Category: Animated film

Ratatouille (2007)

Delightful and heart-warming cooking comedy with added rats – a Pixar gem

Director: Brad Bird

Cast: Patton Oswalt (Remy), Lou Romano (Alfredo Linguini), Ian Holm (Skinner), Brian Dennehy (Django), Peter Sohn (Émile), Peter O’Toole (Anton Ego), Brad Garrett (Auguste Gusteau), Janeane Garofalo (Colette Tatou), Will Arnett (Horst), Julius Callahan (Lalo), James Remar (Larousse), John Ratzenberger (Mustafa), Teddy Newton (Talon Labarthe)

They say anyone can cook – but surely they don’t mean a rat can cook? But in Ratatouille that’s what we get: the greatest chef in Paris is a rat. Remy (Patton Oswalt) has a sense of taste and smell that’s light years ahead of his fellow rats. While they happily munch on rotten food, Remy longs for food that’s actually good. Separated from his family, Remy finds himself in the Parisian restaurant of legendary late chef Auguste Gusteau (Brad Garrett). There Remy’s natural instincts make him the secret brains behind the growing success of young Alfredo Linguini (Lou Romano), who overnight moves from dish cleaner to chef. His secret? Remy of course. Can they keep their secret in the face of the suspicion of head chef Skinner (Ian Holm), Linguini’s growing romance with fellow chef Colette (Janeane Garofalo), and the threat of a damning review by feared critic Anton Ego (Peter O’Toole)?

All this comes together in Brad Bird’s delightful confection, a superb dish where every flavour is perfectly balanced and all ingredients are seasoned to perfection. (I promise this won’t all be full of cooking puns.) It’s absolutely wonderful good fun and on top of that, it’s a real heart-string tugging treat. Ratatouille takes a fantastical set-up (a cooking rat manipulates a talentless chef’s body through precise hair pulling) and then throws in ounces of carefully judged comedy with real emotional pathos. Ratatouille never fails to make you laugh but then hit you with tear-inducing sincerity. The film is a total delight.

What Ratatouille is really about is truth. Being true to yourself, embracing the things you love, and the struggle to find acceptance for that, be it from family or the world around you. It’s the subtext behind Gusteau’s message that anyone can cook. This is not about anyone being able to crack an egg into a pan: it’s about good food coming from a person loving what they do and wanting to share that love with someone else. Remy – an utterly delightful voice performance by Patton Oswalt – wants to experience good food, but as a rat the home of good food is always the place he’s most likely to find himself skewered by a trap.

Remy loves food in a way that the rest of his rat family – lead by his tough-as-nails father Django (Brian Dennehy) – can’t even begin to understand. They see food as just fuel. Who cares which flavours complement each other or even if its fresh? To them Remy’s extraordinary sense of smell is only useful for his ability to detect poison before it hits their mouths. And they can’t even begin to understand Remy might want more. But the very idea of heading to a kitchen – or interacting with humans who, to the other rats, get their kicks from slaughtering rats in their thousands – they can’t even begin to get their head round. Why can’t Remy be happy snuffling in the gutter?

Linguini (a very sweet, nervy Lou Romano) also has burdens of expectations that he can make a career in the kitchen. Anyone can cook – except for Linguini, who has no interest in (let alone flair for) flavours. The relationship between man and rat is beautifully done– even though neither can speak the other’s language. (In a neat touch, while we hear the rats talk – every human in the film just hears them squeak.) To Linguini, it doesn’t matter that Remy is squeaky vermin, what matters to him is that Remy is a master at what he does. But, Ratatouille gently asks: can hiding your true self make you happy in the long term?

Linguini’s success shows another side of being true: as fame goes to Linguini’s head, he starts to forget he’s the muscle not the brains of the operation. What will eventually alienate his growing relationship with fellow chef Colette (a wonderful Janene Garofalo) is not that he’s working with vermin to make the food, but that he’s lied to her about his skills. Something particularly tough since, like Remy, she has had to fight tooth and nail to live her dream in a male-dominated industry.

Accepting your true self and being happy in your own skin are themes our two villains also juggle with. Head chef Skinner (hilariously voiced with impotent rage by Ian Holm) has lost any love he once had for cooking, marketing his former mentor Gusteau as the face of a brand of cheap ready-meals (“with dignity” he absent-mindedly requests, as Gusteau is drawn as a burrito for the latest packaging) and his interest is only in turning a profit. The face of mass-produced, soulless fare, he’s the perfect antagonist of a film that praises lovingly crafted individualism.

And our other villain? Played with a beautifully plummy relish by Peter O’Toole, Anton Ego – drawn with a grey-faced, sepulchral chill – despairs that any food can meet his standards and seems to have forgotten somewhere along the line that excellence comes from love. Unlike Skinner though, Ego is (at heart) an idealist who may no longer quite remember what he is searching for – but will embrace it when he finds it at last. Ratatouille’s finest moment – always brings a tear to my eye for sure – is Ego’s being reminded at last what made him fall in love with his passion in the first place, perhaps one of the finest moments in Pixar’s long history.

Ratatouille’s emotional content and its themes of truth and acceptance are at the heart of its success, complemented always by the superb score from Michael Giacchini, crammed with Parisian inspiration. There is more life in this animated marvel than in hundreds of live-action films. And the animation is breath-taking: from the kitchen a marvel of pristine, gold and steel surfaces, via the sewers bringing back memories of The Third Man, to the visual imagination of Ego’s coffin-shaped office or the cobbled together rat colony (made from various bits of rubbish). Brad Bird’s flair (and Ratatouille is a wonderfully directed film) also carries across to his electric chase scenes through the streets and rivers of Paris, and the undeniable tension of watching Remy maneuverer his way around a kitchen without being detected.

