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…

The Ruddy Doors.

Pixar have made some great animated films over the past 10 years. With titles like Toy Story, Monsters Inc, Finding Nemo, and Wall-e, you’d be hard pressed to find a production studio with a higher success rate than theirs.

They have some of the most original ideas in animation and their creativity is amongst the highest in the business. As the years tick by they’ve moved more and more into adding sequels to former movies. Toy Story has had three movies now dedicated to it and Monsters Inc will be getting a sequel in 2013. Both of the originals were great movies and therefore deserving of sequels. Strange then to see that this year’s Pixar animation was a sequel to their 2006 movie: Cars.

Kung Fu Panda 2: Black belt or black eye?

It’s a bit of a year for animated sequels this year. Pixar are serving up Cars 2 this summer while Dreamworks have released Kung Fu Panda 2. To be honest both of them look a little underwhelming, Cars is probably the weakest film Pixar have done so it’s a strange choice to bring out another. Kung Fu Panda was a relative hit, a decent movie that is probably more variable than Cars to get a sequel.

That being said Kung Fu Panda 2 doesn’t really capture the same magic of the first instalment. Po the Panda is already a Dragon Warrior so the object of this movie is simply stop the bad guy from doing evil stuff.

Paintballing without the pain.

The latest animation from Blue Sky studios is Rio, the story of a rare blue macaw who must travel to Brazil in order to mate and save his species. Blue Sky are probably most famous for the Ice Age series, which I liked, but it did peter out towards the end so I was interested in seeing how Rio was going to turn out.

It was a good movie that I have to say I quite enjoyed, all be it at the start of the movie the colour was all in pink, resulting in the movie stopping abruptly and starting from the beginning…of the trailers. The projectionist simply skipped forward as if it were a DVD, which it probably was, and on we went!

The chameleon who stands out.

There’s another animated movie doing the rounds in cinemas. It’s called Rango, at least I think it is, if you were going off movie posters then you might think it’s called Johnny Depp.

Yes, Johnny Depp does the voice for the little lizard and the marketing for Rango has been completely focused around the A-lister. This did concern me at first as I didn’t know much about it, and the studio seemed to just be running with Depp’s inclusion in it rather than telling me anything about the story and whatnot. It could’ve been rubbish.

Disney lets its hair down.

So I’ve seen Tangled. You have a problem with that? Well, it was free after all so why not, and I have to say I don’t regret going to watch it.

In a nutshell: it’s a Disney movie. So yes, now you know what to expect. Wait, come back, I haven‘t finished! Although it’s a Disney move that is clearly aimed at kids, I have to say there were a few moments that had me chortling away into my Capri-Sun like a hyperactive child at a picnic.

So long... Partner.

Pixar’s latest masterpiece, Toy Story 3, came out on DVD last week and I really would recommend you grab yourself a copy of it. The last in the trilogy, this movie ties up the franchise neatly and fittingly in a tear jerking finale no one will want to miss.

The story centres around the lives of a group of toys who live with their owner, Andy (no relation). Now, ten years have passed since Toy Story 2; Andy has grown up and is now off to college. Naturally the toys have become seldom used and now take residence in Andy’s toy chest, never to see the light of day again.

Persistently, the toys attempt to get Andy to play with them, but they fail and are grouped together into a trash bag and hauled into the attic, with the exception of Woody who gets special treatment and is placed in the box headed to college. However, the toys don’t make it to the attic, Andy’s meddling mother mistakes them for trash and leaves them on the kerb for collection. I wish we still did that here, all these wheelie bins are doing my head in. But that is a rant for another day...

Anyway, the toys manage to escape the garbage truck of doom and make a break for the garage where they find a donation box to the nearby daycare centre: Sunnyside. The toys decide that being donated to a daycare centre is a lot more fun than being churned up by a garbage truck so they head off to Sunnyside much to the dismay of Woody who can’t get them to believe him that they were meant to be going into the attic.

Watch out, spoilers ahead...

