Introduction
Hey, hey, fellow adventurers! Blaziker is back for yet another animated movie adventure, and after a rather rough Rundown, it is time we cover another trio of animated movies, and hopefully a trio that’s better than the previous one!
The first movie, Despicable Me 4, is the fourth instalment in the global hit animated movie series which sees Gru, Lucy and their three daughters, plus the family’s newly born son Gru Junior, on the run from their new villain and his new girlfriend after a botched heist, but Gru might have an upper hand: his army of Minions and a group of new mutant Super Minions. Look, I acknowledge how much of a moneymaker this series has brought in for the past decade, especially thanks to the Minions who themselves have two spin-off movies of their own. Despite this series being the ultimate popcorn animated movie, does the fourth one still have substance worth looking out for?
The second movie, Katak the Brave Beluga, is yet another Canadian animated movie (after Butterfly Tale this year) focusing on a grey beluga on a treacherous adventure to the Great North to fulfil his grandmother’s wish. While Katak came out early last year, due to both distribution delays and its sheer obscurity, I only got to watch it this year, so I am counting Katak as a 2024 animated movie. Now that I got to see it, will this long wait be worth it?
The third and final movie, Dragonkeeper, is a Spanish-Chinese foreign CG animated movie on a slave girl in China and the last dragon egg as she embarks on a journey to return the egg to its rightful owners. While it is true that I covered this in my 2024 Non-Mainstream and Foreign CG Animated Movies Watchlist, ever since the release of that article, this Dragonkeeper hype aged poorly. In fact, before the movie’s release in Spain, there were news, and I mean news, about alleged production issues galore, which I shared on my social media sites, which could also partially explain why it had such a cold critical and audience reception during both its Spanish and American premieres. Now that I am seeing it for the first time, how will this fare?
If there are no further questions, on to our 10th 2024 Animated Movies Rundown!
Despicable Me 4
Key Information
- Directors: Chris Renaud and Patrick Delage
- Animation Studio: Illumination Entertainment
- Country of Origin: United States
- Rating: PG
- Release date: 4 July 2024 (in Singapore)
Trailer
Story and Characters
If you have seen the previous Despicable Me movies (and even the two Minions spin-off movies, such as Minions: The Rise of Gru which I had reviewed on this Blog), chances are, you would have seen this movie already. If you are expecting some change up in the Despicable Me formula, especially after their best movie with last year’s Migration, be ready to be disappointed.
Despicable Me 4 is basically a Despicable Me movie through and through, filled with the same old gags that, while very entertaining and enjoyable, can get tired real fast. While I respect Illumination Entertainment for not ageing most of the cast, I just wish there is a missed opportunity to bring forward this development of Gru and his family, especially the new baby in Gru Junior.
And what’s a Despicable Me movie without Gru’s Minions? While I had fun with the typical Minions gags and the new mutant Mega Minions, I also feel his movie does not explore the Mega Minions concept enough, as most of the gags are pretty much gags you would expect from the regular Minions, except with even more superpowers. In fact, most of the movie did not explore the new storylines enough for this movie to be interesting.
The same thing goes with the characters. While Gru (Steve Carrell), Lucy (Kristen Wiig) and the children are still the same old and managed to hold their ground, there is also a missed opportunity to develop them even further. In addition, this movie also did not explore enough of the new characters, except for Poppy (Joey King) who was a fantastic minor character with equal villainy and contrast to Gru himself as Gru and his family went into hiding with their new identities.
In fact, the writing felt like a big missed opportunity to refresh the Despicable Me franchise by developing the existing characters and storyline even further, and that was why I felt let down by the same old writing style, but hey, if it ain’t broke, why fix the Despicable Me formula?
Animation
While the animation also did not change that much compared to the previous movies in the Despicable Me franchise, it is still the same old, well executed and polished animation style you would expect from Illumination Entertainment.
I won’t go deep into the animation style, since I had talked about style in my review of Minions: The Rise of Gru, but the action animation is great, the character and background designs, while fairly typical, is decently executed, and of course, the animations in the gags are the best animated scenes of the movie.
Overall, while I wanted some change up in how Despicable Me does its animation style, the one in Despicable Me 4 is still a technically well executed animated movie if we talk about the animation, and honestly, I don’t think Illumination will change up the animation style any further.
Soundtrack, Other Elements and Level of Enjoyment
The soundtrack and other elements are nothing much to highlight about, except for the marketing of this movie. It seems Illumination Entertainment is now the only mainstream animation style that can market their movies well, especially with the ads mocking generative A/I tools so well.
As for my level of enjoyment, even though I rolled my eyes in it not changing much of the formula, I still had a laugh over the numerous gags throughout the movie, and that is the purpose of the Despicable Me movies: pure popcorn movie that families can enjoy, and this movie serves that demographic so well. It’s honestly useless to provide any major feedback about the series, because this formula had worked in the Despicable Me franchise for so long, it’s not worth changing up the formula to lose the momentum.