Bird’s film though really succeeds because it has a warm-hearted love for all its characters and a heartfelt and appealing message for us to be the people we want to be, not what those around expect us to be. And who can’t relate to that? Throw in the sort of unexplained comic magic of watching a naïve young man having his body moved about by a cuddly rat sitting under his chef’s hat and with Ratatouille you onto an absolute winner. Bon appetit!

The Lion King (2019)

Soulless, heartless remake designed to make Disney as much money as possible

Director: Jon Favreau

Cast: Donald Glover (Simba), Beyoncé Knowles-Carter (Nala), Seth Rogan (Pumbaa), Chiwetel Ejiofor (Scar), James Earl Jones (Mufasa), Alfre Woodard (Sarabi), Billy Eichnor (Timon), John Kani (Rafiki), John Oliver (Zazu), Florence Kasumba (Shenzi), Keegan-Michael Key (Kamari), Eric André (Azizi)

We all like to pretend Disney is the custodian of our childhood dreams – that they exist on to give us even more gorgeous memories to treasure. Bollocks. It’s a corporate enterprise existing solely to create more money for shareholders. If you were in any doubt, cast your eyes across The Lion King, a bottomless collection bucket for the God of Mammon. There is literally no reason for this film’s existence, other than to lure people into the cinema for the express purpose of removing their pennies from their pockets and dropping them into Disney’s McDuck vault for the next time the shareholders want to take a dip.

Seen the original? Then you know the plot. At least Disney’s previous nakedly commercial “live-action” remakes of Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin had the decency to introduce a few new plot elements so there was at least a little bit of surprise content. Even if it was tedious stuff like the Beast’s Tardis mirror to the past or the Genie’s love interest. Here the extra 15 minutes is made up solely of padding, dreadful unfunny comic and utterly unnecessary extra characters who make literally no impression (Timon and Pumbaa now run a sort of hippie commune).

Disney made huge play out of the fact this is a “live action” Lion King. That’s the selling point. So proud of this were they, that they were hilariously pissed off when the Golden Globes nominated the film for Best Animated Film. But nothing in this film is real, or live action – except, as Favreau later bragged, the first shot of the film showing the sunrise. Everything you see here is created in a computer: from the tufts of Mufasa’s mane to the grass that dances in the breeze. Far from watching a live-action film, this is an orgy of CGI wizardry that constantly pats itself on its back for the hard work and detail that went into its creation. Who cares if the result has no heart?

Because that’s the case. The Lion King is a soulless cultural abomination. It is almost entirely a shot-by-shot remake, with the only changes being the occasional introduction of new (less good) dialogue. The characters have the same conversations, with less snap, laughs and emotion. It’s the sort of film-making karaoke some people like to call affectionate homage, but instead feels like pandering and no-one having the guts to change even the slightest moment from the original. How hard would it have been to match the plot, but find new ways to film it? This however matches shots, camera moves, angles, edits – the whole damn thing. If you had a choice between seeing the Mona Lisa or watching a computer do a Mona Lisa paint-by-numbers, which would you choose?

It also feels like no one stopped for a second during their self-congratulatory film-making to ask one or two obvious questions. Firstly, I don’t think its racist to say this, but to my eyes most lions look the same. No real effort has been made to distinguish any of them from each other (with the obvious exception of Scar) – this particularly effects the lionesses who all essentially look the same. Secondly, one of the first things you’ll notice about most animals is that they have inexpressive faces that do not display emotion and that they have mouths that have not been designed for talking.

With an animated lion you can get round this. You can draw a look of fear on Mufasa’s face because you aren’t limited to only using the facial movements that a real lion can. Their faces can shift and change to match the emotions of a real person – they can look happy or sad, cynical or sarcastic, joyful or mournful. You can’t do this with a real animal, because animals don’t have expressive faces. The whole cast of The Lion King have stiff, stationary faces that never react to the emotional events around them. They often can’t even move their mouths to properly replicate speech (Favreau starts to get round this by having as much of the dialogue delivered off camera as possible).

What you end up with is a series of robotically cold shots of animals not emoting, mechanically going through the emotions to replicate a masterpiece. Mind you, perhaps it’s a good thing that the film tries to rip-off the original as much as possible because whenever it does its own thing it thuds face-first into a pile of animal dung. Pumbaa is given a hideously on-the-nose line about “I can’t stand bullies” (to replace his “they call me Mr Pig!” battle cry). Eichhorn, Oliver and Rogen litter the film with unfunny fourth-wall-leaning references which stink of over-indulged recording booth improv. A few songs are butchered (most noticeably Be Prepared) and several musical cues are reworked in a way that dramatically reduces their impact. Even the obligatory new song is lacklustre and weirdly tonally wrong for the moment it’s used.

The cast struggle, never quite sure how they should approach the content. Spare a little sympathy for Ejiofor, stuck trying to follow one of the greatest vocal performances of all time – but his response to this is to bend himself into all sorts of shapes to be as different from Jeremy Irons as possible. The result is an underwhelming Scar, who lacks presence, menace, or the glorious manipulativeness of the original. Other actors are flat-out fails, most particularly Eichhorn who turns Timon an unlikeable bitchey whiner. Only John Kani really does something that feels like a good mix of homage and original work as Raffiki – he’s one of the few genuinely African voices in a film that loudly “prided” itself on its mostly African-American cast, but still has all the lions speaking in reassuringly American accents – and casts white actors into almost every non-lion role.

