Quantcast
Channel: Animation in film | The Guardian
Viewing all 1711 articles
Browse latest View live

Despicable Me 3 overtakes Transformers and Baby Driver at UK box office

0
0

Blockbuster animation sequel easily knocks Transformers: The Last Knight off the top spot, earning the biggest opening for an animation since Minions

With a sturdy debut of £11.15m, Despicable Me 3 had no problem knocking Transformers: The Last Knight off the top spot at the UK box office chart. It scored the third biggest opening of the year, behind Beauty and the Beast (£19.7m) and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 (£13.09m), and is the biggest animation debut of the year so far, ahead of Sing (£6.29m plus £4.2m in previews) and The Lego Batman Movie (£5.46m plus £2.45m in previews). It is also bigger than last year’s top animated openings for Finding Dory (£8.12m) and The Secret Life of Pets (£9.58m). The Jungle Book, which was significantly animated, began last year with £9.9m.

Continue reading...

Tom Holland's Spider-Man struggles on ascent to top of UK box office

0
0

Sony’s Spider-Man: Homecoming battles blue skies in Britain, while Despicable Me 3 tumbles following hefty opening

The narrative around Sony’s latest iteration of Spider-Man has very much been “third time lucky”, with critics acclaiming a creative breakthrough following an initial trio of films directed by Sam Raimi (starring Tobey Maguire) and a pair helmed by Marc Webb (with Andrew Garfield). Now, with Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige as producer and 21-year-old Tom Holland in the title role, Sony has finally got the formula right.

Related: Forty films to kick off 2017 in UK cinemas

Continue reading...

Cars 3 review – a franchise that's running out of road

0
0

Well-intentioned and amiable, this latest instalment in Pixar’s animated auto series is the threequel no one was crying out for

When Shrek the Third came out in 2007, many pundits commented on the strange phenomenon of cartoon characters who appeared to be going through the motions. That’s really what is going on here. Cars 3 is the threequel that no one was crying out for. It is well-intentioned and amiable, but basically running on empty. It seeks to replicate the rookie/mentor dynamic of the first film, only this time making Lightning McQueen (voiced by Owen Wilson) face up to his dawning oldster status. He is still racing, but losing his speed and losing his touch.

Jackson Storm (Armie Hammer) is a smug newbie who is outpacing him on the track and patronising him off it; Lightning must submit to a new motivation regime run by Cruz Ramirez (Cristela Alonzo) and a new relationship and new possibilities emerge. “Tow” Mater (Larry the Cable Guy) naturally gets another walk-on, or drive-on. The weird thing is that in this identikit car universe, Lightning doesn’t look or sound older. Obviously he doesn’t get out of shape. Somehow, the film must square the circle of Lightning defiantly remaining a winner and yet gracefully ceding the field to the younger generation. This it just about manages to do, although it is a bit contrived. Cars 3 could make a rental download for a rainy family holiday, but the imaginative spark has gone.

Continue reading...

Genocidal Organ review – glib Japanese animation of post-nuclear horror

0
0

Despite its ambitious futuristic reach and some amazing visuals, this violent anime is inert and unconvincing

Genocidal Organ is a violent anime, based on the cult novel by Japanese SF author Satoshi Itō, who wrote under the pen name Project Itoh and died of cancer in 2009 at the age of 34. This is a widely anticipated film – a live-action version by Park Chan-wook is reportedly being discussed – but, for all its ambitious futuristic reach and some occasionally amazing visuals, I have to confess to finding it inert and glib.

It is set in a time after Sarajevo has been wiped out by a terrorist nuclear bomb and the resulting horror has caused wealthy nations to become high-security fortresses, where citizens have abandoned civil rights in exchange for surveillance and security. Meanwhile, poorer countries have unravelled into genocidal civil wars that are apparently being masterminded by a mysterious American called John Paul. The Americans send in a special forces team to investigate him, under agent Clavis Shepherd, who like the rest of his crew has been “emotionally optimised” in training to feel no fear.

Continue reading...

Cars 3 review – whiz without the fizz

0
0
The world’s favourite talking vehicles are showing their age in this latest animated joyride

A third zip around the racetrack for Pixar’s Cars franchise, this time tackling an older generation’s anxieties about irrelevance in the internet age, with racing veteran Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) almost edged out by Jackson Storm (Armie Hammer), a sleeker, faster, more efficient anthropomorphised automobile. A sly feminist subplot involving trainer Cruz Ramirez (Cristela Alonzo) is welcome, and it’s a colourful, spry enough ride, but it doesn’t exactly reinvent the wheel.

Continue reading...

War for the Planet of the Apes shows its simian strength at UK box office

0
0

Despicable Me and Spider-Man franchises fight for second place, while indie darling The Beguiled shows big ambition at cinemas

For the fourth weekend in a row, a film with blockbuster ambition has arrived at the top of the UK box office, with War for the Planet of the Apes landing in the wake of Spider-Man: Homecoming (5 July), Despicable Me 3 (30 June) and Transformers: The Last Knight (22 June). The latest Apes film has begun with a solid £5.22m, and £7.20m including previews for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

Related: The Godfather – but with chimpanzees: on set with War for the Planet of the Apes

Continue reading...

Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie review – an unexpected delight for all ages

0
0

Kevin Hart and Thomas Middleditch bring fun and poignancy to this animated bromance about two schoolchildren whose comic-book creation comes to life

Here is the week’s unexpected treat: a really good-natured and unashamedly silly animated comedy for younger children and whatever gigglingly immature grown-ups are lucky enough to accompany them. It’s a bromance between two kids, George (the helium-voiced Kevin Hart) and Harold (Thomas Middleditch) who like to hang out, make each other laugh with reprehensibly crude humour and draw their comic book, which stars Captain Underpants. Their enemies are the joyless school principal Mr Krupp (Ed Helms) and a dictatorial science teacher Mr Poopypants (Nick Kroll), who is unwilling or unable to see the humour in his name.

Continue reading...

Monster Island review – forgettable family animation

0
0

This ploddingly mediocre knockoff about a boy with a monstrous genetic secret is visually uninspired and not much to listen to

However discontented we all might conceivably be with the current state of Hollywood animation, and various iffy threequels for Cars and Despicable Me, it’s still dispiriting to encounter this ploddingly mediocre knockoff, with its budget effects, utterly uninspired visual design and flatlining dialogue. 

A lonely kid at school is getting bullied and his overprotective dad won’t let him go anywhere without his inhaler. But the reason is that overexcitement could bring on, not an asthmatic attack, but an awful metamorphosis. The boy’s genetic secret is that he is a monster, like his dad. So he will have to journey to his mythic homeland, Monster Island, to confront his destiny. 

Continue reading...

Monster Island review – a beastly mess

0
0

Bad animation is only the first thing wrong with this children’s fantasy

There are few things more unpleasant to look at than bad animation. And Monster Island’s Technicolor yawn of regurgitated influences is monstrous in all the wrong ways. The eyeball-melting colour palette is just the tip of the tentacle – this is a cobbled-together, plotless mess from director Leopoldo Aguilar, completely lacking in the internal logic that is essential for the successful creation of a fantasy world. A 13-year-old boy discovers that his asthma inhaler actually delivers medicine that stops him returning to his natural state – as a gigantic orange ogre. He returns to Monster Island to seek the truth about his history and discovers, perhaps unsurprisingly, plenty of skeletons in his family closet.

Continue reading...

Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie review – more than just flatulence gags

0
0
This surprisingly nuanced animation intersperses lavatory humour with narrative invention

Although one of the foundations on which much children’s cinema was built, lavatory humour was always perceived as an inglorious last resort. Can’t think of a funny line? Have a character break wind instead. By this logic, Captain Underpants, a film almost entirely crafted out of lavatory humour, should be a soul-crushing, puerile slog. However, David Soren’s animation, which was adapted from the children’s books by Dav Pilkey, is a delightful surprise. It’s a celebration of friendship, of the boundless creativity of children’s minds. It’s a dizzily silly collection of sly cultural references. It’s visually inventive, narratively agile. And yes, it has fart gags.

Continue reading...

Dunkirk outguns blockbuster competition at UK box office

0
0

Christopher Nolan’s intelligent war movie does refreshingly well at multiplexes and arthouse cinemas, while Despicable Me 3 breaks the £30m barrier

While summer is traditionally a strong season for multiplex cinemas, it can prove a tough challenge for venues trying to offer an alternative to Hollywood blockbusters, since the most commercially potent arthouse fare tends to cluster into autumn and winter for awards season. Which means the arrival of Dunkirk was greeted by the indie-cinema bookers with a combination of relief and joy: an intelligent mainstream film they could programme without fear of embarrassment, and with appeal that cuts across the demographics.

Related: War for the Planet of the Apes shows its simian strength at UK box office

Continue reading...

Dunkirk: plain sailing for Christopher Nolan's war epic at top of the UK box office

0
0

Nolan’s film continues its strong showing in its second week, but Captain Underpants fails to top Despicable Me 3’s box-office haul

If Christopher Nolan’s second world war drama stunned with its £10.02m UK opening weekend, then what happened next is surely even more remarkable. Dunkirk fell only 18% for its second session, posting second-weekend takings of £8.24m. And strong weekday results last week mean that the film added £17m for the seven days since the opening frame, for a 10-day total of £27.02m.

Continue reading...

Sacré bleu! Why Franco-Belgian comic-book movies are more fun than Marvel and DC

0
0

Home-grown superheroes may rule over Hollywood, but French and Belgian comic-book adaptations are often stranger and sexier than their US counterparts

Two recent events highlighted the balance of power in the comic book world: a poor $17m US opening for Luc Besson’s Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets and the routine hullabaloo over the latest Marvel offerings at Comic-Con. With Marvel and DC maintaining a stranglehold over blockbuster adaptations, the American comic-book tradition is still impregnable. Which could be one reason why an offshoot of the wilder Franco-Belge tradition – Valerian was adapted from a long-running French sci-fi serial – has struggled there. Ingrained cultural tastes sealed its fate, suggested the French weekly Inrockuptibles in its review, accusing the Hollywood Reporter of attacking the film with an almost “protectionist” fervour.

