Introduction
Hello, fellow adventurers! Blaziker is back to begin the brand new season for our Animation Adventure of the 2025 season, and yeah, let’s get into the first 4 animated movies of the year, shall we?
The first movie, SuperKlaus, is a Christmas animated movie on a superhero Santa Claus as he takes on on a toy-obsessed business to save Christmas. I know, this animated movie is one I should not be covering, especially given we had gone past Christmas and that I am now becoming more selective as to what family-friendly foreign CG animated movies to cover. This is especially since it is animated by the same studio behind Giants of La Mancha and distributed by the same company who distributed and produced Butterfly Tale. Will SuperKlaus be as bad as those two?
The second movie, Buffalo Kids, sees two Irish immigrant children journeying on a train ride across America in search of a new home and reuniting with their uncle in California. This is animated by the same studio behind Mummies back in 2023, and given its initial release, some of my friends who covered both movies told me Buffalo Kids is a step-up compared to Mummies. With me being able to see it online, are those opinions true?
The third movie, Wallace and Gromit: Vengence’s Most Fowl, sees the return of the infamous villain Feathers McGraw as he plots his revenge against Wallace and Gromit, who are in the middle of inventing and selling their new smart gnome. Truth be told, this is my very first Wallace and Gromit experience, as I often associate the well-loved British stop-motion studio Aardman with Shaun the Sheep more than this well-loved franchise. Now that I am seeing it on Netflix, is my first Wallace and Gromit experience worth it?
The fourth and final movie, A Few Moments of Cheers, is about a high school student who produces music videos teaming up with a retired musician to produce a music video of her songs together. While this is an anime movie, the animation style alone makes it a standout compared to most of the top-quality hand-drawn animated movies Japan is known for, but will this experimental style of animation work?
Well, without further ado, let our first animation adventure of 2025 begin!
SuperKlaus
Key Information
- Directors: Steve Majuray and Andrea Sebastia
- Animation Studio: 3 Doubles Producciones
- Country of Origin: Spain, Canada
- Rating: PG
- Release date: 5 December 2024 (in Spain)
Trailer
The Review
I know we had gone past the Christmas phase, but to be frank, I was not planning to see this, especially since one of my New Year resolutions is to cover less family-friendly foreign CG animated movie slop. However, I decided to see it to get that movie out of the way and… That is exactly what I am going to do, because SuperKlaus is a nothing burger!
In 2024, I covered a good number of these types of family-friendly foreign CG animated movies that are poorly written, poorly animated and offers nothing but scorn from the animation community just for existing, and yes, I covered many of these movies in the past, but 2024 has more of these movies than what should be acceptable. SuperKlaus is like those movies, with an unremarkable script that felt super generic, derivative and poorly executed with terrible comedy and lack of proper character development. The animation, just like in the studio’s previous movie Giants of La Mancha, felt very half-hearted and poorly rendered, and the smaller elements are not worth highlighting either.
Overall, if you want to see a good quality Christmas animated movie, That Christmas is already available on Netflix, as do Klaus and Scrooge: A Christmas Carol. Heck, if you can obtain it, Animal Tales of Christmas Magic is also a fantastic and underrated Christmas animated movie. All of these are worth seeing more than this generic and patronising family-friendly animated movie slop that does nothing for most of its audience.
Blaziker’s Hot Sauce Rating
Buffalo Kids
Key Information
- Directors: Juan Jesus Gracia Galocha and Pedro Solis Gracia
- Animation Studios: 4 Cats Pictures and CORE Animation
- Country of Origin: Spain
- Rating: PG
- Release date: 14 August 2024 (in Spain)
Trailer
The Review
In contrast to what we had witnessed in SuperKlaus, Buffalo Kids felt more like a genuine theatrical animated movie, filled with more heart and dedication than what SuperKlaus wished it could have. Honestly, that is a good thing, since I criticised a lot of the elements back when I covered Mummies.
I do have issues with Buffalo Kids, though, and it is that the story felt quite simple, generic and formulae, but then again, given most family-friendly foreign CG animated movies have similar stories and formulas, I should be expecting that. There are also accusations that this movie felt A/I-generated, and looking at the animation style, I can see where they come from, since I find the animation style to be too polished and sometimes not well-rendered.
That said, Buffalo Kids is a genuine improvement compared to Mummies, especially when it comes to the quality of the writing. While Mummies was filled with endless gags and not much cohesion, here, Buffalo Kids has a proper story that has good development from start to finish, even with its formulae plot. The movie also benefited from having surprisingly decent character development and its disability representation, given one of the characters has cerebal palsy and inspired by the director’s late son who has the same condition.
I also think the animation is a step-up as compared to the animation in Mummies. Despite its slightly uncanny look, Buffalo Kids at least has some decent background designs and well-crafted animation sequences with some creativity in the structuring of the animation sequences. There are other family-friendly foreign CG animated movies that do its style better, but Buffalo Kids’ animation is still decent.
Also thankfully, the soundtrack is less annoying compared to the soundtrack in Mummies, and as for my level of enjoyment, I enjoyed this movie way more than I should. It was clear the team at 4 Cats Pictures took the feedback from Mummies with heart, because there were clear signs of progress from Mummies to this. I honestly felt like Buffalo Kids is a completely different animated movie in terms of story, style and overall quality.
