Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas (2003)

Director: Tim Johnson, Patrick Gilmore
Writers: John Logan
Studio: Dreamworks Animation
Watched on: 19/02/2023

Review contains ***SPOILERS*** for Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas

Ratings:

OVERALL	NB: These are not weighted equally (if at all)	Plot	Storytelling	Animation	Characters
7		6	7	7	6

Sinbad. Pretty cool film. Obviously not perfect but that's what the state of the audience and the industry was at the time. But overall, a really great, very fun film. Has the typical romance storyline that ruins most fun films but it's just brief enough to ignore. But almost everything else was well done, executed nicely and came together for a solid end product. So the first thing to talk about is Eris and her amazing character acting. The way she flows in and out of states of being, from place to place, glides through the shadows, all of that comes together to make her an incredibly likable villain. I honestly think if they had gone all out with some chilling, creepy music, she would definitely have given kids nightmares. Naturally, it follows that the animation in this film is wonderful - for the most part. Right from the start, the film has really well animated (and choreographed and framed) action sequences. The very first fight scenes of Sinbad and then Proteus fighting multiple guys at the same time were excellent. It was a little bit disappointing that there was then nothing like that afterwards. But overall, the 2D animation was fluid and fun. And typical of the time, they included a loveable and very expressive pet companion. Which shows they absolutely had the capability to do the same for Eris's massive mythical beasts; unfortunately they didn't. Just like Treasure Planet, the early CG creatures have aged poorly. Fair enough, they were pushing boundaries for the medium but I can't say it looked good most of the time. What I can say though, is that it worked really well for when the beasts were in Eris's realm and their bodies were these ethereal, galaxy substances. Wasn't executed perfectly but definitely much better in concept than the normal creatures. So yeah, solid animation overall. The characters in the film are definitely a mixed bag. Obviously we have different views on gender and stuff now but as mentioned, the main female character, Marina, has a pretty stereotypical woman character's journey and is of course, mainly a love interest to the two main men in the movie. Fine, it's based on an old folk tale but I'm just as critical of the source tbh. Marina is a cool character with a lot of agency over herself and to be fair, her main character trait of wanting to explore the world does make the annoying little lovel triangle have a sensible resolution. Proteus is a very likeable character and does the honorable thing of letting a woman make a choice, which is pretty cool. Eris is fantastic but the rest are just kinda nothing.

The plot is nice and straightforward. All the trials and tribulations faced by the gang are actually created by the villain, so there isn't really any genuine conflict nor challenge but it serves its purpose of driving us through all the cool settings they want us to see. (Side note, the design of Republic City (it was actually called Syracuse lmao) was pretty sick). No major complaints, aside from the fake paradox of Eris's final gambit. Think the writers probably all knew that was a weak ending.

Storytelling was pretty strong. Lots of ideas communicated visually and some cool shots, especially in the action and chase scenes. I'm giving it a 7, although it's now been over 7 months since I watched it, so it's probably getting the benefit of the doubt because I found the film so fun.

In conclusion, yes I do consider this film to have massive value from an animation perspective and I think it's really cool in a similar way to Treasure Planet (does fall short though). However the lack of substance probably explains why this is more of a cult classic than just a classic. Glad I've seen it now/

Anstasia (1997)

Director: Don Bluth, Gary Goldman

Studio: Fox Animation Studios

Watched on: 11/09/2023

Review contains ***SPOILERS*** for Anastasia

Ratings:

OVERALL	NB: These are not weighted equally (if at all)	Plot	Storytelling	Animation	Characters
7		4	5	7	6

Watching Anastasia properly for the first time (I'm sure the VHS got played in the background at my cousin's house many times through my childhood), I realised it's no wonder at all why the film did so well. It's magical, it's pretty and it rode the princess wave of the time incredibly well. I did find it a little bit strange to see an American depiction of Russia but obviously it's based around some real people. Also I don't know enough about history to say why it was nuts but the evil arch-wizard being called Rasputin did feel weird coming out of an American studio as well. Maybe it was just a common name in Russia, historically. Anyway, the film is really lovely and I'd highly recommend it to nostalgic milennials and anyone who likes a gorgeous setting.

