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ERNEST & CELESTINE (Blu-ray combo)

June 1, 2014

James Plath, Family Home Theater Animation, Entire Family, PG rated , , , , Leave a comment

ErnestandCelestinecoverGrade: B-
Entire family: Yes
2012, 80 min., Color
Rated PG for some scary moments
GKIDS/Cinedigm
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Featured audio: English (dub) DTS-HD MA 5.1
Included: Blu-ray, DVD
Bonus features: C+
Trailer

I’m sure you’ve heard people say, as I have, that they were “ruined” somehow by the relentlessly chipper, happily-ever-after romanticism they absorbed during a steady childhood diet of Disney cartoons and animated features.

Well, there’s a cure for that. Start with a dose of irreverent Warner Bros. classic cartoons, and then be sure to watch occasional animated features from different countries, where you’ll discover a world that’s not so black and white, morally speaking.

That’s certainly the case with Ernest & Celestine, which received a 2014 Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature Film of the Year. Ninety-eight out of 100 critics at Rotten Tomatoes pronounced it “fresh,” and Ernest & Celestine won a number of prizes, including Best Picture at Amsterdam Cinekid Festival, Prix SACD Special Mention at the Cannes Film Festival, Best Animated Film at the César Awards, People’s Choice Award at the Dubai International Film Festival, and Best Film (the first animated feature to win) at the Magritte Awards. In other words, people loved this film.

My family, on the other hand, was not as enamored. Maybe we’re just too Disneyfied. A reviewer for People Magazine called Ernest & Celestine “Fantastic! Delightful! Adorable!” and we’d concede that there were fantastic, delightful, and adorable moments, and that this film had the kind of sweetness and charm that you find in watercolor-illustrated children’s books. But there were also kind of creepy parts, and the wholesome theme of friendship that critics have seized upon is balanced by the not-so-wholesome thieving ways of the two main characters.   More

WALKING WITH DINOSASURS (Blu-ray combo)

March 30, 2014

James Plath, Family Home Theater Action-Adventure, Animation, PG rated , , Leave a comment

Walking with Dinosaurs (FHT)Grade: C
Entire family: No (only small children will like it)
2013, 87 minutes, Color
BBC Earth/Evergreen Films/Fox
Rated PG  for creature action, peril, and mild rude humor
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Featured audio: DTS-HD MA 5.1
Includes: Blu-ray, DVD, UV copy
Bonus features: C
Trailer

When Fox got back into the animation game in 1994, I and probably half the world envisioned the kind of spirited competition the studio gave Disney during the Golden Age of cartoon shorts. But that hasn’t materialized. After the promising theatrical debut of Anastasia, only the Ice Age films and Rio could be called hits.

The problem isn’t the animation, which has been accomplished and, at times, jaw-dropping. It’s the concepts and the writing, and there isn’t a better illustration of that than the film version of Walking with Dinosaurs, which was released in theaters as Walking with Dinosaurs 3D. Produced by BBC Earth and Evergreen films, this animated feature has gorgeous CGI artwork and effects and tells an interesting-enough story, even if it does lumber a little too close to Disney’s Dinosaur (2000). But Fox bought the distribution rights and decided that instead of a voiceover narration like the TV series that spawned it, they would make the dinosaurs talk in order to better connect with audiences.

Bad move. So bad, in fact, that BBC Earth must have balked, since the 3D combo pack includes a “Cretaceous Cut” that allows you to watch the film without the unnecessary live-action frame story that the Fox brass tacked on, and without the talking characters.

The addition of wise-guy narration, a goofy tone, and juvenile humor (sometimes the scatological sort) turns this animated feature into something only small children will enjoy. And that’s a shame, given how accomplished the CGI work is. Gradations of color within dinosaur skins really give them a believable complexity, and representations of fire and water are every bit as accomplished as what we get from Disney. BBC Earth cranked it up a notch in producing dinosaurs that look real as can be and move even more fluidly than they did in the TV series. The mammals and birds aren’t as accomplished—more animatronic looking, really—but they don’t surface in the narrative that often. I wish I could say the same about dumb writing.   More

THE PIRATE FAIRY (Blu-ray combo)

March 29, 2014

James Plath, Family Home Theater Animation, Entire Family, G rated Leave a comment

PirateFairycoverGrade: B+
2014, 78 min., Color
DisneyToon Studios
Rated G
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Featured audio: DTS-HD MA 7.1
Includes: Blu-ray, DVD, DigitalCopy
Bonus features: C
“The Frigate That Flies” clip

My daughter, who’s part of Disney’s target audience for the CGI animated Tinker Bell series, says that she likes all the direct-to-video offerings—Tinker Bell (2008), Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure (2009), Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue (2010), Secret of the Wings (2012) and this fifth installment in the series, The Pirate Fairy. They’re all good, she says, but the last two are her favorites.