But that’s a side note. The Lion King is a ruthlessly, exploitative attempt to make money. Which it managed to do to an enormous degree. So, I guess it hardly matters that surely no-one will be watching it in five years’ time. Or that its CGI created lions are expression-free automatons existing in a shiny world of non-reality. Or that the entire enterprise is a heartless, soulless, nakedly commercial stare deep into the belly of a conglomerate that sees people as nothing more than ATM machines. The Lion King is an abomination and will take pride of place in Hell’s multiplex for all time.

Frozen 2 (2019)

The gang are all back together in Frozen 2

Director: Jennifer Lee, Chris Buck

Cast: Kristen Bell (Anna), Idina Menzel (Elsa), Josh Gad (Olaf), Jonathan Groff (Kristoff), Sterling K Brown (Mattias), Evan Rachel Wood (Iduna), Alfred Molina (Agnarr), Martha Plimpton (Yelena), Jason Ritter (Ryder), Ciaran Hinds (Pabbie), Jeremy Sisto (King Runead), Rachel Matthews (Honeymaren)

Frozen was a phenomenon, a film that seemed to come out of nowhere and seized the imagination (and the passions) of audiences. Why did it work so well? It’s got a great bunch of characters, a focus on sibling affection that is very easy to relate to (and very different from most romance-based Disney films), a well-rounded bunch of characters (so easy to relate to, they inspired a number of fan in-jokes in a way that only characters in films you really care about can) and of course that song. Frozen II works very hard to double down as much as possible on the things that worked, and to give you the chance to spend more time with these characters. If it fails to match the magic of the first film, it still makes for an entertaining trip to the cinema.

Elsa (Idina Menzel) and Anna (Kristen Bell) are now living together in the kingdom of Arendelle, and all is peace and contentment. Until one day a siren call that Elsa keeps hearing from across the water occurs at the same time as a series of elemental events in the kingdom, each harnessing earth, fire, air and water. The sisters quickly work out that this must be connected in some way with the stories their parents told them of the Enchanted Forest, a magical land near to Arendelle that disappeared after a mysterious feud between the two kingdoms. Accompanied by living snowman Olaf (Josh Gad), Anna’s boyfriend Kristoff (Jonathan Groff) and his reindeer Sven, the sisters head off to find the cause of the disturbances, solve the mystery of the enchanted forest and save Arendelle. Phew!

Frozen 2 is engaging, fun and has some very good jokes. Its main problem is a plot that feels both sprawling and epic and also muddled and confusing. As the film hits its final act, you may well feel more than a little confused about why events are unfolding like this, what the motivations of certain characters are, why some things happen to characters etc. What the film seems to lack is a compelling unfolding of the plot, and a clear structure of how these events link together to form the overall arc.

As such, we seem to head to several locations and constantly encounter a series of magical creatures, but never really get a firm grasp of how they link together. The film has a series of flashbacks and expands the backstory of the series, but then never really pulls together clearly how the events of the past shaped the present. The moment where this is explained feels rushed and murky, and seems to revolve around a sort of “anti-magic” attitude from a key character in the past that has no context with the rest of the film and never feels really clear.

The plot may not be the strongest, but where the film really does work is in its sense of humour and its fun script, and the engaging riffs Lee and Buck make on the previous film. Fan humour from the first film – not least the close relationship between Kristoff and Sven – is doubled down on in this film with a series of knowing sight gags. Olaf – far more engaging here than in the first film – has a series of excellent fan gags, peaking in a hilarious showpiece moment where he essentially acts out the entire plot of Frozen for the people of the Enchanted forest (all of whom respond like the fans). It’s a hilarious show piece, and a real sign of the film’s strengths, which are often when it is riffing on the first film.

The film also carries across the other things that worked from the first film. The close relationship between the two sisters is central to most of the film’s development (although it also means that Anna seems to have to protest her devotion in virtually every scene). The sense of outsider and isolation in Elsa is also explored further, with her confusion over being happy where she is but still yearning for something more. The film also threads in a charming B-plot of Kristoff’s attempts to propose to Anna, which provides both charm and several moments of comic gold.

The film does struggle to find a replacement song for Let It Go, although Into the Unknown comes close, another inspiring, story-packed, ballad for Idina Menzel to bring to inspired life again. The song also plays well with the several fans who have seen Elsa become a gay icon, with most of the lyrics leaning on the idea of heading out from the safety of knowing where you are to finding your true self in the “unknown”, answering the siren call of your own desires. Also of course, it’s a belting song which you can enjoy on its own merits!

Toy Story 4 (2019)

Woody is tempted by a new life in Toy Story 4

Director: Josh Cooley

Cast: Tom Hanks (Woody), Tim Allen (Buzz Lightyear), Annie Potts (Bo Peep), Tony Hale (Forky), Keegan-Michael Key (Ducky), Jordan Peele (Bunny), Christina Hendricks (Gabby Gabby), Keanu Reeves (Duke Caboom), Ally Maki (Giggle McDimples), Joan Cusack (Jessie)

Probably the hardest thing about making the fourth film in an acclaimed, perfectly-formed trilogy (yup) is justifying its existence in the first place. That’s basically the main task that faces Toy Story 4 – does it manage to exist without ruining the other three? And was there any need to go back to a story that had already been pretty much finished perfectly.

