TheRetroCritic

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Based on the popular anime series, Fullmetal Alchemist is a 2017 live-action adaptation from Japan following Alchemist brothers Elric and Alphonse as they encounter a range of powerful enemies and search for the Philosopher's Stone. The film was recently released on Netflix. We first meet the two brothers as children when an alchemy experiment aiming to bring their dead mother back to life goes wrong. Cut to years later and we learn that Alphonse's body somehow vanished after the botched experiment and he now inhabits a knight's empty armour indefinitely, hence the nickname "Fullmetal Alchemist". Unless Elric, who has himself lost limbs, can somehow recover the Philosopher's Stone, he might not be able to ever summon his brother's body back. A big action sequence early on depicts the brothers fighting against a man whom, they believe, is using the Stone nefariously and the scene boasts some big CGI effects, something the film fails to match before it

Despite the relatively unkind feedback Robert Zemeckis received after experimenting with CG animation in The Polar Express , he persevered and, in 2009, he delivered his own version of A Christmas Carol starring Jim Carrey as Ebeneezer Scrooge... and the three ghosts. While the animation in Polar Express gave an unwanted creepy puppet quality to the child characters, here the visuals are much more polished and the actors' expressions are captured perfectly. It's fascinating to see Jim Carrey being turned into, not only an old man, but a younger Scrooge, a candle ghost and a big bearded spirit dude. The rest of the cast, which includes Gary Oldman, Colin Firth and Bob Hoskins, are also beautifully rendered into their CGI characters. There are still creepy visuals but this time it's very much on purpose as Zemeckis appears to have picked the scariest aspects of Polar Express and Beowulf in order to give every kid watching this movie nightmares throughout the holiday se

Released in 2001, when CG animation was starting to rival 2D in a big way, Atlantis: The Lost Empire was Disney's science-fiction love letter to Jules Verne and, while it was successful at the box-office, the film got mixed reviews so it remains a cult favourite. This wasn't your typical Disney musical aimed at a very young audience, Atlantis is a song-free action adventure with a proper sci-fi plot and it feels more like a big-budget Spielberg epic or a Star Wars movie set underground than anything else. The plot sees nerdy linguist and cartographer Milo Thatch (voiced by Michael J. Fox) lead an expedition to Atlantis after his research piques the interest of an eccentric millionaire. He is joined by a team of loveable misfits, mysterious femme-fatale Helga Sinclair and stern Commander Lyle Rourke. After a surprisingly deadly run-in with an unusual creature under the ocean, the gang finally reach Atlantis where Milo meets Princess Kida (Cree Summer) and they both start

Nearly 10 years after their last insect-themed movie Antz , Dreamworks released Bee Movie , an animated feature in which Jerry Seinfeld, of all people, voices a bee who discovers the ugly truth about how humans gather their honey and sell it without the bees' permission. There's something inherently wacky about this whole movie, from the look of the characters to the plot itself which is really over-the-top. In Antz, everything happened in the ant colony below Manhattan so you could easily suspend disbelief whereas Bee Movie goes all out and giddily breaks, if not a fourth wall, a third wall as the bees start interacting with the human characters directly and even sue humanity in a court of law over honey. As silly as this all sounds, Bee Movie knows exactly how goofy it is and it enjoys every minute of it. Co-written by Jerry Seinfeld himself, this film plays out both like a straight-up kids' movie but also a pastiche of animated films like Toy Story or other Disney

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

I talk a bit about Disney's new live-action sequel Alice Through The Looking Glass .

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

Disney continues its merciless rampage of adapting every single one of its classic animated films into live-action remakes and, this time, it's The Jungle Book 's turn. Jon Favreau directs an all-star cast of voice actors and a young newcomer in what promises to be a CGI visual treat. Indeed, pretty much everything in this movie is CGI from the talking animals to the jungle itself so if it's "realism" you're looking for, you might want to go for the 1994 live-action retelling instead. The film follows certain key plot points from the original 1967 animation but it definitely takes a lot of liberties with both the story and its characters. Mowgli (Neel Sethi) willingly walks away from his wolf pack before wondering why he has to leave and later comes back to fight Shere Khan which leads to a very different ending. Speaking of which, the unnerving build-up to Shere Khan (voiced by Idris Elba) is now gone and we see the villainous tiger pretty much straight-

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

By far the weirdest animation of 2009, 9 is really more for hyperactive younger teens than little kids who probably will feel much less stressed out watching Up : 9 is literally one big sci-fi action sequence after another. The film should be applauded for its slightly more subtle environmental message, a rarity these days. Borrowing from 50's sci-fi ( War of the Worlds ) and old horror films ( Frankenstein ) mostly, 9 creates something pretty original and entertaining regardless if not particularly compelling. Dialog and story-wise this is simple, predictable fare with no great surprises and no particularly memorable moments on offer: 9 is bland when it should be bursting with creativity. To be honest, when making a film about hand-made little creatures with stitches, fabrics etc. stop-motion really is the way to go. A lot of texture is lost in the CGI, as detailed as it is, to make room for the scary robots and their big battles. Mixing CGI and stop-motion on this one, muc