Currently browsing the "Animation" tag.

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is delicious, a fun film for kids and the adults who take them to see it. I saw it in 2D because my six-year-old excuse for seeing movies like this has something against the 3D glasses, but I think it must be even more fun in 3D. Cheeseburgers flying off the screen at you… how much fun would that be? But even without the benefit of 3D this movie was chock full of laughs for both my first-grade companion and me.

9

9 is a strange little animated film, and I really had no idea what I was getting into when I went. Basically it is a dark, animated Terminator for kids. Machines took over the world and went to war with man and in the post-apocalyptic world that is left, a small group of burlap sack dolls wages a final battle against the Machine that killed the world.

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs

My six-year old co-critic and I are agreeing to disagree on this one. He gives it an enthusiastic thumbs up. Me, not so much. Don’t get me wrong; I am a big fan of animation. I’ll even go to see an animated movie without a kid in tow. But this is not one I’d recommend to adults who aren’t accompanying little ones. The jokes meant for the adults in the audience just aren’t that clever and I wasn’t really amused by much except for Scrat. He’s the crazed squirrel who’s been chasing the elusive acorn through all of the Ice Age movies and in this one, it seems like his dogged pursuit is finally halted in the name of love when a wily, female squirrel, Scratte, arrives on scene.

The Downside of UP

“Up” is a great movie. Good script. Good characters/voices. And a heartwarming story that strives to teach us all (at every age) that life is a series of adventures, big and small. HOWEVER, nobody warned me how SAD it would be.

Up

Up is a glorious, sweet film – another brilliant work from Pixar. I laughed, I cried. No, seriously, I teared up during the opening sequence that portrays the life-long love affair between the main character, Carl Fredrickson, and his wife – from their first meeting as children to her death – without a word of dialogue. From there, it’s a movie about Carl figuring out how to live his life after devastating loss and the adventure begins.