Continue reading...

In a Heartbeat: watch the trailer for animated short film – video

0
0

‘A closeted boy runs the risk of being outed by his own heart after it pops out of his chest to chase down the boy of his dreams.’ Trailer for the animated short film In a Heartbeat, which has garnered over 11m views on YouTube.

Continue reading...

The Emoji Movie review – zestless, pointless boilerplate animation

0
0

While the Angry Birds movie balanced dumbed-down world with a smart script, this personification of smartphone symbols is just ‘meh’

One thing no one needed this summer was a very rubbish version of Inside Out, that animated gem about the personified emotions inside the surreal landscape of a young girl’s mind. Here, instead of a mind, a smartphone, and instead of emotions, emojis: all the wacky little symbols that originated in Japan, not that you’d know that from this film.

The Emoji Movie could in theory have been witty and sophisticated, like The Lego Movie – or even the Angry Birds movie – juxtaposing its apparently dumbed-down world with a smart script. But no. This is just a boilerplate animation, zestless, pointless. The idea is that the “Meh” emoji wants to express something more complicated, in effect to be something other than its assigned identity, and here I am prepared to concede that The Emoji Movie does in its way confront an existential problem that Inside Out arguably never solved.

Continue reading...

In a Heartbeat: the story behind the animated gay love short that's gone viral

0
0

The makers of the four-minute film, with 12m views in under a week, discuss the shock of their success and the importance of depicting same-sex romance

It’s not every day that a wordless, four-minute animated short about two young boys falling in love goes viral. But on Monday, when recent college graduates Esteban Bravo and Beth David posted their senior thesis film on YouTube, that’s exactly what happened.

Related: Glaad report shows film studios still failing with LGBT representation

Super excited to say that, in less than 24 hrs, my thesis partner @bbethdavidd and I gonna be launching the Kickstarter for our thesis animated film, "In a Heartbeat"!! This project has been in development for a year now and I'm super stoked to finally share a bit of it. Keep an eye out!!

Continue reading...

The Emoji Movie review – the end of human civilisation as we know it

0
0

Smartphones take centre-stage is this hideously dumbed-down offering

This is what happens when a film studio decides not to bother with making films good enough to prise the audience from their smartphones and just embraces the fact that mobile devices are part of the movie-viewing experience for a swath of the younger audience. And it’s horrible. A bleak, witless, creative wasteland of a movie that plays out like Pixar’s Inside Out dumbed down for morons. I don’t think I’m overstating things here when I say that The Emoji Movie feels like a harbinger for the end of human civilisation as we know it. A strident palette of candy-coloured empty calories and poop jokes and a cynical message about accepting yourself had me searching for an emoji showing a dispirited film critic hanging from a noose fashioned from a phone-charger cable.

Continue reading...

Dunkirk still afloat at top of the UK box office as Valerian dodges disaster

0
0

Christopher Nolan’s war epic stays strong in its third week, while Luc Besson’s expensive sci-fi saga exceeds pessimistic expectations

Following a very gentle 18% fall in its second weekend of UK play, Dunkirk now drops a heftier 44% for the third session, pretty much in line with other films on release. However, third weekend takings of £4.62m still count as a strong performance, by any measure, as does a 17-day cumulative total of £38.2m. Dunkirk will imminently overtake both Despicable Me 3 (£39.3m) and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 (£41.0m) to become the second biggest hit of 2017 so far in UK cinemas, after Beauty and the Beast (£72.1m).

Related: Sacré bleu! Why Franco-Belgian comic-book movies are more fun than Marvel and DC

Continue reading...

The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature review – animated squirrelly caper lacks bite

0
0

This unnecessary sequel may entertain younger family members but accompanying adults will be restless

The summer of inessential animation continues with this very middling sequel to 2014’s semi-forgotten squirrel-based timekiller. Displaying admirable chutzpah, replacement director Cal Brunker barrels into the franchise, reintroducing Will Arnett’s smartmouthed Surly as if the first movie had become some billion-dollar landmark in popular culture.

Restless, detailed design aids his cause, but there’s only so far anybody can sustain the kind of rote narrative – involving the redevelopment of Surly’s parkland terrain – that needs to be hustled through before accompanying adults investigate the availability of refunds. 

Continue reading...

The Nut Job 2: Nutty By Nature review – madcap animated caper

0
0

Will Arnett voices a canny squirrel enlisting the help of kung fu mouse Jackie Chan against evil property developers

A rapacious, property-developing mayor threatens the city park home of Surly Squirrel (Will Arnett) and friends in a story that, for a fleeting moment, feels like a rodent version of Francesco Rosi’s Hands Over the City. This soon dissolves into a frenetic, madcap caper that sees Surly enlist the help of kung fu master Mr Feng (Jackie Chan), the impossibly cute “weapon of mass destruction”. It’s a decent if unexceptional family option.

Continue reading...
Viewing all 1711 articles
Browse latest View live




Latest Images