Overall Thoughts
Well, I have to be frank, this was a proper Despicable Me movie through and through.
Despite this movie not changing up its usual formula that much, including have a lack of depth in its writing due to it having too many side plots, the lack of character development and a few continuity errors that even some Despicable Me fans would notice if they had seen the previous Despicable Me and Minions movies so far, this movie is still a laugh riot thanks to its gags, whether from the Minions or Gru and his family, plus the decently executed, if not the same, animation that helps to maintain its technical integrity despite the writing issues.
It may not be a technical masterpiece, but I still enjoy Despicable Me 4 for what it is. You can hate the player, but you cannot hate them for playing the game and doing it well, which was what Illumination Entertainment did with this latest movie in its popular franchise.
Blaziker’s Hot Sauce Rating
Katak: The Brave Beluga
Key Information
- Directors: Christine Dallaire-Dupont and Nicola Lemay
- Animation Studio: 10th Ave
- Country of Origin: Canada
- Rating: PG
- Release date: 24 February 2023 (in Canada)
Trailer
Story and Characters
With family-friendly foreign CG animated movies, the average writing quality of those movies tend to be lower than the typical mainstream animated movie. If you have seen my essay last year discussing on foreign CG animated movies in general, it is mostly due to the limited writing staff and lack of experience in writing great-quality scripts, as well as the problematic stooping down to its general family audience. Thankfully, Katak: The Brave Beluga is unlike most family-friendly foreign CG animated movies for numerous reasons.
Firstly, the simple premise means that this movie is able to focus more on the journey about Katak (Robert Naylor) as he ventures to the Great North without any side plots, if any, at all, allowing viewers to keep track of his journey from start to finish. This resulted in the story feeling quite comprehensive and having most of the elements falling into the right place. It also helped that this movie did not try too hard with its comedy and that the pacing is just right such that almost every moment is essential to prevent his movie from going too boring real fast.
The characters are very likable and well-developed too. Katak is such a likable protagonist who has enough depth (pun intended) to make it easy to root for him on his journey. Accompanied by his sidekick sturgeon Cyrano (Arthur Holden) who does not annoy nor try too hard, as well as killer whale Jack-Lynn (Angela Galuppo) who plays an essential role with her father and main villain Jack-Knife (Terrence Scammell), almost every character serves an important purpose in making this story interesting.
Honestly, I am very impressed by how this movie never tries too hard to be as impressive as possible, and instead focused on nailing the basics of storytelling, resulting in a surprisingly engaging and calming story from start to finish.
Animation
With most family-friendly foreign CG animated movies, it can be tiring to see the similar feeling animation style that does not go anywhere, but with Katak, the animation feels very nice indeed.
While it was clear there was not much detailing and texturing in some of the animation elements, the animation style matches the movie’s calming atmosphere. To compensate for the lack of budget, the movie makes great use of colours to create the most appropriate atmosphere for each animation sequence, resulting in surprisingly beautiful shots for a family-friendly foreign CG animated movie.
Not to discredit the other animation elements aside, the character and background designs, while not that detailed enough, look pretty great, movements are just on point and rendering, despite the low budget, is pretty good.
Honestly, considering the circumstances, Katak has some pretty good animation for family-friendly foreign CG animated movie standards, and that is pretty good enough for such a movie, I must say.
Soundtrack, Other Elements and Level of Enjoyment
I have little to say about the soundtrack and the minor elements of this movie, although these elements are good too.
As for my level of enjoyment, I was not only pleasantly surprised by the final results of this movie, but I was enjoying so much of Katak for family-friendly foreign CG animated movies. Given the ostracization and stigmatization of family-friendly foreign CG animated movies, the fact that such a calming and well-rounded family-friendly foreign CG animated movie exists is why I still have faith in those movies succeeding.
Given 2022 is probably the strongest year for these types of movies (with Chickenhare and the Hamster of Darkness and Seal Team being the true standouts for these types of move is in the 2020s so far), this movie (and other fantastic family-friendly foreign CG animated movies I have covered such as The Brother Gruff Go to Splash World, The Inseparables and 10 Lives) might give 2022 a run for their money in that sub-genre.
Overall Thoughts
I have covered many foreign CG animated movies throughout my time as an animated movie adventurer (in fact, I covered a whole lot of them if you have followed me for quite some time), and normally, I have an idea of what to say about them because most of them just felt similar feeling. With that said, I honestly did not expect to enjoy Katak: The Brave Beluga so much.