After the third film, Woody (Tom Hanks), Buzz (Tim Allen) and friends are now settled with their new child, Bonnie (an imaginative 6 year old). But Woody is being played with less and less, and is struggling with the adjustment from being Andy’s most important toy to becoming a little-used toy in the box. Taking it upon himself to accompany Bonnie to her first day at kindergarten, he sees her use an art-class to turn a spork into a toy – a toy that quickly comes to life as Forky (Tony Hale). As Bonnie’s parents try to ease her anxiety about starting kindergarten by taking her on a road-trip, Woody obsessively tries to train the reluctant Forky – who doesn’t want to be a toy – in how to be a favourite toy.

When Toy Story 4 rapped up, I basically said I didn’t really need to see it again. That’s quite a sad statement to make considering the original trilogy of films are so damn good. But this never really feels like it does justify its existence. Toy Story 3 finalises the whole saga so well with Woody and the other toys coming full circle, having helped Andy grow up and now being passed to Bonnie to help her deal with her childhood. It’s a beautiful, heart-warming story – and there isn’t a need to see what happens next.

Toy Story 3 ended with Woody accepting that Andy has grown up, choosing to stay with his friends as a toy rather than going to college with Andy. But here we need to hit the reset button so that Woody is now missing Andy and his previous status – but is also in denial about this. I think there is something in this that is working towards Woody working out whether he wants to continue with a life of dedicated service or whether he wants to move on and change his life completely. Of course the scales are weighted a bit by the fact Woody is no longer a favourite toy and – worse! – is gathering dust in a cupboard. But it’s all a bit unclear and gets a bit lost.

Part of this is the amount of time given over to Forky, a rather trying and faintly irritating “comic” character, whom I could certainly have done without. He exists primarily as a motivation for Woody to remain at the funfair the road-trip gets stuck at, but the long stretch of time they spend apart means the mentor-mentee relationship the film starts with trails off and disappears for a large chunk of the film. As a mirror on Woody, the part is a failure.

In fact most of the plot gets stuck at the funfair along with the road trip, as the film introduces Gabby Gabby (voiced by Christina Hendricks) a voice-box doll from the 1950s with a misfunctioning voice box who has lived her life in an antiques store and dreams of being a real toy. Gabby’s obsessive belief that gaining a working voice-box (from Woody!) will get her the love of a child drives most of the rest of the film, a slightly rambling action-adventure that features Woody, Buzz and a gang of newly-met toys breaking in, then out, then back in to the antiques store. It’s a sprawling series of adventure scenes, that seems a million miles away from the film’s original opening of Bonnie dealing with going to school for the first time.

In fact, poor Bonnie gets almost completely shelved after the first act of the film, along with the rest of the original cast who barely appear. Jessie, Rex, Slinky Dog, Hamm and co are left “guarding the base”, hardly having any impact on the film and kept separate from Woody and Buzz for ages. Since the first three films revolved so heavily around the “family” mechanism of the group of toys, to shelve most of them into background characters seems a real shame.

Instead the film starts to focus on Woody’s fear of being “a lost toy” – something put sharply into perspective by him re-encountering Bo Peep (Annie Potts) his sometime love-interest from films 1 and 2 (not present at all in 3). With a “nine years earlier” flashback opening the film, showing Bo Peep being gifted on to a new child, the film catches up with her having escaped from Gabby’s antiques store and now leading a free life, without a child, doing what she wants, when she wants. There is some decent chemistry between the two, but more could have been made of showing Woody slowly seeing that there are positives in not having a child as well as the negatives he has always associated it with. But like so many things in the film, with so much going on and so many new characters being introduced, the thematic issues get lost.

There is just too much plot. Essentially Forky exists to give Woody a reason to remain at the funfair. Gabby exists as an obstacle to stop them leaving. The funfair is a sort of existential trap for the heroes. But everything just bogs down the film, making the storyline increasingly top heavy. Buzz seems to have taken a step or two down in intelligence. Most of the new characters don’t engage as well as the old ones, even though Keanu Reeves has great fun as a nervous stunt toy. But the film has no economy, it gets crowded over with events.

Which is a shame as there is a simple thematic story here of Woody accepting that one stage of his life has finished and he needs to move on to the next. There was, I am sure, a way of telling this story that didn’t feature all these new characters, the confusing setting and the overlong adventure sequences. There was a way of doing this in parallel with Bonnie needing to grow up a little and start going to school. Of making it harder for Woody to think about leaving, because he has the whole family of toys with him (rather than on the sidelines). But the film doesn’t do it. It’s all too often flat footed, slow and missing the emotional target. It’s Toy Story so there are good moments. But they should have stopped at three.

The Prince of Egypt (1998)

Animated DeMille epics in the rather brilliant The Prince of Egypt

Director: Brenda Chapman, Steve Hickner, Simon Wells

Cast: Val Kilmer (Moses), Ralph Fiennes (Ramesses II), Michelle Pfeiffer (Tzipporah), Sandra Bullock (Miriam), Jeff Goldblum (Aaron), Danny Glover (Jethro), Patrick Stewart (Pharaoh Seti), Helen Mirren (Queen Tuya), Steve Martin (Hotep), Martin Short (Huy), Ofra Haza (Yocheved)

When Dreamworks Studio was put together by three Hollywood mega hotshots (Katzenberg, Spielberg and David Geffen), Jeffrey Katzenberg, former head of Disney, finally got the chance to make his animated version of The Ten Commandments. The Prince of Egypt was the first project under the Dreamworks animation label – and it was intended to beat Disney at its own game. It succeeded – so well that many people think it actually is a Disney film. Is that a good thing?

