Introduction
Hello, fellow adventurers! Blaziker is back for another animated movie adventure, and this time, we got another four animated movies to cover, so let’s introduce them!
The first movie, Olivia and the Invisible Earthquake, is about a family being evicted out of their home and forced to move into a squatted apartment in a rough neighbourhood occupied by low-income and refugee families. As the mother fell into a state of depression, 12-year-old middle school girl Olivia has to take care of her brother and her mother while navigating her new life in the rough neighbourhood. The Annecy Film Festival is known for bringing up top quality animated movies that would otherwise get forgotten, and this movie is another example as it was part of the Competition lineup in last year’s edition. Will this movie deliver on its concept?
The second movie, Jungle Beat 2: The Past, is the sequel to the movie adaptation of an animated series where this time, Munki and Trunk found themselves separated after the latter fell into a time portal in the Dinosaur age thanks to aliens who accidentally forgot to close the portal. To return to the present, they must make new friends who will help them reunite once again. I had seen the first movie and let’s just say that even though I liked the first one, that was back when I do not have much knowledge regarding international animation. Now, with a better understanding, what would I assess this sequel as this time?
The third movie, Miss Moxy, based on a real-life story about a cat who found its way back home after being lost for 13 years, follows a pampered cat who was thrown to a European countryside, and with a goofy bulldog and a bird, must find her way back home to Paris. As what I had mentioned in my recent essay, I am moving away from covering too many family-friendly foreign CG animated movies, but I also mentioned I still plan to cover those that are interesting or well-received. In the case of Miss Moxy, it falls into the latter, where some of the moviegoers actually enjoyed this movie a lot. Will Miss Moxy be a good one?
The fourth and final movie, The Land of Sometimes, is a musical animated movie (the second one of this year after Miss Moxy) based on an audiobook (yes, an audiobook, I am not kidding) about twin siblings on Christmas Even being sent to the Land of Sometimes by the Wish Collector, where they realise that their dreams have consequences of their own. For a movie produced by a first-timer animation studio, this movie has a surprisingly stacked cast (from Ewan McGregor to THE Mel Brooks), with the songs written by Sir Tim Rice, most well known for composing scores for iconic Disney animated movies like The Lion King and Aladdin. For such a movie produced by a first-time animation studio, this is a tall order, but will this succeed?
Well, time to get this adventure started, shall we?
Olivia and the Invisible Earthquake
Key Information
- Director: Irene Iborra Rizo
- Animation Studio: Citoplasmas Stop Motion
- Country of Origin: Spain, Argentina, France and Belgium
- Rating: PG
- Release date: 21 November 2025 (in Spain)
Trailer
The Review
Once again, I am happy to report that this is another movie that deserves to be seen at last year’s Annecy Film Festival, because despite Olivia and the Invisible Earthquake is such a poignant and grounded animated movie despite its short 67-minute runtime.
While Olivia and the Invisible Earthquake is a family-friendly animated movie, the themes are anything but, as it explores more mature topics that might alienate the youngest of the audience, such as the housing crisis, social services, poverty and mental health. With that said, I am pleasantly surprised over the level of respect, tact and love given to such serious topics, which resulted in an impactful story that felt very succinct. Every storyline and character in this story felt well-developed, to a point where I was interested to see this movie to the end, even though I was planning to see the final parts the next day because it is late at night.
What sells this movie, however, is the stop-motion animation. One of the animators involved in this movie shared his vlog where he showcases some of the puppets in the movie and converse with other stop-motion animators in last year’s Annecy Film Festival, and it shows the level of craftmanship and pride the animators provide with this style. Giving this movie a stop-motion style allows for a rougher aesthetic that fits the movie’s themes, including the backgrounds depicting poverty. That said, instead of punching down, the style puts a spotlight into what low-income households have to deal with on a regular basis, something that I feel is needed in 2026. For that, I thank the animators for producing such a masterful stop-motion animation style to tell its story.
I also enjoyed the soundtrack (the rap numbers are awesome, not gonna lie), and the minor elements are great too. As for my level of enjoyment, I am pleasantly surprised with how much this movie resonates with me. Considering what I am going through regarding its mental health commentary, Olivia and the Invisible Earthquake felt like an antidote that I needed now, and I am sure some moviegoers can resonate with the story too.
Overall, Olivia and the Invisible Earthquake might not be an animated movie moviegoers wanted to see, given it is a family-friendly animated movie tackling serious topics, but I bet this is a movie they need to see. With more family-friendly animated movies starting to focus on important and serious topics, this is a great example that shows why not family-friendly animated movies need to be cheery, bubblegum adventure flicks to succeed.
Blaziker’s Hot Sauce Rating
Jungle Beat 2: The Past
Key Information
- Director: Sam Wilson
- Animation Studios: Sunrise Productions and Sandcastle Studios
- Country of Origin: Mauritius, South Africa
- Rating: PG
- Release date: 27 June 2025 (in South Africa)
Trailer
The Review
Oh boy… What have I got myself into??? I had already talked about a follow-up on the Americanised family-friendly foreign CG animated movies recently, but som,etimes, I am a victim of my own creation, isn’t it?