That's actually where I have to start: the background art/design for the entire film was absolutely stunning. And I have to say it's the art and the design, because the backgrounds are so beautifully made, but the conception of the grand palace and it's massive halls make up a big part of how good it looks on screen. The filmmakers also did a great job of (what I think was) using contemporary Russian art and stylings in the film; my favourite example of this was the family portrait hanging up in the palace, with little baby Anastasia in it. The fancy balls felt magical and even some of the settings that only appear for a scene or two (like the European countryside, or even the view from under a tablecloth!) are really beautifully done. Even Paris! I loved how they styled everyone in the city and captured the idea of boujie paris so well and even topped it off with a fun little song.

Seriously, look how pretty these backgrounds are

Overall, the animation is really good. Nothing incredibly unique nor innovative but fantastic traditional animation, done the right way. Really great character acting and a great balance of exaggeration and realism (i.e. leaning heavily towards exaggeration) and although they went for a really sparse and simple approach with the line art (especially for faces), they still captured lost of details, like rolled-up sleeves, fur coats etc. One thing that really stood out to me was that they really did not shy away from animating hands. There were loads of complicated hand gestures, characters fiddling with props etc. and it all looked amazing. Also ther was a bit of CG stuff but that looked fine (not sure if it's remastered on Disney Plus or what but no real issues there). So yeah, great animation, as you'd expect from a Don Bluth classic.

The story is a bit odd. It works fine as a vehicle to carry you through the scenes and let the characters get into their songs. But it is a bit of a straight line. They want to do something, they try to do it, then something gets in the way, then they do it anyway. I totally get that this is a kids film though and actually aimed at an audience that had a totally different relationship to the screen to what kids have today but they definitely could have made the story a bit more interesting.

That also ties into the storytelling. And here, I just mean storytelling, so not even just visual storytelling. So firstly, we as the viewer know that 'Ania' is Anastasia, the lost Princess. So there's no curiosity and no tension. But then the film acts like we're all discovering her true identity together. So moments where she 'uncovers' things that suggest she might be the Princess just have no impact. Story-wise, I reckon it would be way more impactful to have us start the film in the orphanage and learn about the lost Princess slowly throughout the story as Ania goes out to find herself, but I actually get why they did it the other way, because it allowed for that amazing opening royal ball sequence. So yeah, odd way to literally tell the story but the visual storytelling was okay. Got the job done, nothing really striking and mostly pretty obvious. But no complaints.

The characters are pretty good. I think all of their designs are really brilliant, especially within that era. They might not all get the screentime they need to talk about the complex lives they'd had to live in post-Tsar Russia but they all had a tiny bit of depth to them. Like it would have been really easy to have Grand Duchess be jumping for joy when they arrived in Paris to meet her but instead, she was emotionally exhausted and combative. Dimitri is principled but also slimy, Anastasia is smart but self-aware and interesting (those two have that classic 'fiery' teen romance but can't hate on that too much). I even liked characters with small parts, like Sophie. Oh and Rasputin himself. Dark bastard he is. Whoever his key animator was did an amazing job. He's got that real sinister streak but also the quite funny dramatic flair. Thought he was excellent.

On a side note, two quick things about Rasputin's white bat sidekick, Bartok: 1.) I think Hank Azaria did pretty badly at his attempted Russian Accent, which came out sounding more like parody Dutch. 2.) The very last shot has a 'female' bat appear and woo Bartok and it was just such a weird unnecessary moment that shows some pretty standard deeply ingrained sexism in animation, with the female bat needing to be shown to be visibly female, so they obviously gave her massive eyelashes but then also pink fur (which is extra bizarre, because Bartok is presumably supposed to be Albino, so she's either also albino with eye shadow all over herself or like... erythristic?).

So overall, the film's pretty much what I expected. Really wonderful and pretty with not the best story but deservedly earned itself a spot as a classic.

One thing I almost forgot: Fuck me, that sleepwalking on the boat scene is insanely morbid! Definitely think that was a bit too far but it was very cool visually at least.