Anyway, the story should be familiar. In Ancient Egypt, Moses (Val Kilmer), the child of Jewish slaves, is adopted by Pharaoh (Patrick Stewart) as a baby after being found in the bulrushes. Moses grows up as brother to Ramesses (Ralph Fiennes) the future Pharaoh – until the shock of finding out his heritage leads him to flee Egypt. But an encounter with the burning bush (voiced again by Kilmer) gives him a new mission – back to Egypt to demand of Ramesses “Let My People Go”. Will he succeed? Well: There Can Be Miracles (When You Believe).

It helps you to believe in miracles when a film looks as gorgeous as this one does. The animation is amazing, not just because of its quality and richness, but the imagination of its images. From the framing of Pharaoh and later Rameses around the Egyptian architecture around them, to an extraordinary dynamic shot of Moses throwing his sandals from the room when encountering the burning bush, to the haunting interpretation of the killing of the firstborn, it’s brilliant.

It doesn’t stop there either, with the final parting of the Red Sea awe-inspiring in its scale. But the film does equally beautiful work with the smaller, more intimate moments: each character feels real and lived in, and the film perfectly captures smaller moments of affection, love and hurt with genuine emotional force. It’s a terrifically well-made film.

And of course it has a classic story – it’s literally stood the test of time. So imaginative are the visuals – and so impressive is its scope and scale – that it almost dwarfs the DeMille style it’s quietly apeing. In fact, I’d worry whether it is a film that will have greater appeal to movie-lovers and parents than perhaps it does to children. There isn’t much in the way of humour – even the film’s nominal comic characters, a pair of cynical Egyptian priests (and near con artists) voiced by Steve Martin and Martin Short, are on the side of the oppressive baddies. There are a few decent songs in there – I rather like the Les Miserables style oomph of “Deliver Us” – and the film makes great use of the beautiful voice of the late Israeli singer Ofra Haza. But there is no getting around that this is a serious piece of film-making, with nary a comic camel in sight.

But this is no bad thing at all, and I think it stands The Prince of Egypt in good stead as it’s a film you’ll like more the older and more mature you are watching it. Not least the wonderfully complex relationship it explores between Moses and Ramesses – these two wild young men start as carefree kids (the first thing we see them do is smash up a temple building site in the film’s most cartoonish sequence, a sort of Wacky Races chariot drag race), and each become dramatically changed by responsibilities. Moses ascends to a higher plane of responsibility and humanity – but Ramesses finds himself forced into defending to the death a system of government he seemed at best disinterested in as a young man.

The film actually carries a great deal of sympathy for Ramesses. It’s in many ways a tragedy of the brother relationship between these two princes of Egypt getting shattered by events. But Ramesses is a lonely, almost needy figure, who needs Moses’ affection and respect. Ralph Fiennes mines a lot of vulnerability for this man struggling to fill his father’s shoes, who just wants Moses to chuck this whole prophet business in and go back to being his only friend. Ramesses becomes a complex, vulnerable and rather sad man – unable to deal with the pressure of his role and desperate to revitalise a lost connection with Moses, the hatred he eventually feels for his former brother born almost exclusively from rejection.

Moses isn’t quite as interesting a character – he’s more of a waster who becomes a stand-up guy – but the film successfully builds an aura about him. It struggles a bit more with those Old Testament morals: we are meant to condemn Pharaoh’s slaughter of the Jewish firstborn that opens the film, but God’s massacring of the the Egyptian firstborn (for all Moses’ discomfort with it) is presented as being primarily the fault of the Egyptians’ stubbornness.

But then that steers us into theological territory, which no animated epic for kids can really manage to set new ground with. Instead, let’s focus on the many things the film does right. First and foremost that striking visual imagery and beautiful animation, and the depth and shading it gives to the characters. The all-star cast do extremely well – even Jeff Goldblum is fairly restrained – and it’s got some great songs. It deserves to be shown as often as The Ten Commandments on the television.

The Incredibles 2 (2018)

The family are back together, in belated but brilliant sequel The Incredibles 2

Director: Brad Bird

Cast: Craig T Nelson (Bob Parr/Mr Incredible), Holly Hunter (Helen Parr/Elastigirl), Sarah Vowell (Violet Parr), Huck Milner (Dash Parr), Samuel L Jackson (Lucius Best/Frozone), Bob Odenkirk (Winston Deavor), Catherine Keener (Evelyn Deavor), Brad Bird (Edna Moda), Sophia Bush (Voyd)

Fourteen years? In Hollywood that is nearly an eternity. Can you even imagine a film released today getting its first sequel over a dozen years later? But that is how long we’ve had to wait for a sequel to The Incredibles.

Picking up immediately after the first film finished, the efforts of the Parrs, Bob/Mr Incredible (Craig T Nelson), Helen/Elastigirl (Holly Hunter), their children Violet (Sarah Vowell) and Huck (Dash Parr) and their friend Frozone (Samuel L Jackson) to stop the Underminer only lead to destruction. Superheroes are once again anathema to the authorities, but tech millionaire Winston Deavor (Bob Odenkirk) and his inventor sister Evelyn (Catherine Keener) are determined to change their reputation. Their plan? Use Elastigirl as the new “face” of responsible superhero-ing. Elastigirl takes on a new threat: the villainous Screenslaver who uses screens to hypnotise people and control them. Meanwhile, Bob has to cope with the pressures of being a stay-at-home dad, dealing with with teenage crushes, homework challenges and controlling super-powered baby Jack-Jack, who can barely control his never-ending series of powers.

