Top 7 Animated Movies of 2011.

It was a reasonably decent year for animated movies in 2011. It was quite unique in that Pixar’s yearly offering, Cars 2, was pretty poor. This meant other animated movies had to pick up the slack and they all did a decent job in doing so. I saw 7 animated movies this year, obviously not enough to do a top 10, so here are my top 7 animated movies of the year…

7 - Cars 2

Pixar decided to cast Mater as the main character in what would turn out to be a horrible idea. The first movie was nothing special but Cars 2 managed to somehow be worse! Even Michael Caine can’t save this monstrosity. Mater, voiced by Larry the Cable Guy, is just far too annoying and represents the worst character Pixar have ever created! Moving on…

Click here for the full review.

6 - Puss in Boots

Dreamworks attempted to breathe some life into the Shrek series with Puss in Boots. It was an okay movie but never really did anything out of the ordinary. As average an animated movie as you’ll find.

Click here for the full review.

5 - Kung Fu Panda 2

Another Dreamworks animation this year was the sequel to 2008's Kung-Fu Panda. Overall it wasn’t as good as the first but did enough to raise more than a smile or two. It felt a little forced as a sequel, I don’t really think the first movie warranted one.

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4 - Tangled

Disney’s only effort this year (not including Cars 2) was the more than decent Tangled. It may be pretty clichéd and the songs included are really awful but the characters seem to have a little more depth than usual and it does have some funny moments in it.

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3 - Rango

Starring Johnny Depp, Rango really is one of the best animations of the last few years. It succeeds in offering something for the kids, and also for the adults. The soundtrack is brilliant, done randomly by Hans Zimmer, and it features one of the greatest characters of all time: Rattlesnake Jake, a rattlesnake who instead of a rattle on the end of its tail has a Gatling gun. Sheer genius.

Click here for the full review.

2 - Rio

After completing the Ice Age trilogy, Blue Sky returned this year with Rio, a colourful story about a rare bird who can’t fly and his adventures in Brazil as the humans attempt to have him mate with a female. It’s extremely lively and fun as you’d expect from a movie centred around the carnival. The songs aren’t too bad either.

Click here for the full review.

1 - Arthur Christmas

Yes, taking Rio’s prospective crown right at the end was Aardman’s Arthur Christmas. Somehow you’d expect this movie to fail since it’s not so much plasticine but computer animation however Aardman managed to keep all their charm and heritage within the entire movie. It’s one of the funniest animations for a while, caters to both adults and children and is actually a good Christmas movie. For those reasons it deserves the top spot for animations but unfortunately didn’t do enough to get in to the top 10 movies of the year.

Click here for the full review.

***

And there you have it, the best animations of 2011… well the seven animations I saw ranked in order of how good they are. 2012 looks to be a decent year for the genre with Pixar bringing out a non-sequel movie in Brave. Dreamworks are however turning to the sequels with their upcoming movie Madagascar 3 which is promising seeing as the first two are good. There’s also Ice Age 4 and The Lorax as well as another offering for Aardman in The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists.

All in all 2012 looks like it may give 2011 a run for its money. Surely Pixar can't make two bad movies in a row, right?