Young CriticWildwood
Laika's latest is its most ambitious and best yet. Travis Knight's stop-motion epic follows a Portland girl into an enchanted forest of talking animals and warring kingdoms, and pays off its enormous gamble with breathta
Reviews tagged: animation
Young Critic
Young CriticCoyote vs. ACME
The "lost film" is a winning comedy with meta commentary to boot. Shelved by Warner Bros. as a tax write-off and rescued by an independent buyer, Coyote vs. Acme turns out to be sharp, funny and unexpectedly profound.
Young CriticMinions & Monsters
A Hollywood love letter that actually earns its bananas. Pierre Coffin sends the Minions to 1920s Hollywood and delivers the best entry in the franchise since the first Despicable Me.
Young CriticToy Story 5
A worthy toy, buried under too many boxes. Jessie finally gets her due as the emotional core of Toy Story 5, even if Pixar can't quite let go of Woody and Buzz long enough to let her story breathe.
Young CriticThe Super Mario Galaxy Movie
Too many power-ups, not enough story. Illumination's latest is more merchandise than movie: a forgettable corporate exercise that squanders its characters, its budget, and any semblance of creative vision.
Young CriticHoppers
Nature, Robots, and a Pixar Firing on All Cylinders Like much of the other Disney brands, Pixar's reputation was severely hurt by the insatiable quotas for "content" in the Streaming Wars, to populate Disney+. The result
Young CriticZootopia 2
Bigger and busier, this sequel can’t recapture the original’s spark After the return of Bob Iger as Disney CEO, a pivot was made to make less quantity of content for the streamer Disney +, which had partially doomed his
Young CriticMufasa: The Lion King
Barry Jenkins' prequel is intriguing, but falls into familiar beats Hollywood is split between studios churning endless arrays of sequels and small auteur-driven cinema. Every once in a while there is crossover between t
Young CriticThe Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim
The animated return to Middle-Earth is rushed and shallow The Lord of the Rings has inspired an entire generation of fantasy novels, shows, and films. Yet the property itself is not as exploited as similar mammoth proper
Young CriticFlow
The animated film is transcendent and a must-watch An animated Latvian film with no dialogue, following a nameless cat as it survives a biblical flood, might sound like cliché cinephile catnip. Yet, Flow is a very real
Young CriticPiece By Piece
The Pharrell Williams Lego documentary is enjoyable if biased Music biopics employ such a rote and tired structure that it was parodied as far back as This is Spinal Tap (1984) and Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007).
Young CriticThe Wild Robot
Chris Sanders' return to the genre brings an endearing film Despite animation being one of the most creatively fertile genres in recent decades—offering originality amid the superhero and sequel glut—it has increasingly
Young CriticTransformers One
The animated film is a surprisingly enjoyable one The Transformers franchise has constantly delivered unwatchable slogs. Diminishing box office returns, lack of story ideas, and the exit of Michael Bay as the franchise d
Young CriticInside Out 2
The Pixar sequel retains its' predecessor's emotion and humor, if not its depth Pixar built its reputation on continuously outdoing itself with original and unique concepts. However, like much of Hollywood, the studio ev
Young CriticThe Boy and the Heron
Miyazaki's latest, and possibly last, is another original and transporting instant-classic Hayao Miyazaki is not only one of the greatest animated filmmakers of all time, he’s one of the greatest filmmakers period. The J
Young CriticTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg's take of the beloved franchise is a charming win The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise IP is something that Hollywood has struggled to exploit. The beloved 80s children’s series had som
Young CriticSpider-Man: Across the Spider-verse
An expanded ambition and scope doesn't dilute this winning film It seems that we are slowly coming to accept previous genre outcasts into mainstream cinema. Foreign language films seemed to be niche and intellectual corn
Young CriticThe Super Mario Bros. Movie
This video game adaptation is blandly generic Given how readily film studios have exploited IP, it’s a surprise that Nintendo’s video game universe has remained relatively untouched. There was the maligned live-action Su
Young CriticPuss in Boots: The Last Wish
This animated sequel is surprisingly irresistible It can be easy to build preconceived notions about the type of movie that an animated sequel to a spin-off series could be, yet movies such as Puss in Boots: The Last Wis
Young CriticGuillermo del Toro's Pinocchio
Del Toro’s animated adaptation is a profoundly moving one Darren Aronofsky has always been a director fascinated with the grand and epic internal journeys. He loosely adapted “the Bible” with Mother! (2017) , took us int
Young CriticLightyear
The Toy Story spin-off is an enjoyable if derivative feature Pixar has developed a reputation as a studio of original ideas, always delivering something risky, new, and refreshing. However, just as every other major stud
Young CriticSonic the Hedgehog 2
This sequel is a rushed affair that wisely leans on the strengths of the original Sonic the Hedgehog (2020) was one of the last films to enjoy a regular box office run before the COVID-19 shut-downs brought the cinematic
Young CriticEncanto
Disney's latest musical is an emotionally transporting allegory of the immigrant experience The concept of family films is taken to mean films to be watched as a family. And while many of these same films deal with famil
Young CriticFlee
This moving documentary pushes the limits of its genre While film genres seem to have been completely defined, it is an artist’s job to push such limits and defy convention. Something curious is happening in the document