I got to say, after seeing this movie, maybe it was clear not all Spanish CG animated movies are bad, because Buffalo Kids is one of the better ones out there. Do not expect much, but I think Bufalo Kids is serviceable enough to be worth seeing if you do not have anything else to do.
Blaziker’s Hot Sauce Rating
Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance’s Most Fowl
Key Information
- Directors: Nick Park and Merlin Crossingham
- Animation Studio: Aardman Animations
- Country of Origin: United Kingdom and France
- Rating: PG
- Release date: 3 January 2025 (on Netflix)
Trailer
The Review
For my first ever Wallace and Gromit experience, I came into this movie with high expectations, given the love and support this series got from animation fans alike, and now that I got to see it, I can understand why Wallace and Gromit (and also Aardman) is so beloved.
This is a movie filled with so much charm, heart and of course, the laughs. The comedy, which uses old-school British humour that focused on its “show, didn’t tell” approach is not only perfect for this movie, but also resulted in me laughing so much throughout the entire runtime. The comedy also blends in with its clever usage of puns and British-centric jokes only the Brits can understand, but given my expertise in that subject from years of watching Mock the Week and The Inbetweeners (Ooh, friend!), I understand the jokes so much I was having a blast! Oh, and it’s exciting to see a movie exploring the perils of over-reliance on technology, a topic that is very relevant in 2025.
The writing also blends in with the characters, specifically the dynamics between the lazy but clever inventor in Wallace and his more mature and hard working dog partner Gromit. The pair just go so well like peanut butter and jelly, with every joke and gag from them being better than the last as the movies go by. It also helped that Feathers McGraw, the villain in this movie, is so well-thought and menacing, which is what the creators intended. Even with less dialogue compared to most animated movies, there is no need for any additional dialogue because this movie is so complete thanks to its excellent writing, although it did not hurt that the dialogue and voice acting is as great.
Moving on to the animation, and given it is using an old-fashioned Claymation-style stop motion, the old British charm blends with this classic animation technique by giving a fun, vibrant and playful style that bends the rules of animation, resulting in such a fun and exciting animation style that manages to keep up with its already chaotic but fun story. While it is not as well-detailed as other fantastic stop-motion animated movies, such as GDT’s Pinocchio or last year’s Memoir of a Snail, it did not need to, because its simplistic feel is its biggest positive about this already exciting movie.
Obviously, the score and its minor elements are fantastic, but as for my level of enjoyment, I was honestly having so much fun throughout the movie’s runtime. This movie made me feel like a kid again with its inventiveness and old-school charm that honestly, compared to the first two animated movies I explored above, this felt like a breath of fresh air. We are missing animated movies that is full of passion, so I thank the masters at Aardman for showing that.
Therefore, if that is not obvious enough, go see Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance’s Most Fowl in theatres or if that is not available, on Netflix. This is a fun and innovative animated movie that would excite even the biggest detractors of the Wallace and Gromit series.
Blaziker’s Hot Sauce Rating
A Few Moments of Cheers
Key Information
- Directors: POPREQ
- Animation Studio: Bandai Namco Filmworks’ Emotion
- Country of Origin: Japan
- Rating: PG
- Release date: 14 June 2024 (in Japan)
Trailer
The Review
I was slightly looking forward to A Few Moments of Cheers mostly due to its animation style, especially for foreign CG animated movies standards (with the animators using Blender as its animation software, just like with one of the best animated movies of last year, Flow). I will say that the animation is indeed amazing, but there were other elements that let down the entire movie.
Let’s stick to the animation first and, my goodness me. If Japan is even half as great in utilising computer generated animation with A Few Moments of Cheers, it is clear that Japan, one of the greatest countries in the world when it comes to animation, might start to produce more top-quality CG animated movies while still producing top-tier 2D hand-drawn animated movies they are more known for. The colouring and action sequences are dynamic and exciting, and the music-style animation is hard to miss. There is no denying that the animation is fantastic.
Unfortunately, the biggest issue has to be the writing, and one main reason for its lacklustre story was due to its limited runtime. With a runtime of only about 60 minutes, there is only so much this movie can do with its story development. The writing felt rushed and has little control in its pacing, and the characters do not get enough development for this runtime. Yes, movies with such a short runtime like Look Back exist, but while Look Back benefits from focusing more on its two main characters throughout the movie, A Few Moments of Cheers has more elements to deal with, and that resulted in such a rushed and undeveloped story.
It is a shame, because the animation and also the soundtrack is great and is worth seeing this movie for these two moments, but given writing is now more important for animated movies to shine in 2025, A Few Moments of Cheers felt like a complete let-down based on the writing alone. It’s still worth checking out, but don’t expect much unfortunately.
Blaziker’s Hot Sauce Rating
Conclusion
I got to say, 2025 started off in an interesting fashion. While there was one bad animated movie and two decent ones, we already got one movie in contention for best animated movie of 2025. However, we had only just begun!
Tune in next time as we cover more animated movies from all around the world. Until next time, see you on the next adventure!