Let’s get the obvious elephant in the room out of the way: Jungle Beat 2: The Past is not good technically. I had seen the first Jungle Beat movie, so I had an idea of what to expect in the sequel, but even that did not prepare me for how bizarrely entertaining this movie turned out to be. This movie’s writing is very messy and all over the place, resulting in a story filled with incoherent moments and a lack of story and character development. Those moments, however, resulted in an unintentionally hilarious mess full of insane moments and insane characters that add such a bizarre charm to this otherwise incompetent animated movie.
The animation is also weird. I will not be as harsh about it considering this is from South Africa and Mauritius, and Africa does not have a strong animation industry as a whole except for South Africa so far, but I can say that compared to some of the better quality family-friendly foreign CG animated movies I had covered in the past, the animation could have been better, especially given the involvement of the director of one of the best family-friendly foreign CG animated movies of all time in Seal Team. Unfortunately, the background and character designs felt basic and generic at best, and the rendering and movements are so poorly done.
The minor elements matter jack squat to me, and as for my level of enjoyment, for some reason, I find myself charmed by how bad and bizarrely engaging this movie is. I had seen car crashes of animated movies on a semi-regular basis, but Jungle Beat 2: The Past is truly a bizarre and entertaining mess of an animated movie. It is such an animated movie disaster of epic proportions, it is so hard for me to ignore this movie as a whole because of it. I don’t know what to say, but man… This was something else altogether.
Overall, I don’t care about how incoherent this movie was, because Jungle Beat 2: The Past is my type of disaster cinema. Everything that goes wrong did go wrong, but they add to a level of ironic entertainment in the same vein as two other 2026 animated movies in Charlie the Wonderdog and The Pout-Pout Fish. I mean, if the animation studios know they are unable to produce a competent animated movie, the least they could do is to make me entertained, and that was what happened with Jungle Beat 2: The Past. Absolute ironic cinema!
Blaziker’s Hot Sauce Rating
Miss Moxy
Key Information
- Directors: Vincent Bal and Wip Vernooij
- Animation Studio: Phanta Animation
- Country of Origin: Belgium, France and The Netherlands
- Rating: PG
- Release date: 28 January 2026 (in The Netherlands)
Trailer
The Review
Honestly, this movie should not have been this good considering this looks like yet another family-friendly foreign CG animated movie, but to my absolute surprise, Miss Moxy managed to be THIS good!
Sure, Miss Moxy has a simple story on the surface, but the care and attention the writers gave to this movie is really something. It might have a short runtime, but there is so much care and development provided to the story and the characters, which is helped by the movie’s simple premise. While this movie does not have a lot of comedic moments, it is a movie full of heart with so much development packed into a short 80-minute runtime. It takes a lot of experience to craft a well-developed story with that runtime, and the writers did their job well.
It also helped that the cast of characters had a lot of personality and time to shine. The dynamics between the smart and brave cat Miss Moxy (Sarah Banner), her enemy turned unexpected best friend in bulldog Tuur (Pieter Embrechts) and an old bird who guide them home in Ayo (Frank Focketyn) is a lot of fun, and you learnt a lot about their motivations and chemistry throughout the movie. This is a movie mainly about them, and trying to get away from Tuur’s abusive owner Rita (Barbara Sarafian), who may have the title for the best Karen-like character in animated movies for 2026 so far with how easy it is to hate her, makes this adventure enticing and entertaining. I am also pleasantly surprised by how good the English dub is, given my constant complaining about bad English dubs of foreign animated movies for a very long time.
The animation deserves praise too. It is clear that even with the governmental sponsorship, there is a limited budget for its animation, but thankfully, the animators stretch the small budget to its limits by incorporating a stop-motion looking CG style in a similar vein to the likes of other and better quality family-friendly foreign CG animated movies such as Seal Team, Scarygirl, The Sloth Lane and The Lost Tiger. Sure, the animation is not perfect, but this style adds another layer of charm to this already charming movie. There were a good number of beautiful animation sequences and, just like another Dutch animated movie in last year’s Benjamin Bat, the animation looks way more expensive than what the budget suggests.
I also find the soundtrack to be shockingly great. Usually, musicals in most family-friendly foreign CG animated movies are not good, but just like Benjamin Bat, the soundtrack and musical numbers are better than what I expected. The movie does not flood you with too many musical numbers, but separates them enough to make each song shine. As for my level of enjoyment, I honestly did not expect to get much from Miss Moxy, but the execution of the various elements is way better than I expected, resulting in a surprisingly enjoyable and impactful animated movie full of charm and quality. Family-friendly foreign CG animated movies have an infamous reputation for being bad most of the time, but it is also true that there are a good number of these movies that are better than expected, and Miss Moxy is thankfully another great example.