Thoughts on (Naoki Urasawa's) Monster (2004)

Finished first watch on 04/09/2018

-How did Eva get the picture of Johan?
-How did Johan end up running all of these massive criminal organisations?
-What was the objective of the experiments, what were the experiments themselves? All we get told is the wine incident at RRM and the Welcome Home incident at Tri Zaba.
-What was Johan's objective before wanting to commit this mass suicide?
-Why did he want to commit this suicide? To erase his existence from the world?
-Why was Tenma subjected to so much abuse?
-Did people have monsters inside of them? I get that Grimmer found out it was just his inner rage, but why did Johan write that the monster inside him was going to explode?
-What was the aim of Franz Bonaparta/Klaus Poppe's books?
-What caused the riot at 511?




Criticisms
Way too many tangents. These are not plot twists, just useless, random tangents: the guy who lived in the mansion with the pool, tbh the whole story of the university students. Thinking about it, Karl isn't actually that useful for the story but adds depth with Margot Langer, but to go in depth to see that classmate of his getting asked to dance at the disco and stuff - completely useless.
Did we need to know anything about Suk? What was the point of having him so deeply involved and have him on the run etc. Did we need to see so much of Martin?

Dieter was essentially copied and pasted like 4 times. Every town they visited had an outcast, energetic, mischievous but righteous 10 year old boy. Just kinda poor writing.

Lunge did fucking nothing through the entire series. He's introduced as if he's going to be this imposing antagonist but is really pretty useless throughout. I like the fact he came round and ended up being a good guy-ish, but he really achieved very little with his investigations.

The Sea Beast (2022)

Director:Chris Williams
Writers: Chris Williams, Nell Banjamin

Studio: Netflix Animation, Sony Pictures Imageworks

Watched on: 22/01/2023

Review contains ***SPOILERS*** for The Sea Beast

Ratings:

OVERALL	NB: These are not weighted equally (if at all)	Plot	Storytelling	Animation	Characters
6		6	6	7	5

A pretty predictable family film that adjusts the formula just enough in terms of looking at society correctly but doesn't really deliver much in terms of story. It's cute and has some pretty impressive animation but overall, wouldn't say this is one anyone needs to rush to watch, nor do I imagine anyone considers it a classic. It's calm.

For me, the best thing about the story is its concept. It encourages us to question why we we wage wars, reflect on the harm we cause to animals and overall focus more on living a great life than dying a great death, as glorious and noble as it sounds. So it's a win on that front. But otherwise, the story is pretty boring and doesn't bring a lot of new stuff with it. I'd even say that its themes and settings are way too close to How to Train Your Dragon for it to even really be considered novel. I will say it starts off strong but kinda falls off from the fight with the Bluster onwards.

The story is a good one in principal but feels like it's missing its own story beats. Even for key parts of the story. Like Jacob and Maisie become the typical unlikely family but there aren't any moments when they really bond; you basically just get familiar with seeing them together because of sheer screentime. Practically nothing happens to convince Sarah Sharpe to act any differently to how she has for the last (presumably) 40+ years. Same thing for all the people in the fancy shmancy royal town. Why did they suddenly believe the word of this completely random kid instead of a lifetime's worth of propaganda? It would have been way more convincing if the beast had done something really extraordinary (and no, simply not attacking Captain Crow isn't extraordinary enough - not in nature and not even by significance on screen). With all of these significant events missing, it seems even stranger to have included the weird blood oath with the shaman lady, which had absolutely no impact on the story. Not the price to pay, not even the poison, really. Could have cut that out and actually shown all the other stuff.

The characters are pretty meh. Even the main characters seem to switch up with no real life-changing events. The side cast seems pretty cool but doesn't have much depth to it. Although I will give the film props for making the King and Queen look as ridiculous and pompous as they possibly could. Otherwise, even character designs are pretty standard. Nothing super distinctive or revolutionary going on and even the design for Red itself looked like it was a draft design yet to get the last touches. Legitly even made it hard to connect with the beast at times. Although the other beasts were pretty cool looking.