For me, it’s no contest. Secret of the Wings offered wonderful graphics and animation, but I found the ending too pat and the logic strained throughout an uncomplicated and emotionally shallow narrative. Like the other sequels, it felt formulaic to me as it hit all the familiar notes—BFFs, opposites joining forces, mess-ups being vindicated, etc.—without adding anything terribly new. The Pirate Fairy, on the other hand, feels much more honestly energetic and exuberant, and maybe that’s what the addition of a scurvy (but comical) bunch of pirates does for a film.   More

BARBIE: THE PEARL PRINCESS (Blu-ray combo)

March 22, 2014

James Plath, Family Home Theater Animation, Children's, G rated Leave a comment

BarbiePearlPrincesscoverGrade:  C
Entire family:  No
2014, 73 min., Color
Universal
Rated G
Aspect ratio:  1.78:1
Featured audio:  DTS-HD MA 5.1
Includes:  Blu-ray, DVD, UV Copy
Bonus features:  C+
Trailer

Not 10 minutes into Barbie: The Pearl Princess my 12-year-old daughter remarked, “I like these movies, but they really need to do something different. Every time it’s either a princess, a fairy, or a mermaid.”

There’s no relief in sight, either, because the next direct-to-video full-length animated feature in the Barbie franchise will be Barbie in the Secret Garden—which apparently features a princess, a fairy, AND a mermaid.

If there’s a series that’s grown more tired than the Barbie movies, I can’t think of it. There isn’t an original idea to be found in this most recent installment—yet little girls will love it, while girls age 9 to 12 will still watch despite bemoaning how repetitive the series has become. For anyone else, this “original” movie apparently draws way too much from Disney’s The Little Mermaid, DreamWorks’ Shark Tale, and every Barbie movie that’s preceded it.   More

THE JUNGLE BOOK 2 (Blu-ray combo)

March 12, 2014

James Plath, Family Home Theater Animation, Children's, G rated Leave a comment

Junglebook2coverGrade:  C+
Entire family:  Not really
2002, 72 min., Color
Disney
Rated G
Aspect ratio:  1.66:1
Featured audio:  DTS-HD MA 5.1
Includes:  Blu-ray, DVD, Digital Copy
Bonus features:  C-
Trailer

Admit it, moms and dads. The minute you see a “2” or “II” on a Disney title, doesn’t it trigger a silent consumer alert somewhere in your buying brain?  Sure, The Return of Jaffar (that awful Aladdin direct-to-dumb video sequel) put everyone on guard. But since then, except for a Hercules follow-up with bargain-basement animation, the never-ending sequels have been mostly well done, even if they’re shadows of the original and about as original themselves as Saturday morning cartoons.

Nostalgia is a powerful force, and the original 1967 Disney theatrical release of The Jungle Book has evolved from a minor studio success to a baby boomer classic that the new Disney crew wanted to re-do. This sequel ought to be a hit with young kids, but boomers and anyone over the age of 10 will find The Jungle Book 2 wanting. The characters giggle too much (as hyper-cute Saturday morning animated offerings will do), the music isn’t as well integrated into the story, and the humans come across like an Indian version of The Cosby Show.  More

FROZEN (Blu-ray combo)

March 10, 2014

James Plath, Family Home Theater Animation, Entire Family, PG rated 1 Comment

FrozencoverGrade:  A-
Entire family:  Yes
2013, 102 min., Color
Rated PG for some action and mild rude humor
Disney
Aspect ratio:  2.24:1
Featured audio:  DTS-HD MA 7.1
Includes Blu-ray, DVD, UV DigitalHD Copy
Bonus features: C-
Trailer

Disney’s latest animated adventure is a Frozen delight. You children will want to watch this over and over again, and the good news is that the film is creative enough, clever enough, and with solid enough animation and music that you won’t suffer one bit from the repetition. In fact, you’ll come away from it appreciating the Disney magic more with every viewing.

