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Introduction

Greetings, fellow adventurers! Blaziker here, and I am back from my professional examination. It is coming to the end of the year, and given that there were not much other animated movies to go through, it is time that we look back at the other animated movies from November to December that I did not cover!

We’re first going to play some football (or as what Americans and Australians call it ‘soccer’) on this land and after 90 minutes (plus 30 minutes to change to more comfortable clothes), we will be heading to a new world to explore. Before long, we will return to a small town to update the meaning of Christmas and head back to Shrek’s swampy land for yet another adventure with Puss in Boots and his friends. Finally, we end off with a trip back to fascist Italy to witness the performance of a wooden boy that comes alive.

So sit back, relax, and get yourselves comfortable, because the final 2022 Animated Movies Rundown is about to begin!

The Soccer Football Movie

Key Information

• Director: Mitch Schauer
• Animation Studio: Splash Entertainment
• Country of Origin: United States
• Rating: PG
• Release Date: 9 November 2022 (On Netflix)

Trailer

Review

Produced by Splash Entertainment, the same studio that had ‘haunted’ the world with ‘infamous’ animated movies such as Alpha and Omega and Norm of the North (as well as their endless sequels), and presumably released in time for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, it starts football legend Zlatan Ibrahimovic (with an appearance from music icon Weird Al Yankovic, who himself had a music biopic parody) in a movie about four soccer, wait sorry, football fans teaming up to help Zlatan regain his abilities from a mad scientist using aliens to steal football players’ talents.

As a heads-up, I misinterpreted that L’Atelier Animation (the studio behind Ballerina/Leap! and Fireheart, both of which are fairly competent) produced this movie, when in reality, they only provided animation services for Splash to work on it (knowing that Splash is a terrible animation studio and they need a lot of help presumably). With that said, when it is produced by the SAME STUDIO that worked on one of the worst animated movies ever made, what did you expect from this piece of hot garbage?

I can understand why Netflix tried very hard to bury this movie and did not bother promoting it at all, because The Soccer Football Movie, like most of Splash Entertainment’s previous animated films, is as atrocious and unpleasant to watch. It lacks any semblance of quality from the writing to the animation, and even with Zlatan and Weird Al involved, it is 80 minutes full of incoherent cringe (and I already reviewed a 45-minute animated movie that is more tolerable). Do not support any animated movie produced by the industry embarrassment that is Splash Entertainment, because they (and their CEO) are incapable of spending time and effort to improve on their writing and animation, and making a darn good animated movie for once!

Rating

• Story and Characters: 0/5
• Animation: 0/5
• Special Sauce: 0.5/15
• Overall Score: 0.5/15
  

Rating: Burn in Hell

Disney’s Strange World

Key Information

• Director: Don Hall, co-directed by Qui Nguyen
• Animation Studio: Walt Disney Animation Studios
• Country of Origin: United States
• Rating: NC16
• Release Date: 24 November 2022 (In Singapore theatres)

Trailer

Review

Directed by Don Hall, the same director of Raya and the Last Dragon, Strange World stars Jack Gyllenhaal as a member of his family of explorers, whose difference between each other (and a habitant of the new world they were exploring that turns out to be his father) threatens their exploration of this new world.

Let’s get this out of the way: Disney has this strange curse when it comes to science fiction movies. Sure, a few (such as Treasure Planet) went on to be cult hits despite being box office bombs, but others tank Disney’s reputation for a moment (and the less said about Mars Needs Moms, the better). Worse still, the sheer lack of advertising (compared to Disney’s previous movies), not to mention its B Cinemascore grade, were ominous signs this movie turns out to be not good. Sad to say, the signs were true.

In a similar vein to Goodbye Monster (which has great animation but falters in the story and screenplay departments), Strange World suffers from its inconsistent tone, being unable to handle its sci-fi elements and the generation trauma storyline it was going for. This, alongside the various overcomplicated and incomplete storylines, means Strange World could not strike a perfect balance of story tones, resulting in moments that were overcomplicated, and other moments that felt underwhelming. It also did not help that while the individual characters have a sense of charm and strong voice acting, there was a lack of push to bring forth their motivations to the entire story.

Despite the issues with the screenwriting on top of a generic plotline that other movies had done and succeeded, the animation, particularly the creative designs of the creatures in this new world and its environments, in a sense saved the movie. They definitely brought the strangeness it promised, but due to its lacklustre writing, the animation does not feel strong.

