Category: Animated
By General Disdain on Jan 3, 2010 in Animated, Comedy, Family, Romance | 2 Comments
To think after the undeserved success of Alvin and the Chipmunks that a sequel wouldn’t be made, you would be considered a madman. The only surprise to be found is it took two years to concoct one. You’d think, however, with all that extra time, an interesting premise could have been formulated. [...]
By General Disdain on Oct 25, 2009 in Action/Adventure, Animated, Family, Science Fiction | 5 Comments
For the most part, and don’t dare ask me why, American audiences have become mesmerized with the anime sensation that has swallowed up Saturday morning cartoons with lazy animation and piss poor stories. Why have I mentioned this morsel of worthlessness? So I can come to this conclusion of course:
Kids love anime. [...]
By General Disdain on Sep 22, 2009 in Animated, Family | 4 Comments
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is one of those enlightening pick me up kind of movies great for a rainy day. It’s great for the kids too. This 3D animated adventure, based on a popular children’s book by Judi and Ron Barrett, delivers a “never give up on your dreams” message in [...]
By General Disdain on Sep 13, 2009 in Action/Adventure, Animated, Fantasy, Science Fiction | 1 Comment
In the not so distant future, mankind is all but eliminated from the face of the Earth. In the similar fashion as the Terminator films, man built machines that ultimately led to his and all of life’s eradication. Man may be gone, however, but in his place are miniature ragdoll-like puppet creatures imbued [...]
By General Disdain on Jul 4, 2009 in Action/Adventure, Animated, Family | 2 Comments
It didn’t take long for me to realize that after a cute intro involving Scrat the sabertoothed squirrel, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs was the worst of the Fox animated trilogy. While it still has its cutesy characters — wooly mammoths Ellie (voiced by Queen Latifah) and Manny (voiced by Ray Romano), sloth [...]
By General Disdain on Jun 8, 2009 in Action/Adventure, Animated, Family | 1 Comment
Admit it, you’re just like me — you really had no idea what Disney Pixar’s latest animated adventure, Up was about. For me, all I knew was it had a grumpy old man, a fat kid, a talking dog and a colorful bird in it. Oh yeah, how could I forget, there was [...]
By General Disdain on Mar 30, 2009 in Animated, Family, Science Fiction | 1 Comment
DreamWorks Animation has steadily been trying to chip away at the animation throne held by Pixar Animation Studios for years. To their credit, they’ve had more successes (Kung Fu Panda and the Shrek series being the most notable) than failures (think Bee Movie). The latest weapon in their arsenal for animated supremacy comes [...]
By General Disdain on Nov 27, 2008 in Animated, Comedy, Family, Fantasy | 1 Comment
Step to the side Krypto, you’re not the only superdog in town. At least that’s what we’re initially led to believe in Disney’s new animated offering Bolt. After all, the dog has powers that enable him to outrun helicopters and motorcycles, lay waste to any objects in his way and incapacitate people with [...]
By General Disdain on Nov 10, 2008 in Action/Adventure, Animated, Family | 6 Comments
You just knew the sequel Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa was in the coming. Not only because New Yorker animals Alex the lion (voiced by Ben Stiller), Melman the giraffe (voiced by David Schwimmer), Marty the zebra (voiced by Chris Rock) and Gloria the hippo (voiced by Jada Pinkett Smith) were stranded on an island [...]
By General Disdain on Aug 14, 2008 in Action/Adventure, Animated, Science Fiction | 3 Comments
I don’t know what else to say other than I was dumbfounded when I first caught sight of the trailers for George Lucas’ latest tale in his storied Star Wars franchise – Star Wars: The Clone Wars. The blocky, animated characters looked God awful. The minimal amount of dialogue I heard sounded corny. [...]
By Caitlin Maggs on Aug 11, 2008 in Animated, Comedy, Family | 2 Comments
Disney tends to be the main culprits of taking classic stories like Sleeping Beauty and C.S Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and adapting them to film. Out of the blue comes Kanbar Entertainment with Hoodwinked! – a fresh, original tale of the well-known story of Little Red [...]
By General Disdain on Aug 9, 2008 in Action/Adventure, Animated, Comedy, Family | 0 Comments
It is official. At the age of five, my children hate me. How did I come to this conclusion? Simple, they dragged me to see Space Chimps, that’s how. I tried repeatedly to convince them they’d rather see Pineapple Express to no avail. In the end though, I think they [...]
By LaRae on Jun 27, 2008 in Action/Adventure, Animated, Comedy, Family, Romance, Science Fiction | 6 Comments
WALL-E is the latest in the line of stellar features from the powerhouse Pixar. It is a romantic story of a small, lonely garbage cleaning robot that finds his purpose is greater than simply gathering trash into piles. Beautiful, charming and with an important message interwoven, WALL-E is flawless.
When the people of earth [...]
By LaRae on Jun 6, 2008 in Action/Adventure, Animated, Comedy, Family | 16 Comments
Po (voiced by Jack Black), a clumsy panda and the son of a noodle vendor, dreams of becoming a great kung fu fighter and meeting “The Ferocious Furious Five”. This team of kung fu masters is comprised of Tigress (voiced by Angelina Jolie), Monkey (voiced by Jackie Chan), Mantis (voiced by Seth Rogen), [...]