And the world of Hollywood has changed so much since the first Incredibles film came out. Back then, comic book films were only just starting to come into fashion, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe didn’t even exist. So can The Incredibles forge its way in a cinematic landscape now overstuffed with superhero derring-do? Well yes it does, because the film hasn’t lost the sense of what was so enjoyable about the first film. We still get all the action-packed excitement of some damn fine adventure sequences, choreographed with skill and wit. Playing alongside that we get all the homespun domestic turmoil of modern family life, right down to a dad struggling to help his son with his homework (“How can they change math?!”) and trying not to mess up his kids’ lives.

The film resets the table to get us back to the situation of the first film – superheroes are illegal and unwanted and anything the Parrs do is going to have to be under the wire. And then it spins out a twist on the first film – this time it’s the super-competent and intelligent Elastigirl who will be the hero, while the more old-school Mr Incredible stays at home and looks after the kids. This combination works perfectly – Elastigirl is a brilliantly conceived character, cool, calm, collected, super smart, ultra-determined and ridiculously good at what she does. Holly Hunter’s southern tones are smoothly perfect for this part, investing it with just the right level of humanitarianism.

Really I should be annoyed about the end of the last movie being so completely reset in the opening minutes of this one, but truthfully the idea of superheroes struggling to balance everyday problems with illegal super-heroing is such a totally brilliant idea you are really happy to see it play out again, this time adding the dilemmas of Mr Incredible suddenly being thrown into a situation he can’t handle – having to be a regular dad – and collapsing in an unshaven, exhausted mess.

Seeing someone struggle with such everyday problems is hilarious enough, but the film has a USP in the challenges of looking after cute little ball-of-trouble baby Jack-Jack: a sweet, blubbering little kid with a regular smorgasbord of powers, none of which he is able to control. Bob’s struggles to deal with this explosion of wildness (everything from laser rays to moving in the fourth dimension) throw up endless hilarious moments and sight gags that had me laughing out loud (probably too loud) in the cinema.

Sitting alongside this, Brad Bird hasn’t forgotten how to shoot and cut an action sequence – whether it’s animated or not. A chase where Elastigirl has to stop an out-of-control train is not only hugely exciting, but also tense and witty. Elastigirl is also such a relatable character that she adds huge amounts of human interest to every one of these action bits, and her determination to save lives – even of her enemies in exploding buildings – is really rather touching. The final action sequence doesn’t quite match the highlights of the first film, but it does excellent work.

Of course the villain is in fact using these strengths against her. If the film has one weak point, it’s that the identity of the villain is really rather obvious from the start. I pretty much guessed immediately who the villain was going to be. I can’t see anyone of any age being fooled, and the motivations of this villain seem a lot more rushed and less interesting than those of Syndrome in the first film.

But that feels like a minor blemish on what is an excellent sequel, a real gem in the Pixar cannon. It’s still got the brilliantly retro-cool design that mixes the modern world with the 1950s and 60s. Michael Giacchino’s soundtrack is cracking. Brad Bird brings himself back as scene-stealing superhero costume designer Edna Mode. What’s not to like? I wouldn’t mind waiting another 14 years if they produce a third film as good as this one.

Loving Vincent (2017)

Douglas Booth becomes a painting in the unique Loving Vincent

Director: Doreta Kobiela, Hugh Welchman

Cast: Douglas Booth (Armand Roulin), Jerome Flynn (Paul Gachet), Saoirse Ronan (Marguerite Gachet), Helen McCrory (Louise Chevalier), Chris O’Dowd (Joseph Roulin), John Sessions (Père Tanguy), Eleanor Tomlinson (Adeline Ravoux), Aidan Turner (Boatman), Robert Gulaczyk (Vincent van Gogh)

Now this is something very different. It’s a common turn of phrase to praise a well-photographed film by saying every frame looks like a painting. Well Loving Vincent is a film where every single frame is literally a painting. A beautifully painted pastiche collection of van Goghs, painted over a combination of motion capture and photographs of real locations. And, as you would expect, it is beautiful.

The film covers events year after the suicide of Vincent van Gogh (Robert Gulaczyk). Armand Roulin (Douglas Booth) tries to deliver van Gogh’s last letter to his brother Theo. Roulin’s father Joseph (Chris O’Dowd) is also concerned that there is more to the death than meets the eye, as van Gogh had written to him that all was well in his life. Roulin travels first to Paris and then to Auvers-sur-Oise, where van Gogh spent his final days, talking to those who knew him, including his landlady Adeline Ravoux (Eleanor Tomlinson), his art supplier Père Tanguy (John Sessions), the daughter of his doctor Marguerite (Saoirse Ronan) and finally Dr Gachet (Jerome Flynn) himself.

Loving Vincent looks simply beautiful. Its quality is astonishing. The film was shot on green screen with actors. Van Gogh’s paintings were then overlaid as backgrounds for the action. The film was carefully edited, then every frame in the final film was turned into a single hand painting – with real paint. 65,000 hand-painted frames. It’s astonishing – you’ve never seen anything like this before. The style, the homages to van Gogh, the respect and craft behind reproducing his distinctive look – it’s marvellous. Every single image in the film demands you linger upon it and soak it in.

I simply haven’t ever seen a film like this before. I can’t imagine any film like this being made again (for starters it took years to make). It demands to be seen if you have any interest in art or any interest in cinema as a visual artform. It’s so impressively done, you start falling in love with its artistry. It’s also got a poetic visual beauty to it. The flashbacks showing van Gogh’s last few days are put together with a black-and-white pencil-drawn style, which contrasts beautifully with the primary colours of the present day. The film walks a brilliant tightrope line between “real” and dreamlike wonder – final shots of van Gogh or sequences of Roulin dreaming feel like real visual expressions of inner thoughts in their greater expressionist vibrancy.