It has been a very long time since I was disappointed with a Disney animated movie, but here we are. While Strange World’s phenomenal animation shines through, the inconsistencies in the writing and screenplay make it one of the biggest disappointments of 2022. Given that this was Disney we are talking about, I expected more. That does not mean it is a bad movie at all, but with its underwhelming box office and the desperate return of Bog Iger as temporary CEO, I don’t think they will take the disappointment like this lightly.

Rating

• Story and Characters: 2.5/5
• Animation: 4.5/5
• Special Sauce: 3.5/5
• Overall Score: 10.5/15

Rating: Worth the Popcorn

Scrooge: A Christmas Carol

Key Information

• Director: Stephen Donnelly
• Animation Studios: Timeless Films (with Axis Studios)
• Country of Origin: United Kingdom
• Rating: PG
• Release Date: 2 December 2022 (on Netflix)

Trailer

Review

Based on the 1970 version of the classic Charles Dickens story, Luke Evans voices as a rich and unhappy moneylender who one day before Christmas encounters three Christmas ghosts who showed him what his past, present and future entails if he does not change his ways soon.

Another animation studio with a lacklustre track record when it comes to their animated movies, Timeless Films (who previously worked on Rock Dog, Dragon Rider and the two Monster Family movies) made their official Netflix debut, together with UK-based Axis Studios. Considering I had declared their previous movie, Monster Family 2, as the worst animated movie of 2021, Scrooge: A Christmas Carol is a decent turnaround and is one of their better animated movies.

Despite certain clunky writing moments and a couple of forgettable musical numbers, Scrooge: A Christmas Carol is a fundamentally solid animated movie with one of the better Christmas future segments among all the Scrooge adaptations, with surprisingly solid animation from a studio not well known for good animation, an overall solid voice acting performance from the cast and a good amount of the musical numbers are fun at least. These positives help to make it enjoyable to a certain extent, with some spooky elements that prevented it from being stale.

It may not have reinvented the Christmas classic, but when most Scrooge adaptations like this one are solid on average, is there a need to change anything?

Rating

• Story and Characters: 3/5
• Animation: 4/5
• Special Sauce: 2.5/5
• Overall Score: 9.5/15

Rating: Decent

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish

Key Information

• Director: Joel Crawford, co-directed by Januel Mercado
• Animation Studio: DreamWorks Animation
• Country of Origin: United States
• Rating: PG
• Release Date: 8 December 2022 (in Singapore theatres)

Trailer

Review

The sequel to the entertaining Shrek spin-off film sees Antonio Banderas returning as the titular Puss in Boots. Having lost his thirst for adventure after being down to his last life, a discovery about a wishing star that could get his lives back got him back on an adventure to search for the wishing search.

The first Puss in Boots movie is a personal favourite of mine, and after their epic comeback with The Bad Guys, DreamWorks pulled off yet another fun and exciting animated movie with probably one of the best animated movie sequels of recent memory. The story delivers important messages on morality, while serving a tight storyline that is equal parts fun, equal parts hilarious.

The voice acting is top-notch. Besides Antonio Banderas, who was excellent as per usual, Salma Hayek’s return as Kitty Softpaws serve as a great contrast to Puss just like in the original, and Florence Pugh’s Goldilocks is a sympathetic villain just right (pun intended). Also, Wagner Moura’s voice acting as The Big Bad Wolf (aka Death) is one scary villain, but the standout has to be the movie’s comic relief character of Perro, voiced by Harvey Gullien. He pulled off a character that is hilarious and proves surprisingly useful when needed, without being too over-bearing.

The animation, just like with The Bad Guys, gets the stylised animation treatment, with well-animated action and fight sequences, particularly the final fight between Puss and Wolf being the highlight for me. Also, I loved how the lighting helps to elevate the action sequences at the right moments, making for thrilling, and at times hilarious, sequences.

Needless to say, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish cements the return of DreamWorks Animation, after not being able to produce great animated movies since 2019. The fact that DreamWorks produced two great animated movies in 2022 is testament to their belief in producing great animated movies, and this new style they had adopted is it, chief!

