TheRetroCritic

Review available on the new website .

This year, Disney had a surprise hit with CG-animated feature Zootopia , a buddy-cop movie set in a modern metropolis populated by animals. We follow Judy Hopps, a determined bunny police cadet who moves to the big city to start her career. On paper and from the early trailers, Zootopia really didn't seem like much with the whole animals-acting-like-humans thing having been done many times before. Watching the film, however, you realise that the marketing just didn't pick the right angle to sell this one. Instead of going for a generic approach, why not couch the film in a Lethal Weapon -style 80's cop movie type of thing? Judy (voiced by Ginnifer Goodwin) is one of the most endearing animated characters Disney's created in a while and just when her overwhelming positivity starts to get a little much, she has to deal with the cruel real world and Nick, a sarcastic fox con artist. Judy is first dismissed by the police force as a meter maid because of her small size

The sequel to Son Of Batman , animated feature Batman Vs. Robin continues the story of Bruce Wayne and Talia Al Ghul's son Damian (aka the new Robin) as he is torn between being Batman's sidekick or joining Talon, an assassin working with The Court Of Owls. Still very much a wild card, Damian Wayne (voiced by Stuart Allan) is initially Batman's ally but he is constantly trying to do his own thing and is always conflicted about killing his enemies or sparing their lives. This affects his relationship with Batman (Jason O'Mara) to the point where he starts to consider joining another vigilante and eventually even fights his own father on the rooftops of Gotham. This is a tense, action-packed if loose adaptation of The Court Of Owls storyline and, while Son Of Batman was a little slight in terms of story, a lot happens in Batman Vs. Robin and it's never boring. The film makes an interesting parallel between Bruce Wayne's childhood and Talon's and we

One Disney film I always regretted not seeing at the cinema back when it was released in 2002 was Treasure Planet , a steampunk animated take on Robert Louis Stevenson's classic Treasure Island story with added rocket-powered surf boards, robots and aliens. The whole thing sounded like a fun, creative take on a familiar pirate story but that was apparently not good enough to drag audiences, including me, into theatres: the film was a box-office bomb losing almost $40M altogether. Perhaps it simply came out at the wrong time, only months after Studio Ghibli delivered their latest masterpiece Spirited Away and so soon after Disney's recent hit Lilo & Stitch , released that same year. Looking back, the film certainly has a lot going for it so it's a shame that it did as poorly as it did, especially since the company would then steer clear of sci-fi for a while and focus on safer, lesser material while Pixar thrived with hit after hit. Animation-wise, Treasure Plane

As Disney puts the final touches on its upcoming remake of Pete's Dragon , it's about time I look back at a film I really enjoyed as a kid but did not get the chance to revisit... until now. This is certainly one of Disney's more dated live-action films: it's a pretty stagy Mary Poppins -style musical with an extremely earnest main character and most of the others hamming it up big time. It's also one of the Mouse House's most adorable movies ever and Elliott the dragon (animated by Don Bluth) is quite simply a joy from start to finish and even if the rest of the film is not your cup of tea it's likely you'll still fall in love with this endearing animated creation. I should point out it was ambitious of Disney to mix live-action and animation back in 1977 and, while it doesn't always merge that well, Elliott is so likeable that it doesn't matter how smooth that mix is plus younger viewers won't care, I sure didn't. By essentially

After the success of the last two Kung Fu Panda movies, a third instalment was inevitable and the first two being as good as they were, the pressure was on for Dreamworks to not mess things up with a soulless cash-in. The good news is that Kung Fu Panda 3 is definitely not that and is actually a very decent, worthy second sequel. This time, Po (Jack Black) is tasked by Master Shifu (Dustin Hoffman) to teach his team mates Kung Fu but, of course, that soon backfires. Meanwhile, evil yak Kai (J.K. Simmons) comes back from the spirit world with the goal of taking the "Chi" from every Kung Fu master in the land. He goes on a rampage just as Po's long lost father  Li Shan (Bryan Cranston) shows up to take Po back to the panda village and show him the ways of the pandas. Both plots eventually meet and, once again, Po will have to learn a bunch of valuable lessons to defeat the villain and become the master he was destined to become. It's a busy sequel and, in lesse

This direct-to-video animated feature sees Iron Man and Hulk team up to face a powerful new enemy created by Hydra pretty much accidentally. Iron Man & Hulk: Heroes United  was Marvel's first attempt at a CG movie using a new 2-D wrap technique. Unfortunately, the one thing bringing this venture down is the animation which could be a little more fluid when it comes to the characters' faces and definitely needs more shading, texturing and overall polish. It's a shame since the designs and the plot are all-around faithful to Marvel's recent movie output, this particular movie giving us an Avengers: Age Of Ultron test run of sorts while also bringing back The Abomination thereby linking The Incredible Hulk to Hydra in a clever way. The latter organisation's goal initially being to use Hulk's gamma energy to create a weapon but, in the process, they give birth to a new sentient electrical life form called Zzzax and it's not too keen on humans. Soon en

