Category Archives: Animation

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Penguins of Madagascar (2014)

Review Penguins of Madagascar

Sometimes it can be the smallest things which can charm you as you are watching a movie. Little things which succeed in immediately grabbing your attention and pull you fully into the movie. With this movie that happened immediately during the opening of the movie, because the first thing you hear is the voice of one of my favorite directors (and voices), Werner Herzog. The cold landscape and his voice immediately made me think of his own documentary Encounters at the End of the World and the fact he agreed to do the voice work for this movie proved to me why is so fascinating, really a man full of surprises. It immediately sold the movie to me and the movie had hardly started. Continue reading →

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Jungle Shuffle (2014)

review Jungle shuffle

It is lonely at the top and that’s also the case when it comes to computer animation. The top movies are made with budgets that run into the tens of millions and many more are spent on promoting them. This makes it hard for smaller studios to compete and results in smaller animation movies not getting attention. Jungle Shuffle is one of them. Does this one manage to separate itself enough from the rest to get attention? Continue reading →

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The Wind Rises (2013)

Review The Wind Rises

When it comes to the field of animation Hayao Miyazaki is a living legend. He co-founded Studio Ghibli, an animation studio known for its high quality animated films, including My Neighbour Totoro, Grave of the Fireflies, Ponyo, Howl’s Moving Castle and Spirited Away. Miyazaki has been working in the industry for more than 60 years and thus it was inevitable for him to announce his retirement. Before he did do that though he has worked on his The Wind Rises, which will be his last movie. Continue reading →

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Hokus Pokus Albert Åberg (2013)

Review Hokus pokus Albert Åberg

The majority of the movies made for children play out in huge worlds with lots of adventure. Of course all that spectacle is beautiful for children, but can be a bit too much for the smallest ones. There might be too much happening or it might be a bit too exciting for them which means that as a parent there aren’t too many movies you can take them to. Hokus Pokus Albert Åberg is a film which you can take them to as it is something even the smallest ones will like. Continue reading →

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Escape from Planet Earth (2013)

Review Escape from Planet Earth

According to IMDB 2013 has produced a total of 179 animated movies. Included in that number are titles like Frozen, Despicable Me 2, Monsters University, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 and The Croods. These are all movie I’ve seen, but with such a huge number it happens that I’ll miss some. Escape from Planet Earth was one of them and was available on Netflix (and other formats). So an easy way to check it out and see if I missed out on something. Continue reading →

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How To Train Your Dragon 2 (2014)

Review How to train your dragon 2

The first How To Train Your Dragon was, for many unexpectedly, a very well made movie which also got a lot of praise for its use of 3D. Some people even visited the cinema several times because they knew they would not be able to experience it the same way they do in this. I only watched the first movie once but also really enjoyed it. Except knowing that in the original a small town learned to live with dragons I forgot almost everything else about it before watching this one. I did wonder how Dreamworks would be able to go further with the story. Continue reading →

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Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 (2013)

Cloudy with a chance of meatballs 2 review

Thanks to its huge load of successful jokes, an original story and beautifully rendered, delicious food, the first Cloud with a Chance of Meatballs was an unexpected success. The story about how inventor Flint Lockwood (Bill Hader) designs a machine that can change water into food, the FLDSMDFR, which broke and made it rain food was very entertaining. When animated movies are a success you can always expect a second movie to be made, which is now available on DVD and Blu Ray. The FLDSMDFR, which seemed to have been disabled in the first movie, seems to still be working. Instead of influencing the weather it now creates something else: Living food, foodimals. Continue reading →

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Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989)

Review Kiki's Delivery Service

Throughout history the term witch has always had a negative image. Wizards were usually good in fairytales, TV shows and movies, but witches were mostly evil. If the society of witches needed an advertisement to change that image then this movie would be perfect for them. The broomstick and black cat are present, but every other thing you might associate with witches will not appear here. As this is a Studio Ghibli film it does posess the animation magic you’d expect from them. Continue reading →

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Turbo (2013)

Review Turbo

Snails are probably some of the least exciting animals around. They move slowly, are not that interesting to look at and leave a slimy trail behind them. This Dreamworks picture tries to change that image by literally injecting one with nitro, which apparently changes a normal snail into a car like one, radio, alarms and all. If Peter Parker can turn into Spiderman because of a spider bite then this probably makes as much sense. With his new found superpower of speed the snail in question, called Turbo, wants to prove himself and race. And this isn’t a race against other snails, it is against racecars at the Indy 500. Of course this is a ridiculous idea for a movie, but can Dreamworks make it into a fun and interesting movie? Continue reading →

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Frozen (2013)

Review Frozen

I used to love watching animated movies. If there was a new one I just had to check it out as soon as possible. But something has changed and I’m not sure what it is. Even though every year has some great animated movies, there are a ton of horrible ones. I guess I have seen too many bad ones to be excited about what is being released. Last year I could not be bothered to check out movies like Planes or Turbo because the concept behind them just felt like marketing and nothing more. Movies just to sell toys. Still I did watch some animated movies. One of them was Epic and that film disappointed me and probably also made me a bit more cautious. Still I was quite intrigued by the teaser trailer for Frozen and since this is a Disney movie it could be good. Tangled was a lot of fun, so chances were this one would be enjoyable too. My trip to the cinema confirmed my hopes. Continue reading →