Rating

• Story and Characters: 5/5
• Animation: 5/5
• Special Sauce: 5/5
• Overall Score: 15/15

Rating: Euphoria

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio

Key Information

• Director: Guillermo del Toro and Mark Gustafson
• Animation Studios: Netflix Animation, The Jim Henson Company, ShadowMachine
• Country of Origin: United States, Mexico, United Kingdom
• Rating: PG
• Release Date: 9 December 2022 (on Netflix)

Trailer

Review

Speaking of animation comebacks, after working on his excellent Tales of Arcadia trilogy (together with DreamWorks and Netflix) which concluded last year with Trollhunters: Rise of the Titans, Guillermo del Toro makes his animated feature debut (as a director) with his mature stop-motion take on the Carlo Collodi classic, together with Mark Gustafson (who previously worked on an iconic Wes Anderson stop-motion animated movie, Fantastic Mr Fox). It tells a different take on Pinocchio, where Geppetto crafts a wooden boy out of a drunken rage years after losing his son. Then, a wish grants him a chance to bring this wooden boy to life, and a second chance to care for the boy he lost.

To say that this was the most anticipated animated movie of 2022 would be a colossal understatement, given this was a movie about 14 years in the making. Perhaps it was because of its mature interpretation on the classic that no studio was willing to take on del Toro’s Pinocchio movie, that is until Netflix’s animation division, together with The Jim Henson Company and ShadowMachine, gave him an opportunity to work on his passion project. Furthermore, del Toro and his team had most of the reign to do whatever they want with the Pinocchio movie, meaning the success of the project depends on the team, and not on Netflix.

And the result? Del Toro and his team produced an animated movie that emotionally broke me.

I had reviewed 37 animated movies before the release of Pinocchio, but none could devastate me as much as this grim version of Pinocchio, so much so that I was at a loss for words describing how much of a masterpiece this was.

For starters, the gritty, more mature setting already makes this Pinocchio adaptation different from other adaptations (such as the Pauly Shore version and the Disney live-action remake, both receiving overall negative reception this year), but what stood out was its messages about death, morality and disobedience, themes that would not be obvious choices for a PG-rated animated movie, but given it is del Toro we are talking about, he enjoys doing things his own way.

However, it was the amount of craft and attention to detail del Toro and his team pulled off to make this one of the best stop-motion animated movie of recent memory. It was not just the amount of detail they put in terms of the puppets and the backgrounds, but it was how there were moments where I thought “Wait, you can do that with stop-motion?”. It was as if del Toro put a spell on the figures to make them alive, which should not be a surprise given that he is one of the most creative filmmakers today. Honestly, my words cannot do justice to how amazing its animation is.

In short, not only this is one of the best animated movies of 2022, but this has to be one of the best movies of 2022. To say this was worth the wait is an understatement, given how much passion and dedication del Toro and his team put into making such a masterpiece (you can check out the development of Pinocchio in a special documentary, also on Netflix). Honestly, just go catch it on Netflix, because this is something we might never see again in most mainstream animated movie again. Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio is 100% worth watching on Netflix, and it is something that will blow your mind. And your hearts. And then some.

Rating

• Story and Characters: 5/5
• Animation: 5/5
• Special Sauce: 5/5
• Overall Score: 15/15

Rating: Euphoria

Conclusion

Well, that is about it. I had completed all the animated movies I planned to watch in 2022. As I mentioned, I covered 38 animated movies from across the world, from those by well-known animation studios, too those from countries not well known for their animation. It had been a blast exploring new animated movies in 2022, whether they were fun and exciting with great animated movies, or rough with some terrible ones. Hopefully, 2023 will bring in another substantial list of new animated movies worth checking out.

Just as a heads-up, I had already begun planning for the first two animated movies of 2023, and I am happy to announce that they are:

• Little Nicholas: Happy As Can Be (Singapore release date: 29 December 2022, will plan to cover during the New Year weekend)
• Mummies (Singapore release date: 19 January 2022)

And since it is Christmas, perhaps I can provide some early Christmas presents by showing the trailers for these two animated movies:

I will catch them next month, so stay tuned for their reviews. I will also be counting down the ranking of the 2022 animated movies to recap on the 38 animated movies once more.

I wish you an early Merry Christmas, and have a Happy New Year! See you in 2023 for a brand new adventure, and until then, k thanks bye!