Animation was definitely very high quality in this film. The odd shot here or there seemed a bit uncanny but otherwise, from start to finish it's impressive. The ocean, complete with waves and foam, was so skillfully done! It even had the perfect level of transparency for you to be able to see the beasts beneath the surface or for them to do an over- and under-water shot in the same scene. Plus they had loads of different hair textures on all the human characters (Maisie's coils especially must have taken a lot of time and attention, because they had multiple shots of it dry and wet) and the various moving body parts of a handful of beasts. They even occasionally threw in a fight scene, which was nice and they were perfectly weighty and believable.

Storytelling is another one that was pretty good throughout. Nice clear shots with solid framing, sharp angles to emphasize size or force and lots of clear articulation of the many massive ocean encounters. Can't say they did anything revolutionary either but it was definitely good.

So yeah, happy to see Netflix pumping out animated features and not shying away from encouraging its audience to question those in power. But truthfully, not an amazing film by any means.

Vivo (2021)

Director: Kirk DeMicco

Writers: Quiara Alegría Hudes, Peter Barsocchini

Studio: Sony Pictures Animation

Watched on: 21/12/2021

Review contains ***SPOILERS*** for Vivo

Ratings:

OVERALL	NB: These are not weighted equally (if at all)	Plot	Storytelling	Animation	Characters
6		5	7	7	4

This film was a pleasant surprise. Not only did I have low expectations of it, I also paused it at about 10 minutes in (to go and do something) and was actually happy to just leave it at that. I was off for Christmas that week, so had plenty of time on my hands, so I did go back to it the next day and within the next 10 minutes, I was genuinely hooked back in. The rest of the film was then a bit underwhelming but all-in-all, a pretty solid family film.

The very first thing I noticed when I put this on was how the film achieved the effect of making the setting (in Havana) really feel like it was alive. It's something I noticed when I watched Coco and conversely, something I felt was lacking when I watched Glen Keane's 'Over the Moon' recently. The backgrounds and background characters moved and behaved in a way that felt settlingly real, as opposed to the kind of stagnant movement that reminds you that you're watching something that had to be animated piece by piece. Overall, the animation was fun and expressive and I'd say Sony did a really good job on the details and textures - I can't imagine generating kinkajou fur was an easy feat!

The majority of that pleasant surprise I mentioned earlier was in the directing. Lots of simple frames with basic symmetry etc. made the film pleasant to watch but the film also had a few really visually powerful moments, e.g. the fountain representing Vivo's tears at Andrés's death, the Florida swamps being used to make us feel lost and uncertain (any viewer with access to Netflix is likely far more comfortable in a City) and the music and background going completely silent and only Vivo's footsteps (not visual but still great directing). There were also some really great little visual comedy moments, like the bridge jump with the bike and also the set-up and let-down of them making the leap to the boat, which they brilliantly diffused by just making Gabi laugh about it. Also loved the little King Kong reference!

The story and characters were generally very surface-level, it has to be said. The plot (after those first 20 minutes) is literally just "need to do this thing", "have now done thing", with some pretty frivolous tasks in between. Like what was the point of the birds (spoonbills, Platalea ajaja) and the snake? If you took them out of the story, it still would have gone exactly the same. Ultimately, the end goal didn't move or change based on the events of the story. Maybe Gabi got closer to her mum a bit but even she didn't grow or change at all throughout the film, really. And again with Vivo himself, most his growth was done up front. And the whole lyrics vs. melody thing was pretttttty weak for me. I liked the last scene, which showed how they all live now and what they get up to after the move (which is all I ask from a lot of other movies). I did really like that Vivo got to carry on what he did with Andrés with his kin.

One thing I really really noticed, was along with my usual dislike of Lin-Manuel Miranda's approach to hip hop (which is blatantly that of an outsider to the genre in my opinion), I also noticed the guy really can't sing that well. I'd say he didn't even sing well enough for his part in this; at certain points you could hear he was out of his range. The songs were mostly not great but I think there were 1 or 2 I did like. The big song around which the entire story hinges was thoroughly underwhelming. I do also have to say, Coco did the whole song for a final memory thing and of course did it infinitely better.

All in all, a pleasant surprise but not much better than that. Animation was very nice though.