So yes, they head to Sunnyside which appears to be a lovely place of fun and games. Once there they are met with the daycare toys and their leader, Lots-O Huggin’ Bear. Lots-O is an old pink bear toy who smells like strawberries. He was abandoned and replaced by his owner, which leaves him as bitter as a lemon wrapped in spinach served with black coffee. Lots-O seems to be a great host, but he tricks the toys into being ‘played with’ by the ruthless younger kids. Sheriff Woody who has already made an escape by this point is forced to return to rescue them in true Woody fashion.

The movie retains its charm from the previous two, and it does so mainly with the characters involved, both old and new. A lot of characters have been left out of this one, due to Andy getting rid of them at some point or another in the ten years it’s been since Jesse and Bullseye arrived in the bedroom . Wheezy is gone now, as is RC car and Bo Peep. All that remain are Woody, Buzz, Slinky, Rex, Hamm, Jesse, Bullseye, the three eyed aliens from Pizza Planet and Mr and Mrs Potato Head. Incidentally, how did Andy go a decade without getting rid of Mrs Potato Head? Well, whatever.

All of the characters have their original voice actors, with the exception of Slinky who has the experienced Blake Clark replacing the late Jim Varney who sadly died a year after the second movie was released. Tom Hanks is back to play Woody, Tim Allen plays Buzz, Joan Cusack is the rootin' tootin' Jesse and of course John Ratzenburger is Hamm aka Evil Dr Porkchop!

Of the new characters Lots-O is cast brilliantly with Ned Beatty bringing a deep south New Orleans accent to the character making him appear to be trustworthy to all, the audience knows he's a baddie but that voice is just so inviting! The great casting continues: Michael Keaton is in this movie! He plays Ken, who falls madly in love with, yes you guessed it, Barbie. Timothy Dalton plays Mr Pricklepants, Whoopi Goldberg lends her voice to Stretch the octopus, Jeff Garlin is Buttercup, and Kristen Schaal plays Trixie the triceratops. Even Totoro makes an appearance, obviously no voice acting needed there.

The writers at Pixar have a way of creating the best characters in not just animation, but in cinema. Even if these characters already exist (i.e. Ken, Etch-A-Sketch et al), they give them life in a way that only they can. I think their greatest strength though, is appealing to both the kids in the audience and their parents at the same time. And none of their movies have done this quite as much as Toy Story has done.

The movie is a lot darker than its predecessors ever were, a lot more grown up. But this is a good thing. Whereas the first movies were about being friends forever, Toy Story 3 is about saying goodbye. And I defy you not to feel sad about it! The final scene of the movie in which Andy drives away into the horizon leaving his best friends with a new owner wraps up the trilogy perfectly and will hit home to children and adults alike.

There aren’t any new songs in this picture either, none sang by the toys at least. Randy Newman’s ‘You got a friend in me’ is heard at the beginning but there are no new ones, so you might be disappointed if that’s what you came to see, or hear as the case may be. Instead they have been replaced by a lot darker forms of storytelling. Take the climatic escape scene where the gang end up in the trash-processing plant; they fall into the incinerator and pretty much accept their untimely demise, holding hands and waiting for death. Ahem. ‘You got a friend in me, de do do do do de dum’

But for all its differences this manages to stay true to the Toy Story formula, it’s genuinely funny, very well written and has some of the best animation of the modern age. The first scene in the whole movie where Woody, Buzz and Jesse are set on foiling Mr and Mrs Potato Head’s devious scheme on a railroad is just brilliant and deserves an Oscar! Also it has loads of puns…which I like!

I must admit when I saw that Lasseter didn’t direct this one I had my doubts about it. The first Toy Story was his gem and he needed to rescue the second instalment from straight to DVD hell. So when I saw that Lee Unkrich was directing it I was worried. But there was no need, having worked on the previous two and having Lasseter as executive producer, Unkrich ends up directing a fittingly different movie than the other two whilst still keeping it familiar enough not to alienate its audience.

All in all this movie is one of the best of 2010. I’m giving it 5 stars as I think it deserves it. I did enjoy the first two more than this one, but there is nothing about this instalment that I would change. Nothing at all. Okay, I'd bring Wheezy back, but that's all!