Well, colour me surprised, but Miss Moxy surprised me in the most pleasant of ways. Despite being yet another family-friendly foreign CG animated movie, Miss Moxy punches above its weight thanks to its well-written story, fun and charming characters, a pretty good animation style despite limited resources and a shockingly catchy soundtrack, Miss Moxy is way better than most family-friendly foreign CG animated movies I had covered for a long time now.
It really is something when a movie that looks like any typical and disposable family-friendly foreign CG animated movie turns out to move me more than it should, but this is why I cover a lot of these movies in the first place. Sometimes, you have to cover so many crappy and disposable family-friendly foreign CG animated movies in order to find a few that show that family-friendly foreign CG animated movies are still worth covering when produced with so much heart and dedication.
Blaziker’s Hot Sauce Rating
The Land of Sometimes
Key Information
- Director: Leon Joosen
- Animation Studio: Two Daughters Entertainment
- Country of Origin: United Kingdom
- Rating: PG
- Release date: 20 March 2026 (in United Kingdom)
Trailer
The Review
When I covered this movie recently, I am certain that moviegoers will consider Swapped and Animal Farm as the two movies in contention for the worst animated movie of 2026, according to most of them. However, I had a good (or bad) feeling that The Land of Sometimes could beat both of them as my least favourite animated movie of 2026.
It’s funny that I talked about Miss Moxy before The Land of Sometimes, since I can take whatever positive element I talked about the former and apply the opposite to the latter. For a movie with a typical concept we had seen before (like In Your Dreams last year, which is similar story wise), The Land of Sometimes felt so uninteresting and boring, to the point where I was dosing off during some parts of the movie. This is due to how disjointed the writing was, resulting in a lack of connective and interesting elements. It also did not help that the pacing is so bad that it made its 90-minute runtime feel longer than Project Hail Mary, a movie with a nearly 3-hour runtime, mind you!
Additionally, the jokes and gags are not funny at all; the characters are all uninteresting and even annoying at times, and the voice acting is bad despite its A-list cast. These elements are unacceptable by 2010s theatrical animated movie standards, let alone 2026 theatrical animated movie standards, since this was released in UK cinemas to a ridiculously dismal US$69,000 box office run according to Box Office Mojo. Yes, you heard it right: US$69,000! Not US$690,000, not US$6.9 million, US$69,000! With this A-list cast and Tim Rice composing the songs, the box office total is laughable as it is even worse than a typical Viva Kids distributed animated movie, as even the worst from them can hit six digits almost easily.
The animation is also very bad, as the overall design in The Land of Sometimes felt very generic and poorly executed. While I am fine with generic CG designs, as long as the animators produce a good enough quality of animation that I would not mind the designs. Unfortunately, the rendering in this movie is very bad, further coupled with garish colouring and bad lighting in a lot of animation sequences, resulting in such a cheap-looking animation style. I had already covered a few family-friendly foreign CG animated movies that have higher quality animation than what is presented in The Land of Sometimes, including Miss Moxy and Chickenhare and the Secret of the Groundhog earlier this year. Both movies look great enough to be shown in movie theatres, but I cannot say the same thing for The Land of Sometimes.
The soundtrack and the songs are as bad, but at least they are not the worst songs I had listened for this year (that went to the review song I chose for my Letterboxd review of this movie, “Fire” by Sarah Engels), which felt unacceptable given THE Tim Rice (who composed for legendary Disney movies such as The Lion King) is the composer for this movie. The marketing is non-existent, which explained its dismal box office run despite its voice cast and Tim Rice, and as for my level of enjoyment, given I saw this movie alongside a friend, the fact that the disruption that occurred during our viewing of this movie turned out to be more interesting than the movie itself speaks volumes over how we feel about The Land of Sometimes.
When I published my recent essay about how the non-mainstream animation industry is moving away from the Americanisation of the industry, I talked about in the beginning that we are still gonna get a good number of Americanised feeling non-mainstream animated movies. I should preface that as long as they are produced with care and dedication, even if they end up becoming not as good, I am fine with it. However, The Land of Sometimes felt like a pure paycheck movie where almost everyone involved in this movie only put in the bare minimum and do not care much about the process, just like Gracie and Pedro: Pets to the Rescue in 2024 which is very similar to The Land of Sometimes. Paycheck movies like this should not be acceptable in 2026, but it seems the producers of this movie did not get the memo.
My recommendation is to avoid The Land of Sometimes at all cost, but I guess most of you who are reading this Rundown have already made your plans to do so, haven’t you?
Blaziker’s Hot Sauce Rating
Conclusion
Well, we might have a movie in contention for my least favourite animated movie of 2026, but I was able to cover two more animated movies that I can recommend that serve different purposes. At the very least, both Olivia and the Invisible Earthquake, and Miss Moxy made up for whatever The Land of Sometimes was.
Thank you so much for joining me on this adventure. Considering there is not much animated movies to cover, I am gonna take a short break but next time, hopefully I am going to talk about what animated movies for this year’s Annecy Film Festival to look out for, with one more surprise about this in store. Until next time, see you on the next adventure!
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