In 2014, Marvel Animation followed up their Iron Man/Hulk team-up animated feature with Iron Man & Captain America: Heroes United , another Avengers duo movie. Using the same 2-D wrap technique which gives 3-D characters a more "drawn" look, the film sees Captain America and Iron Man discuss their respective fighting styles before Hydra, led by Red Skull and Taskmaster, invades Tony Stark's training facility and not only steals some of his more destructive technology but captures Captain America himself as well. Iron Man, with the help of trusty artificially intelligent assistant Jarvis, sets off on a rescue mission while Red Skull reveals his evil plan to Steve Rogers. The goal being to build an army with the exact same physical strength and fighting moves (and shield) as Captain America. Taskmaster, using Stark's stealth suit, would then mimic all of Iron Man's moves and, once the world is force-fed the Super Soldier Serum, Red Skull would then easily g

Good Christmas specials are so hard to find these days. Most of my and your favourites are probably extremely dated by now. Luckily, here comes Marvel Super Hero Adventures: Frost Fight! to save the day. The animated feature takes The Avengers and sends them on a quest to find Jolnir, the legendary Santa Claus, before Loki does since his plan is to steal his powers of bending space and time. They travel to space using a portal built by Tony Stark and end up on a Christmas planet, because why not. Meanwhile, Thor and The Hulk stay behind on Earth to help fill in for Claus should he not be found. Rocket Raccoon and Groot, from the Guardians Of The Galaxy , are also involved as they land on the same planet and meet with Mrs Claus. The entire thing is, as you can tell, completely ludicrous but it doesn't take itself seriously at all, remaining tongue-in-cheek throughout. In fact, Frost Fight! is surprisingly very funny: you've got Rocket Raccoon fighting Gingerbread Men, Gr

Released in 2014, Avengers Confidential: Black Widow & Punisher was an anime-style animated feature produced in Japan taking The Punisher and throwing him in an Avengers storyline led by Black Widow, of all people. How does that work? As it turns out, surprisingly well. Taking a page out of DC's book, Marvel lends its characters to a group of competent animators who, much like most of the Batman animated features, not only deliver a visually appealing film but respect the source material. The film doesn't take the easy route either: it would have been a breeze to just make an Avengers movie like the poster suggests, packed with familiar characters throughout, but the fact that this focuses on The Punisher and his unlikely collaboration with Black Widow is refreshingly daring and original. The plot sees S.H.I.E.L.D. clash with The Punisher (voiced by Brian Bloom) over a specific case which Nick Fury explains goes deeper than Frank Castle knows. The latter therefore

As Disney once again attempts a live-action version of its own 1967 masterpiece based on Rudyard Kipling's classic story, I take a look back at the original The Jungle Book . Growing up, this was one of my favourite old Disney films along with Alice In Wonderland and Robin Hood and, to this day, it remains one of the best. Right off the bat, the opening titles show off beautiful drawn depictions of the titular jungle and an excellent, timeless score. What follows is the tale of Mowgli, a human child raised by wolves who is led by panther Bagheera (voiced by Sebastian Cabot) towards the human village so he can be protected from the evil tiger Shere Khan, who has returned to the jungle and who famously hates Man. Along the way, a reluctant Mowgli shows he can't really look after himself as a run-in with hypnotist snake Kaa (Sterling Holloway) almost ends very badly for the "man-cub" and he is later kidnapped by monkeys. He meets friendly, lazy bear Baloo who tak

The Justice League comes together in this animated feature which sees the likes of Batman, Green Lantern, Superman and Wonder Woman join forces to take down Darkseid and his army of mutants who are planning to invade the Earth using portals. If that sounds familiar it's because this is essentially the plot of the first Avengers movie. Swap Loki for Darkseid and it's basically the same deal except with DC characters. Which isn't a bad way to go, frankly, since it gives us an early glimpse at what the Justice League live-action movie could potentially look like, with added Zack Snyder foggy CGI, of course. The film kicks off with Batman investigating strange abductions in Gotham City as Green Lantern shows up to help and they are soon off to Metropolis to get Superman's take on the alien technology they picked up from one of the Parademons. Following an accident involving an alien box found by The Flash in Central City, a football player is turned into Cyborg and h

Son Of Batman , as the title suggests, is an animated film which sees Batman discover he has a son. When an army of Man-Bats invades Gotham City, it'll be up to the Dark Knight and Damian, his son-turned-sidekick, to stop Deathstroke's evil plan. We first meet young Damian when Ra's al Ghul's mansion comes under attack after a former student of the League Of Shadows' leader, Slade (aka Deathstroke) turns against his old master. Despite Talia al Ghul's (Damian's mother) best efforts, Ra's fails to make it to the Lazarus Pit in time and he is killed for good. Batman, who was busy taking on Killer Croc, is then told about Damian who soon becomes a liability, treating Alfred like just another servant, fighting enemies single-handedly and clashing with Nightwing. Soon enough, Damian puts on Robin's old costume and joins Batman in stopping the Man-Bat invasion and saving Talia in the process. The film opens strong with a violent, action-packed battl