That’s because Frozen is a princess movie that doesn’t feel like a princess movie—even though there are two of them in it, as well as a handsome prince. It feels more like an adventure, and a fun one at that. Given the strength of animation, the memorable characters, and a killer soundtrack that’s collectively the most impressive I’ve seen from Disney since Beauty and the Beast, it may well be one of Disney’s most accomplished animated features from the past 20 years.

Frozen is loosely based on a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, but makes more sense than the tale that inspired it, and it’s full of great visual effects, memorable music, and heart-warming moments—check that. Small moments that make you smile, laugh, or marvel at how clever the scene is.   More

THE JUNGLE BOOK (Blu-ray combo)

February 1, 2014

James Plath, Family Home Theater Animation, Entire Family, G rated Leave a comment

JungleBookcoverGrade:  B+
Entire family:  Yes
1967, 78 min., Color
Rated G
Disney
Aspect ratio:  1.75:1
Featured audio:  DTS-HD MA 7.1
Includes Blu-ray, DVD, DigitalHD copy
Bonus features:  A-
Trailer

Many people point to Sleeping Beauty (1959) as the last film in the Golden Age of Disney Animation and consider the seven full-length animated features that the House of Mouse made over the next three decades to be lesser accomplishments.

But I think you can build a pretty good case for The Jungle Book and 101 Dalmatians rising to the top of that second tier of Disney animated films. Both were directed by Wolfgang Reitherman, one of Disney’s Nine Old Men—the original animators who were with Disney from the very beginning—and film each has its positives. With 101 Dalmatians it was a terrific villain, 101 dogs, and an exciting narrative. With The Jungle Book it’s the great songbook, characters, and voice talents that elevate it above some of the other films made during this period.

An enchanting soundtrack from George Bruns and memorable songs by the Sherman brothers and Terry Gilkyson add pep to the narrative and even seem to give the animators a shot in the arm. The plot and pacing may be nearly as lazy as the sloth bear Baloo (Phil Harris), but animators use that to their advantage, developing the characters so that even minor ones seem majorly entertaining.  More

CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS 2 (Blu-ray combo)

January 26, 2014

James Plath, Family Home Theater Animation, Entire Family, PG rated Leave a comment

Cloudy2coverGrade:  B-
Entire family:  Yes
2013, 95 min., Color
Rated PG for mild rude humor
Sony Pictures Animation
Aspect ratio:  2.40:1
Featured audio:  DTS-HD MA 5.1
Includes Blu-ray, DVD, UV DigitalHD copy
Bonus features: B+
Trailer

The book by Judi and Ron Barrett that inspired the first Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs was a folksy story that began, “We were all sitting around the big kitchen table,” and as Grandpa flipped pancakes while he was making breakfast, the narrator, her mother, and brother Henry started thinking what it would be like if food “dropped like rain from the sky.” It was the only cue Grandpa needed to tell a tall tale about a town named Chewandswallow that was normal in every respect except for the weather. There, it rained soup, it rained fried eggs, it rained mashed potatoes . . . you never knew what was going to come down. But it was all a tall tale, and a testimony to Grandpa’s storytelling powers.

For the 2009 movie, directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller got rid of Grandpa and the family and turned his tall tale into a story about a boy genius named Flint who grows up to be the crackpot inventor of a machine that turns water into food. And the town is relocated to an island, where the only thing they’ve had to eat is sardines, so of course they welcome a change of menu. That film ended with the machine going out of control and Flint needing to stop it to save the world.

This 2013 sequel from Cody Cameron (Shrek) and Kris Pearn (Surf’s Up) is even more fantastic and farther removed from the original book.  Bill Hader returns as the voice of Flint, who in this film is relocated with the rest of the citizens of Swallow Falls to California, so Live Corp can clean up the mess on the island. The CEO, Chester, is a big inventor himself, and he invites Flint to work at Live Corp.