If there is a weakness to the film, it is that (whisper it) there isn’t much actually to it once you look past the visuals. It’s truly unique in look and feel but the story it delivers is fairly traditional and even (at times) a little flat. Despite being soaked in van Gogh I’m not sure you learn too much about him or his art from the film, and the film shies away from its more interesting topics. The dialogue or plotting rarely ventures above the average.

Perhaps one of the most interesting themes of the film is the struggle of the characters to understand and appreciate the difficulties of depression: that suffers can be optimistic one minute, and consumed with world-ending self-loathing the next. It would have been more interesting if the film had engaged more with this theme, rather than trying to build a rather flat murder mystery around van Gogh’s death. It also would have felt more true to the actual struggles of the artist – crikey, this material was spun out into an excellent Doctor Who episode, which feels like it managed to get more understanding of van Gogh than this film manages.

The acting however is pretty good – Douglas Booth anchors the film every well as the nominal detective figure, struggling with his own guilt over abandoning van Gogh. Saoirse Ronan is very good as a sad love opportunity lost for van Gogh, Eleanor Tomlinson radiant as his friendly hostess, Jerome Flynn tragically guilt-ridden and envious as Dr Gachet. It may not be a film that really gives actors the opportunity to let rip, but it’s still good.

The main question over Loving Vincent is whether there is enough to it to make it more than an art experiment, or a curiosity. Plot and storyline wise it’s a very traditional, rather straightforward film, but it carries a germ of depth in there. And then the film looks so uniquely marvellous that you can’t deny it a certain place in film history. Because you won’t see anything like this again, and if you have any love for the artist or art in general, you have to check it out. Every frame is literally a painting.

The Incredibles (2004)

The Incredibles swing into action in this brilliant superhero-action-comedy

Director: Brad Bird

Cast: Craig T. Nelson (Bob Parr/Mr Incredible), Holly Hunter (Helen Parr/Elastigirl), Sarah Vowell (Violet Parr), Spencer Fox (Dash Parr), Samuel L Jackson (Lucius Best/Frozone), Jason Lee (Buddy Pine/Syndrome), Brad Bird (Eda Mode), Elizabeth Pena (Mirage), Wallace Shawn (Gilbert Huph)

In a world awash with superheroes, what if they were suddenly found legally responsible for all the destruction and chaos that surrounds their battles to save the world? If it suddenly became illegal to be a superhero? That’s exactly the world that spins out in The Incredibles: one where secret identities aren’t just a matter of choice, they are legally enforced by a government?

After all superheroes are banned, because clearing up the legal after-effects of the heroics is just too damn expensive, they retire into “ordinary life”. Fifteen years later, Bob Parr aka Mr Incredible (Craig T Nelson), is working in a dead-end job for a tight-fisted insurance company, whose values are the antithesis of his own, and moonlights, doing small superhero acts where he can. Meanwhile his wife Helen aka Elastigirl (Holly Hunter) raises their children, who have their own super-powers. One day Bob is contacted by a secret government agency to re-start his superhero work, and he jumps at the chance – but quickly finds he’s in over his head.

The Incredibles is pretty much a perfect film. I think it might just be one of the finest films Pixar has produced (and that is saying a lot). It’s not just a brilliant family comedy, it’s also a superb action adventure. In fact, its super-hero action is so well done, it trumps nearly any live-action film you can think of. Brad Bird pulls it together with aplomb and gives the film its own brilliantly distinctive visual style, a jazzy 1960s look with cool angles and heightened reality backgrounds. It’s terrific. And it’s really, really funny.

Just the very idea of superheroes being sued is funny. A series of newspaper headlines early in the film covers everything from train crash survivors suing for trauma, to a hero with x-ray vision being accused of being a peeping tom. From there the film has huge fun with superhero tropes –it’s just inherently funny to see these god-like heroes going through the tedious 9-to-5 and school runs the rest of us need to put up with. Throw in plenty of hilarious sight gags, plus some brilliant comic diversions (not least a brilliant monologue on cape-based disasters, that really pays off at the film’s end) and you’ll not stop laughing even after umpteen viewings.

It also balances all the humour and super-heroics with very real-world problems. It’s an animated family comedy that looks at the impact of a male mid-life crisis on family dynamics, and the impact that a distant, disengaged father can have on his children. Not the usual Disney content is it? Bob Parr is a frustrated, bored man, who feels trapped by missing the excitement and drama of his youth. He wants to recapture his glory days, but is overwhelmingly worried about whether, frankly, he’s up to it any more. He’s overweight, out of shape and past his best.

It’s also funny that Bob’s midlife crisis expresses itself in listening to police scanners, and roping best friend Lucius (a put-upon Samuel L Jackson) into carrying out acts of derring-do on the sly. “Just for once, can’t we just go bowling” Lucius complains. Not that it stops Lucius from throwing down later on in the action (after a brilliant “Where’s my super suit?” argument with his wife).

Poor Bob. Compared to Helen’s intelligent resolve and strength of mind, he’s also emotionally under-developed and unable to articulate his feelings. If you’d like to criticise the film you could say that it falls very much into the standard clichéd family structure (father is the breadwinner who feels trapped, mother is at home being a domestic hero), but the film gets past it because it always pulls itself up when it feels like its heading that way – even if it needs someone like Edna Mode to literally slap Elastigirl around the face and tell her to pull herself together.