Back in 2008, George Lucas produced a feature length animation set between Episode II: Attack Of The Clones and Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith . The Clone Wars was released in cinemas and would kick-start an animated series on Cartoon Network. While the film earned a very healthy amount at the box-office, it was pretty much critically panned. The animation style not exactly wowing critics who were expecting something a little more big-screen friendly instead of what was essentially just a TV pilot. The 3D animation in question certainly didn't go for a realistic take on the characters who all look like wooden caricatures, their hair never flowing in the wind, their faces not that expressive. It takes a little time to get used to and one could see how a critic expecting Pixar would leave the cinema slightly disappointed but on the small screen it's definitely easier to accept. It helps that the backgrounds and the action sequences look great. The animation may have bee

When Pixar announced Inside Out , a film mostly taking place inside a kid's head, it sounded insane but promising in that it's something that hadn't been done before and it had the potential to be the animation studio's most affecting film since Up . The film's big concept is explained to us little by little as we see young Riley's early years develop from a single emotion, Joy (voiced by Amy Poehler), to several including Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Fear (Bill Hader), Anger (Lewis Black) and Disgust (Mindy Kaling). When Riley and her parents move to San Francisco, this jumbles up her emotions to the point where Joy and Sadness find themselves out of the loop completely. The film follows the latter two as they desperately try to get back into Riley's head through any means possible. This is arguably the most surreal Pixar adventure since Monsters Inc. , which was also directed by Pete Docter, and the gimmicky concept once again doesn't distract from

Tarzan may not be the one Disney film people rave about constantly and it tends to be completely forgotten these days with the company's CGI efforts being such a huge hit everywhere. Even nostalgia-wise, the film is left in a kind of no man's land between Mulan and Toy Story 2 . My Disney loyalty, when it came to the animated features, unfortunately ended post-Mulan, which is odd since I loved the latter. I wouldn't sit through or fall in love with another Disney flick until finally seeing Toy Story years after everybody else. This thankfully kick-started my interest in those movies again and I started going back to watch all the good stuff I'd missed. Honestly, Tarzan was one of those. Like Hercules , I never thought I'd have any interest in it at the time: nothing about it sounded or looked all that interesting to me. I was an idiot. It's exactly that kind of attitude which made me miss The Emperor's New Groove back in the day. What I found

Well, it's looking like The Lego Movie is proving to be a big hit in the U.S. and elsewhere and it's no secret why: we all had Lego growing up and whether you like the idea of a movie based on the toy or not, chances are you'll go see it anyway. If I went to see it, you either probably will or you've been already. I mean, I was proven wrong long ago about how a Lego video game wouldn't be a good idea so there's no reason why those colourful blocks and little plastic dudes wouldn't work on the big screen. The good news is that, indeed, The Lego Movie works, mostly. Voiced by an all-star cast, the film sets out to make the ultimate Lego movie and it does just that. From the get-go, it's Lego agogo. We're suddenly introduced to this Lego-centric world where everyone lives as per the Lego "instructions" and, as that annoying little song proclaims, "everything is awesome". Except it's not, there's the small busi

Two years after Disney tackled the tale of Rapunzel with Tangled , we now get Frozen , a slightly more Christmassy outing based on The Snow Queen. Another one word title, again in the past tense? Is it the same movie? Happily, it's not really, though there are obvious similarities. For one thing, we're back worrying about princesses and their problems involving unpredictable magical powers. This time, we follow two sisters, one of which, Anna, has the power to control snow, ice and just about anything Wintery and cold. This isn't a big deal until she accidentally hurts her little sister Elsa. After that, their (crappy) parents erase Elsa's memory with the help of a bunch of rock trolls and decide to keep both kids locked-up in the castle for ages. I have soooooo many problems with this whole plot so far I don't even know where to start but I'll just keep going so you can understand what doesn't really work about this movie and then I'll talk abo

Spirited Away sure must have been a tough act to follow so you would have expected Hayao Miyazaki to take it easy and release a lighter, smaller film before bringing us another substantial effort but that didn't happen. Instead, we got Howl's Moving Castle , one of the director's most creative works to date. Based on a novel by Diana Wynne Jones, the film follows 18 year-old Sophie as she is turned into a 90 year-old woman by a witch because the latter was jealous about the young hatter meeting some wizard called Howl, which she herself had her eye on. Sophie then wanders the land in search of the witch, potentially the only one who could reverse the spell at this point, but instead she finds some weird-looking scarecrow who ends up leading her to the titular castle. There, she meets Calcifer, an adorable fire demon, voiced by Billy Crystal in the English version, who agrees to help turn her back into her old... well, young self, rather, if she can help break his own c