By General Disdain on Mar 22, 2008 in Action/Adventure, Animated, Family | 12 Comments
Horton Hears a Who! is number three of Dr. Seuss books brought to the big screen by Hollywood looking for a new avenue to draw cash from. This movie is slightly different from The Cat in the Hat and How the Grinch Stole Christmas though. Whereas those two films were really just vehicles [...]
By General Disdain on Jan 25, 2008 in Action/Adventure, Animated, Family | 3 Comments
With very little on the cinematic horizon for the young ones, I decided to take the boys to see the only game in town that met their demographic: The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything: A VeggieTales Movie. I really had zero interest in this but that didn’t stop the kids from wanting to see [...]
By General Disdain on Dec 8, 2007 in Animated, Family, Fantasy, Musical, Romance | 14 Comments
With time to spare and the need for something lighthearted and cutesy being introduced into my system (I had just reviewed Jack Ketchum’s The Girl Next Door), Enchanted seemed like the perfect choice. And let’s be realistic, has Disney ever led anyone astray when they needed this kind of infusion?
The answer is yes, they [...]
By General Disdain on Nov 17, 2007 in Action/Adventure, Animated, Fantasy | 13 Comments
Let me start this particular movie review off by saying I’m a big fan of animated movies. I’m an even bigger fan of films starring real, flesh and blood actors and actresses. I am not however, a proponent of the stop-action animation that mixes these two forms of movies together. Apparently, Robert [...]
By General Disdain on Nov 9, 2007 in Animated, Family | 6 Comments
For those of us who have been anxiously waiting for something new from Jerry Seinfeld (Comedian doesn’t count), our wait has ended. The animated adventure Bee Movie marks his return to the spotlight – or does it? Sadly, this is not the breakout feature I had been hoping to see. The reasons [...]
By General Disdain on Jul 29, 2007 in Animated, Comedy | 21 Comments
18 years since its FOX premiere (19 or 20 if you count the spots on The Tracey Ullman Show), America’s favorite dysfunctional family comes to the silver screen in none other than The Simpsons Movie. I’d, at most, call myself a casual fan of the cartoon – I haven’t watched it religiously for many, [...]
By General Disdain on Jun 25, 2007 in Animated, Comedy, Family | 12 Comments
Pixar and Disney are back. This time instead of talking dolls (Toy Story), talking fish (Finding Nemo) or talking cars (Cars), we’ve got talking rats. That’s right, those cute and cuddly carriers of the Bubonic Plague are the main characters in Ratatouille! Can Pixar transform rats into an animal that’s sweet and [...]
By General Disdain on Jun 21, 2007 in Animated, Family | 6 Comments
Another penguin movie. First there was March of the Penguins and Madagascar. Then came Happy Feet. I swear to Christ, I’m going to have a nervous breakdown. Who in hell told advertisers and Hollywood that penguins are cute, adorable birds? News flash — they’re not. They’re ugly and mean. [...]
By General Disdain on May 21, 2007 in Animated, Comedy, Family, Fantasy | 2 Comments
Here it is. The second of the most anticipated movies of the summer is here. No, I’m not talking about Gracie. I’m talking about Shrek the Third. If the title didn’t give it away, it’s the third installment of the animated juggernaught — the first being aptly titled Shrek and the [...]
By General Disdain on Apr 8, 2007 in Action/Adventure, Animated, Family, Science Fiction | 3 Comments
Approximately ten times a year, to the theaters come those animated children movies we, as parents, cringe at. Our children want to go, no matter how bad the movie appears — so long as it has animated animals or dinosaurs or vehicles or rugs. Of those times only one or two of them [...]
By General Disdain on Mar 26, 2007 in Action/Adventure, Animated, Comedy, Fantasy | 2 Comments
Has it really been 14 years since the freaky, full-sized, mutant turtles graced us with the presence on the silver screen? Yeppers, the last time I saw them it was in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III (I’m not counting television cartoons or straight-to-DVD titles). I’m obviously out of the loop since a great [...]
By General Disdain on Nov 26, 2006 in Animated, Family, Musical | 1 Comment
Yeah, I’m beyond bored. Of course I could find something important to do around the house, but I find I prefer to lay around and sleep. For some strange reason between naps, I figured I could fill and hour or so with one of the latest CGI dominated movies Happy Feet.
Happy Feet is [...]
By General Disdain on Jun 26, 2006 in Animated, Comedy, Family, Sporting | 6 Comments
Ah, the child in me resurfaces just in time to watch the latest offering from Pixar and Disney. Usually, the inner child shines through after drinking like a NYC hobo, but this time it was in anticipation of Cars. I love being a kid!
This time around, the story revolves around a egotistical race [...]
By General Disdain on Jun 22, 2005 in Animated, Family | 6 Comments
Once again, Hollywood has decided to bring the masses another cute and cuddly CGI feature film with, you guessed it, animals! Who woulda thunk that? As has been said in previous reviews, Hollywood sticks to a format that works. Therefore, Madagascar should be no different from Shrek or Robots. . .
Am I [...]
By General Disdain on Apr 3, 2005 in Animated, Family | 6 Comments
I like animation. Every Saturday I watch my morning cartoons (on the WB of all places!) Late at night I watch Cartoon Network to watch the crazy-ass anime imports. I am a true believer that watching this shit will keep you young at heart. Based on this I looked forward to [...]