Time for a trip down memory lane- it's now been eleven years since these films came out. Though many of them are scarcely talked about, let's see how many of them hold up after all this time.
Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
Director: Nick Park, Steve Box
Starring: Peter Sallis, Ralph Fiennes, Helena Bonham Carter
Release Date: October 7, 2015
Running Time: 85 minutes
Rating: 4/5
At the time that Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit rolled around, I had already been a fan of the claymation duo for some time. The Wallace & Gromit shorts (featuring the eccentric but absent-minded inventor Wallace alongside his trusted silent pooch Gromit) had been around since the early 90's, and I have to say that when I finally got around to watching the movie (in which the two go up against a giant vegetable-eating rabbit), I kind of had mixed feelings about it. There was a certain sophistication to the original trilogy of shorts (The Wrong Trousers, A Grand Day Out, and A Close Shave), and ever since Wallace & Gromit made its screen debut, it seems that Aardman's sense of humor has grown more and more childish in an attempt to connect better to larger audiences. The film manages to still be legitimate Wallace & Gromit, it still has the same British suburban atmosphere, albeit with more characters, but there are some moments and some jokes which are just embarrassing; like, I couldn't help thinking "oh, they would never have done something like this in the original series". Overall, though, Curse of the Were-Rabbit is still a grandly satisfying film with a lot of really good jokes as well and a fitting expansion of the characters' universe.
Madagascar
Director: Eric Darnell, Tom McGrath
Starring: Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer, Sacha Baron Cohen
Release Date: May 27, 2005
Running Time: 86 minutes
Rating: 4/5
For some reason, Madagascar has repeatedly received mixed reviews, despite it being one of the funniest movies that I ever saw as a kid. Granted, its "emotional" moments are more forced, and at the end, we haven't really learned much of anything. I'm reviewing with the operating idea that Dreamworks is a studio which aims to make comedic satires instead of heartwarming fuzzy kids films (or, at least, that's what they were going for when they were making stuff like Madagascar). And here, what we have is a really funny movie. Part of that comes from the stellar voice cast (Sacha Baron Cohen plays a lemur king whose only desire is to party non-stop), but part of it is just the great idea that the story has in general-- that of a bunch of zoo animals who wind up in the wild and have no idea how to fend for themselves. We have a lion who slowly begins to discover his urge to chase after prey, a zebra who enjoys the freedom of the wild, a hypochondriac giraffe, and of course, a group of penguins who clearly believe they're in a spy movie. Any other film with this same premise would in the end provide some sort of resolution, an "oh, look, they arrived safely at home, etc, etc". This movie ends with them finding the boat which will provide them with the means of getting home, followed by a minor character's whispered remark that the boat is out of gas. The movie has ended without really ending. And of course, this only gave rise to many pointless sequels, but I think that Madagascar could have ended right there and it would have been perfect. Sure, if you're going to be super serious on everything, this film is a little light on character development, and hence the conflict feels a little forced. But it's waaay better than Over the Hedge, certainly, and it caters to its target audience perfectly- besides, there are too many great little moments and sight gags in Madagascar for me to hate it.
Pooh's Heffalump Movie
Director: Frank Nissen
Starring: Jim Cummings, Nikita Hopkins, Kyle Stanger, Peter Cullen
Release Date: February 11, 2005
Running Time: 68 minutes
Rating: 3.5/5
One thing that never seems to die out is Winnie the Pooh films. Winnie the Pooh was for a while, one of the fondest relics of my childhood, and looking back I'm realizing that many people weren't as immersed with Winnie the Pooh merchandise as I was. However it was, all of the Winnie the Pooh films which came out in the early 2000's and afterwards- Pooh's Grand Adventure, The Tigger Movie, Piglet's Big Movie, and The Heffalump Movie- I somehow managed to see all of them. Strangely enough, I never saw the 1978 feature film The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, though I was certainly familiar with it in isolated segments. This particular feature started a long period of silence for the Winnie the Pooh franchise which went unbroken until the excellent Winnie the Pooh of 2011. And that's kind of a good thing, considering how necessary all of the Pooh films I've mentioned were- they really should have gone straight to video. This one was certainly charming, and I'll give it that, but in many ways it didn't feel necessary, at least not for wide screen release. It certainly stays faithful to the characters and manages to give a new fresh take on the whole "Heffalump" concept, introducing a new Heffalump character who happens to be friendly (who could've guessed...). It's really just about the most saccharine that a kid's film can get, clocking in at a nowadays rare G rating. So if your kid is a large Winnie the Pooh fan this relic of the past will no doubt prove to be amusing, for what it is. But there are far better Pooh films out there, and this one should really only be for completists.
Chicken Little
Director: Mark Dindal
Starring: Zach Braff, Joan Cusack, Garry Marshal
Release Date: November 4, 2005
Running Time: 81 minutes
Rating: 3.5/5
Chicken Little is largely regarded as one of Disney's failures, but I've always regarded it as more of a mediocre film- nothing really special, but, like Meet the Robinsons, full of creativity and humor- granted, I only saw it once, and that was a long time ago- but a lot of the gags still make me chuckle, especially the hilarious big reveal at the end. Chicken Little centers around an outcast in a small town, derided for having said "the sky is falling" only for there to be a false alarm. One day, he does something really big, which seems to redeem for his past actions, only to find a piece of the sky on his bedroom floor, threatening to catapult him into another avalanche of shame. There are some interesting character designs here, even if the characters themselves are a tad shallow. What ultimately comes out of all of it, though, is a wild ride, half-adventure half-small-town-comedy, with a lot of twists and a lot of kid-friendly goofiness. So, keeping in mind that there are a lot of films that kids probably won't enjoy, this is one that I firmly believe kids will enjoy.
Robots
Director: Chris Wedge
Starring: Ewan MacGregor, Halle Berry, Greg Kinnear, Mel Brooks, Robin Williams
Release Date: March 11, 2005
Running Time: 90 minutes
Rating: 2.5/5
Ugh, this movie. Even as a kid, I found Robots to be kind of... well, abrasive. I mean, Robin Williams was fun to be sure, and Mel Brooks as a large domino-loving robot will continually be the prominent image that this movie delivered to be. Indeed, the movie should appeal particularly to lovers of vintage diesel technology and Rube Goldberg machines, as this film presents a kind of 1940's-1950's fully mechanized retro-future of sorts. However, the rough metallic textures in the film are very hard to work with as a viewer-- considering that they're metal, many of the characters' faces are merely an assemblage of scrap parts with eyes and mouths, and the result came off as kind of nightmarish for the young me. It's kind of a shame that this movie is as forgotten as it is, though, I mean, it is a wonderful display of animation from Blue Sky Studios. And yet, much of this film feels like a joke without a punchline. The message feels cheap and the writing easily takes second fiddle to the visuals, and the same can be said for the hard-to-like characters. As far as bad kids movies go, Robots isn't really insulting... it's just kind of disappointing.
-Julian Rhodes
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