Topic: Critter's Animated Film/Anime Marathon

[Critter]

The Prince of Egypt



Year: 1998

Director(s): Brenda Chapman, Steve Hickner

Run Time: 99  minutes

Plot: An Egyptian prince learns of his identity as a Hebrew and, later his destiny to become the chosen deliverer of his people.

Cast:
Val Kilmer – Moses
Ralph Fiennes – Rameses
Michelle Pfeiffer - Tzipporah
Sandra Bullock – Miriam
Jeff Goldblum – Aaron
Helen Mirren – The Queen
Patrick Stewart - Seti

DVD Extras:
•   The Making of the Prince of Egypt
•   “When You Believe” Multi Language Presentation
•   Basics of Animation “Chariot Race”
•   Focus on Technical Effects
•   THE PRINCE OF EGYPT Art Gallery
•   2 Theatrical Trailers

My Thoughts
When it comes to DreamWorks animated films, especially their computer animated range I usually end up disappointed. Out of their entire collection of computer animated films so far, there has really only been a couple I have enjoyed. Earlier DreamWorks films however, when they were still traditionally animated delivered us a few gems, The Prince of Egypt is in my opinion one of their best. Being DreamWorks first animated film it is apparent that within Prince, they were trying to find their own unique style, something that stood apart from Disney’s traditionally animated movies and still be successful in its own right. I’m not quite sure how successful this film was when it first came out and I know that many people see a similar style to the Disney films, such as making it a musical. Many aspects of it however stood out to me as quite different to Disney, particularly the style of character animation and design.  Although it was a first effort, the film was made extremely well, many of the scenes are beautiful and flawless.

The Prince of Egypt is first and foremost a bible story, and almost anyone I know could tell you that I am the least religious person ever. I in fact try to steer clear from most religions yet I do find some religious stories interesting, in a purely fictional way. This is one such story which I find quite interesting, Moses freeing the Hebrews from Egypt. Now I have never closely studied the Bible, or haven’t for many years anyway so I do not know how close this film sticks to the original story, I did however find some parts disturbing. Within the film the Egyptians kill all the first born sons of the Hebrews, then later in the story Moses, with the power of God does the same thing back to Egyptians. This does not seem right to me, especially coming from this so-called ‘God’ who is supposed to be some sort of holy savior, this act of ruthlessly killing innocent children on his behalf just seems wrong to me. Even if it was for revenge it just doesn’t seem like a very Godly act at all, and if anything it just reassures in my mind why I dislike most Catholic and Christian religions so much.

Aside from that however I have always found this film quite enjoyable, it is a musical which I love in an animated film and I thought the songs were excellent, as well as greatly enjoying the beautiful landscapes of Ancient Egypt. On an interesting note, I discovered that this film was banned in Egypt.

My Rating

[Critter]

How To Train Your Dragon



Year: 2010

Director(s): Dean DeBlois, Chris Sanders

Run Time: 98 minutes

Plot: A hapless young Viking who aspires to hunt dragons becomes the unlikely friend of a young dragon himself, and learns there may be more to the creatures than he assumed.

Cast:
Jay Baruchel – Hiccup
Gerard Butler – Stoic
Craig Ferguson – Gobber
Christopher Mintz-Plasse – Fishlegs
America Ferrera – Astrid
Jonah Hill - Snoutlout

DVD Extras:
•   Saw in Cinema

My Thoughts
Now now DreamWorks, where did this come from? A film with a fantastic storyline, no copious amounts of unneeded pop culture references and hardly any toilet humour. Is this really a DreamWorks film? I had to keep asking myself that while watching this latest effort. DreamWorks do indeed seem to be improving their game lately, what with the very decent Kung Fu Panda and now this. I still don’t think they have a made a film that is quite as PIXAR worthy as some people seem to think but they sure are coming close, which in my books is quite a good thing.

How To Train Your Dragon was a surprisingly heartfelt and exciting film, with stunning visuals as  many of the action or flying scenes with the dragons were superb, and while the film may not have quite the lasting impression of say, Up it was still highly entertaining, and a fun fast-paced film without ever feeling too childish. I myself have never read the books this film is based on but that doesn’t seem to matter at all as I still highly enjoyed it. The fact that the main Dragon ‘Toothless’ bears a striking resembles to Disney’s ‘Stitch’ as they were designed by the same person bothered me at first, but I soon came to love the creature in the film.

I saw this in 3D and feel that the 3D actually enhanced this film, unlike a lot of the other 3D efforts out at the moment. The story was clever and while being quite straight-forward and easy to follow it still had a nice couple of twists which you didn’t expect from the start. I felt the ending was maybe a little overly happy, going with a traditional happy ending to appease the kids but overall a great animated film, one which I would love to see again.

My Rating

[Critter]

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs



Year: 2009

Director(s): Phil Lord, Chris Miller

Run Time: 90 minutes

Plot: The most delicious event since macaroni met cheese. Inspired by the beloved children's book, the film focuses on a town where food falls from the sky like rain.

Cast:
Bill Hader  - Flint Lockwood
Anna Faris – Sam Sparks
James Caan – Tim Lockwood
Andy Samberg – ‘Baby’ Brent
Bruce Campbell – Mayor Shelbourne
Mr T. – Earl Deveraux

DVD Extras:
- Directors' Commentary with Bill Hader
- Interactive "Splat" Button (Throw Food at the Screen While You Watch the Movie!)
- A Recipe for Success: The Making of Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs
- Key Ingredients: The Voices of Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs
- Flint's Food Fight Game - Enhanced for Blu-ray
- Extended Scenes
- Early Development Scenes
- Progression Reels with Introductions by Visual Effects Supervisor Rob Bredow
- Interactive "Raining Sunshine" Sing-A-Long
- “Raining Sunshine” Music Video by iCarly's Miranda Cosgrove
- Behind the Scenes of Miranda Cosgrove's "Raining Sunshine" Music Video
- Make It Rain Food


My Thoughts
I was quite surprised by this film. I went into it really not expecting much at all, which in the end probably let me to enjoy it more. Cloudy was a lot funnier than I expected it to be. While watching it I found myself laughing out loud a lot of times throughout the film. I thought the voice acting was pretty good, if a little over the top at times, such as the character played by Mr. T.