While we have definitely seen movies with similar concepts to Katak before, what Katak succeeded in where other similar family-friendly foreign CG animated movies had failed comes down to nailing the basics of animated filmmaking well. Despite its simplicity, Katak felt like a calming animated movie that has well-rounded writing, likable and well-developed characters and, even with not enough detailing, the well-executed animation that is not trying too hard to impress.
Honestly, I did not expect myself to enjoy such a calming animated movie that does its simple premise well. Even with the seemingly limited budget this movie has, but Katak: The Brave Beluga made me feel something different, which makes it above your typical family-friendly foreign CG animated movie. It is definitely one of the most pleasant surprises of the year so far.
Blaziker’s Hot Sauce Rating
Dragonkeeper
Key Information
- Directors: Salvador Simo and Li Jianping
- Animation Studios: China Film Animation and Guardian De Dragones A.I.E.
- Country of Origin: China, Spain
- Rating: PG
- Release date: 19 April 2024 (in Spain)
Trailer
Story and Characters
As mentioned, I have covered many family-friendly and regular foreign CG animated movies for years, and one aspect of those movies I was fearful of is the writing, as the writing quality of most of these movies tend to be low. This was no exception, unfortunately.
While the concept for Dragonkeeper is something we have seen before, as what I mentioned in previous reviews many times, the execution matters more, and unfortunately, that was where this movie falters in terms of the writing. The pacing and world-building are so bad that there were times where I either do not care about the story development or felt bored out. Some parts of the movie do not make sense in the scheme of things, mostly due to the production issues highlighted, as well as the cultural differences and clashes between the Spanish and Chinese team members during production. This resulted in a story that lacks focus, interest and bite.
I also did not care about most of the characters, except for the main character Ping (Lucia Perez in the original Spanish dub) and the main dragon Danzi (Mario Gas in the original Spanish dub), and thank goodness because their relationship throughout most of the movie is good. Even factoring that the voice acting and the dialogue are laughably bad (especially considering it is a mostly British voice cast for a movie made in Spain and China, just like with Mummies last year), at least the main characters are not too badly developed.
I will admit, this movie went surprisingly dark, which resulted in some unexpected twists, and that the climatic scene salvages most of the faults in the writing. That said, the redeeming elements in this movie just simply could not cover the various faults within the writing of Dragonkeeper.
Animation
Considering that most of the issues surrounding Dragonkeeper is the animation, as apparently about 60 to 62 animators were excluded from the movie’s final credits; after seeing the movie’s animation, I can definitely see how that impacted this movie.
Despite some gorgeous looking and vast background animations, as well as some fantastic action sequences, this movie was ultimately let down by the lack of detailing in the character designs and the bad rendering throughout this movie. I will also say that there were times where the scenes just felt too dark and lacks some colour to lighten up the scene, even in some of the less dark scenes. While that comes down to personal preference, the issues in the animation is too much to ignore, unfortunately.
While there was other reviews I saw that complained about the animation, if you have seen past family-friendly foreign CG animated movies, that is usually par for the course, especially the pretty bad movies within that sub-genre. Plus, I had seen previous family-friendly foreign CG animated movies with worse animation than what I saw in Dragonkeeper.
Soundtrack, Other Elements and Level of Enjoyment
The score to me is pretty decent, and the minor elements are at least pretty good at least. Not much to say for the minor parts here.
As for my level of enjoyment, just like with They Shot the Piano Player earlier on this year, this was yet another animated movie that fell well short of its high expectations from me. It was such a shame that due to the politics that were involved in this movie, from the constant delays, to production issues and clashing of ideas between executives and the creators involved, not to mention ending off with exclusion of animators from the credits, Dragonkeeper was a mess due to a cumulation of production issues from start to finish. That was what puts me off with Dragonkeeper as a result.
Overall Thoughts
I got to say, that was a disappointment, to say the least, especially given the production issues and subsequent fallout between executives and animators in this one.
Despite the slightly ambitious plot and a surprisingly impactful third act, Dragonkeeper was ultimately let down by the execution of its concept. The writing, despite some surprising twists that carry the story, lacks focus and bite, the pacing is too slow at times, the dialogue and voice acting felt laughably bad and there was not enough development in the characters to carry the story. In addition, despite some impressive animation sequences, the animation lacks some detailing, the colouring was lacking and there were scenes where they felt too dark.
This was one of those “What if” moments where I wondered what it could have been if this movie does not have the production issues some news outlets highlighted, or if there was more respect towards the animators involved. Oh well…
Blaziker’s Hot Sauce Rating
Conclusion
This was honestly one of the most surprising Rundowns I had done so far, mainly because the animated movie I have the least expectations in ended up having the highest score of the three, showing that you never know when a good animated movie shows up.
With that said, since the next animated movies will not show up until weeks later, I will be taking a break from reviewing animated movies, but I still got an essay to talk about something related close to my heart. Until next time, see you on the next adventure!