And you have to give a pass to a film that has such empathy for its characters, not least the two kids. A cripplingly shy, moody teenage girl whose power to become invisible – no wonder she’s too shy to talk to boys. A hyperactive boy, whose power expresses itself in raw speed. These two kids feel really real, and the relationship (and loving rivalry with each other) really works. It’s clear the family bonds between the four are very strong.

Those battles are quite something by the way. Helped a great deal by Michael Giacciano’s terrific score – inspired by half a dozen 1960s and 70s spy and action franchises – these scenes are dynamic and electric. Brad Bird shoots the film like a real action film, and packs it with some brilliant humour. This is easily the most thrilling children’s animated film you’ll never see. Its action is a mixture of pure Bond and superhero thrills. And while some scenes are just plain grippingly cool to watch – is it a surpise that Syndrome geeks out? – others are a perfect balance between drama and action. A sequence with Helen piloting a jet, targeted by missiles, demanding Violet create a forcefield around the jet, and then desperately making a shield around the children using her own body is both stirring and moving (who can’t empathise with a child who feels they have let their parent down?).

The film also has an imaginative and fun spin on the standard super-villain in Syndrome and a decent mystery thriller that unfolds especially well over the film. Throw in plenty of small moments – many of them supplied by Brad Bird’s brilliantly voiced cameo as costume designer Enda Mode (a wonderful pastiche of Edith Head) – and you’ve got a gem for all ages. The entire cast is excellent – Craig T Nelson and Holly Hunter in particular are superb. The Incredibles ticks so many boxes I hardly know where to begin. Want a brilliant animation? Check. Want a hilarious superhero parody? Check. Want a family comedy? Check. Want a thrilling action film? Check. This film delivers on so many levels it should have a PhD. It’s simply sublime film making and story-telling. It’s hard to beat.

Moana (2016)

Maui and Moana conquer the seas in this wonderfully fun Disney yarn

Director: Ron Clements, John Musker

Cast: Auli’i Cravalho (Moana), Dwayne Johnson (Maui), Rachel House (Tala), Temuera Morrison (Tui), Jermaine Clement (Tamatoa), Nichole Scherzinger (Sina), Alan Tudyk (Hei-Hei)

Once upon a time, the demi-God Maui (Dwayne Johnson) stole the heart of the island goddess Te Fiti, in order to give it to humanity. But he was attacked by the lava demon Te Kā and lost the heart and his magical fishhook. A thousand years later, Moana (Auli’I Cravalho), the daughter of the chief of her small island, grows to be a teenager who dreams of exploring beyond the reef. When her island’s crops start to fail, the Ocean chooses her to leave the island to find Maui and restore Te Fiti’s heart, in order to restore health to the world.

Moana is a charming, engaging and witty Disney movie, with strong, well-drawn characters, that immerses itself in its Polynesian mythology setting. What works about it – and what always puts Disney above its competitors – is that the film is interested in telling a story about characters who have real concerns and depth. Compare it to other, more stunted, “joke”-focused animations, produced by companies like Dreamworks, to see how far above those films it is. There are very few jokes here that will date (perhaps one about tweeting) – instead it’s a film that recognises its content for the adults doesn’t need to be sly film references or cheeky gags: a strong plot and engaging characters will entertain all generations.

One of the reasons the movie works so well is because Moana herself is a sympathetic, engaging heroine with dreams and aspirations, but who is still deeply respectful of her background. She’s not a rebellious teen, but someone who wants to improve the world around her, and is beautifully voiced by Cravalho. As such, she’s not only a great role model (take note parents!), but someone you end up totally rooting for. It also helps that she has a wonderful chemistry with Maui (very well voiced by a charmingly sparkling Johnson) – the film quietly subverts the expected Mentor/Pupil relationship between the two, as each teaches the other lessons both practical and spiritual.

Moana learns many of the lessons Disney picked up from Frozen. Like that film, it follows a free-spirited, independent-minded young woman not defined by a romantic interest. Its focus is on the lead overcoming a task to save her world. And it is built around an extremely catchy, very good song. How Far I’ll Go, Moana’s signature song (refrains of which are built into many of the other songs), is a sensational, powerful and tear-prickling power ballad about being yourself and following your own heart. It is remarkably easy to sing along with and carries a great message. It’s also got a brilliant popular appeal – I was stunned to see the YouTube video of it has over 141 millionhits (would that this site had so many). Many of the other songs are similarly excellent, especially the extremely hummable You’re Welcome (the songs are brilliantly composed by Lin-Manuel Miranda, Opetaia Foa’I and Mark Mancina).

Its visuals are outstanding, the animation terrific. I also really liked the way Clements and Musker embraced the strengths of silent characters, and the expressiveness animation can bring to characters. The Ocean, a clear character here who influences events, is nothing more than a shaped concentrated wave with no features, but has an expressiveness that makes it one of the wittiest characters in the film (memories of the carpet from Aladdin spring to mind). Similarly, the silent, dim-witted chicken Hei-Hei supplies many of the film’s laugh-out-loud moments. Maui’s body tattoos (wonderfully illustrated), moving and communicating silently with Maui throughout the movie, are terrifically innovative and feel unique.

Moana has a looseness and coolness to it that makes it an enjoyable, perfect viewing for a Saturday night. The storytelling is brilliantly done and the final confrontations are shot with a daring vibrancy that betters many action films. Clements and Musker have a mastery of the material that creates a gripping and involving story and characters. In many ways, it doesn’t do anything too unique or different from past Disney movies, but it tells the story with such charm and imagination that you’ll get totally wrapped up in it.