While I expected a farfetched story what I got was even more wacky than I ever imagined. Especially towards the end of the film where the entire plot basically turned into the ending of Independence Day. As a vegetarian the idea of giant steaks and meatballs falling from the sky isn’t exactly inviting for me, although I think the fact that one scene had giant, people-eating chickens
made up for that.

This film for me has great re watch value, it’s funny, very light-hearted and not something you exactly have to have your brain in 100% when you watch it. This is the second film from Sony Pictures Animation that I have liked, the first being Surf’s Up. The studio has seemed a bit hit-and-miss so far but I am looking forward to what they will be releasing in the future.

My Rating

[Achim]

Reviewer Mark Kermode also enjoyed it more than he had expected. He likened it to "animated Davids Lynch for kids" I am looking forward to see it sometime soon.

[Critter]

That's an interesting idea Achim. I can't personally see where Cloudy is similar to Lynch's works, although I probably haven't seen enough of his films to recognise it.

[Achim]

That's an interesting idea Achim. I can't personally see where Cloudy is similar to Lynch's works, although I probably haven't seen enough of his films to recognise it.

I kept mentioning the chicken scene

(click to show/hide)

the chicken are not alive, are they?

which remotely reminded him of a scene in Eraserhead. Beyond that just some of the whacky ideas...

[Critter]

That's an interesting idea Achim. I can't personally see where Cloudy is similar to Lynch's works, although I probably haven't seen enough of his films to recognise it.

I kept mentioning the chicken scene

(click to show/hide)

the chicken are not alive, are they?

which remotely reminded him of a scene in Eraserhead. Beyond that just some of the whacky ideas...

(click to show/hide)

No the chickens are not alive, they are oversized roast chickens.

I haven't seen Eraserhead myself but it wouldn't surprise me if it was some sort of reference. Then entire film was jam packed full of references to various other films.

Do you have a link to Kermode's review? I would like to check it out.

[Achim]

Do you have a link to Kermode's review? I would like to check it out.

I am sorry, I gave youtube and google a quick whirl, no luck.

Problem is: This is a radio show. I listen to it while it's released as a podcast, which is removed from iTunes again after only a few short weeks, so there is no backlog I can refer to you either. A written verison may not even exist. Since they also live-stream, some of the reviews are shown on YouTube as excerpts, but I couldn't find one for Meatballs.

[Critter]

That's fine, thanks heaps for trying anyway.

[W0m6at]

I'd love to see what you think of A Scanner Darkly. It's rotoscoped (filmed live-action which is then "drawn over" to produce creepily realistic animation). I'll probably return later with more suggestions, but that one stands out for me.

[Critter]

I have actually seen parts of A Scanner Darkly before, it's just one of those films that I have caught parts of here and there but never actually seen the whole thing. Visually it was alright, but truthfully the whole thing sort of annoyed me a bit. I mean if you are going to film the whole thing with actors then why make it an animated film at all? It works fine sometimes to film actors then animate if need be, like in things like Avatar, but it just seemed uneeded in Scanner. It was almost like they couldn't make up their mind between a live-action and an animated film. That being said though I won't cast proper judgement on it until I have watched the entire film.

[W0m6at]

I have actually seen parts of A Scanner Darkly before, it's just one of those films that I have caught parts of here and there but never actually seen the whole thing. Visually it was alright, but truthfully the whole thing sort of annoyed me a bit. I mean if you are going to film the whole thing with actors then why make it an animated film at all? It works fine sometimes to film actors then animate if need be, like in things like Avatar, but it just seemed uneeded in Scanner. It was almost like they couldn't make up their mind between a live-action and an animated film. That being said though I won't cast proper judgement on it until I have watched the entire film.

It actually works really well for the material. It leaves you uncertain what is real and what isn't... it blurs the lines, and leaves you feeling a little uneasy throughout. Also, it allows for seamless blending when something unusual happens. Since the whole film is about Bob Arctor (Keanu Reeve)'s mental breakdown, it helps to empathise with him. It's certainly not simply a gimmick.

[Najemikon]

I have actually seen parts of A Scanner Darkly before, it's just one of those films that I have caught parts of here and there but never actually seen the whole thing. Visually it was alright, but truthfully the whole thing sort of annoyed me a bit. I mean if you are going to film the whole thing with actors then why make it an animated film at all? It works fine sometimes to film actors then animate if need be, like in things like Avatar, but it just seemed uneeded in Scanner. It was almost like they couldn't make up their mind between a live-action and an animated film. That being said though I won't cast proper judgement on it until I have watched the entire film.

It actually works really well for the material. It leaves you uncertain what is real and what isn't... it blurs the lines, and leaves you feeling a little uneasy throughout. Also, it allows for seamless blending when something unusual happens. Since the whole film is about Bob Arctor (Keanu Reeve)'s mental breakdown, it helps to empathise with him. It's certainly not simply a gimmick.

Absolutely agree. I thought the same as you, Sophie, but when I finally watched it and you see what the story is about, it works brilliantly. Very interesting sci-fi film.

[Critter]

I will definitely bump it up my list and watch it properly next time instead of just little bits. I think my friend might actually have it, so I will try watch and review it soon.

[Najemikon]

Seems as good a place as any!