonably amusing computer-animated feature are a pair of teenage kids attending an elite Hogwartsian science school called Cranston Academy in London; the locat...
Raya and the Last Dragon review – dazzling Disney animation
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Disney’s latest offering casts Star Wars’ Kelly Marie Tran as the voice of its south-east Asian princess protagonist, the sword-wielding Raya. Her mission is to unite all five pieces of a broken gem containing dragon ...
Smash parties, talking vulvas and Big Mouth: inside Titmouse animation studio
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Animation is an anarchic medium. Anything can happen. In the hit Netflix show Big Mouth, hormone monsters haunt pubescent teens, characters surf waves of their own menstrual blood and the class clown forms a bisexual ...