Eventually he gives Flint the task of finding his machine, which had survived, and destroying it once and for all. Rather than going alone, as ordered, Flint takes along his meteorologist girlfriend Sam (Anna Faris), her cameraman Manny (Benjamin Bratt), their friend, Officer Devereaux (Terry Crews), a monkey named Steve (Neil Patrick Harris), and a goofball named Brent (Andy Samberg). And Flint’s father (James Caan) tags along. It’s a Land of the Lost adventure for them, because somehow the machine has been making food creatures like tacodiles and cheeseburger spiders.

Cloudy2screenThere’s more to it, of course, but the fantastic and (pun intended) hard-to-swallow plot isn’t the main selling point for a film like this. Rather, it’s the creatures themselves and the insanely colorful and frenetic world that the Sony Pictures Animation crew brings to life. Kids will be drawn to the striking visuals and constant action and emotion. But the mood and pacing will seem a little too frantic for some viewers, and parents and older children may wish for a little more logic.

My family didn’t think this sequel was as good as the first film, which made more sense and was easier to follow. But it might be more imaginative. To enjoy Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 you’ll need to relax and just enjoy the colors and creative visuals. The animation is eye-popping and the menagerie of food critters is truly inventive . . . but it only makes me wonder what Sony artists could do with as really meaty screenplay.

MARY POPPINS (50th Anniv. Ed. Blu-ray combo)

December 12, 2013

James Plath, Family Home Theater Animation, Entire Family, G rated, Musical 2 Comments

MaryPoppinscoverGrade:  A-
Entire family:  Yes
1964, 139 min., Color
Not rated (would be G)
Disney
Aspect ratio: 1.66:1
Featured audio: DTS-HD MA 7.1
Includes: Blu-ray, DVD, Digital Copy
Bonus features: B+
Trailer

Mary Poppins stands with The Wizard of Oz as one of the all-time great children’s films adapted from books, and one reason is certainly the memorable music.  Richard and Robert Sherman won an Oscar for Best Original Score, which included that long and hard-to-spell word “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” Best Song Oscar winner “Chim Chim Cher-ee,” “A Spoonful of Sugar,” “Jolly Holiday,” “Let’s Go Fly a Kite,” “I Love to Laugh,” and Disney’s personal favorite, “Feed the Birds.”

Mary Poppins also won an Oscar for Special Visual Effects, blending traditional painted cell animation with cutting-edge audio-animatronics, stop-motion animation, reverse filming, sophisticated wire work, and sodium vapor screens (for combining live-action with cartoon characters). And those effects look oh-so-much-better on Blu-ray than I expected, given how the HD treatment exposed the live action/animation magic in Pete’s Dragon. Disney, whose 20-year attempt to obtain the rights to the P.L. Travers books to make a film he had promised his daughter, would have been delighted with this release. And we’re talking about someone who was hands-on throughout the process.  More

THE SMURFS 2 (Blu-ray combo)

December 3, 2013

James Plath, Family Home Theater Animation, Children's, Comedy, PG rated Leave a comment

Smurfs2coverGrade:  C+
Entire family:  No
2013, 105 min., Color
Rated PG for some rude humor and action
Sony Pictures Animation
Aspect ratio:  1.85:1
Featured audio:  DTS-HD MA 5.1
Includes:  Blu-ray, DVD, UV Digital HD copy
Bonus features:  C-
Trailer

I don’t know how much Hank Azaria is getting paid to play Gargamel in the live-action/animated Smurf movies, but it’s not enough.

If it wasn’t for Azaria’s scrumptious,villainous dramatic monologues directed at his cat accomplice, Azrael, The Smurfs 2 would be one big animated yawn. The scenes that feature Azaria and his cat salvage this 2013 sequel—for older audiences, that is. Younger ones will probably be blissfully captivated by the blue Smurfs too, and all things Smurfy.

It’s ‘tweens, teens, and adults who will find the plot and the animation sequences pitched way too low to be of much interest, and the other on-camera stars—Neil Patrick Harris (How I Met Your Mother) and Jayma Mayes (Glee)—seem so caught up in the dumbing-down that their performances don’t have the same wink-wink quality of Azaria’s. So yeah, this guy and his CGI-enhanced cat save the day . . . sort of.

They can’t rescue the plot, which is straight out of the repetitive old Saturday morning cartoons about little blue creatures who live an idyllic existence except for an evil wizard who wants to eliminate them. And they aren’t enough to compensate for humor that sometimes stoops, or rather crouches, to potty-level (“Every time a smurf toots, someone smiles”?).  More

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