How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (2019)

How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (2019)

[6] Writer/director Dean DeBlois wraps up the How to Train Your Dragon trilogy with a mostly satisfying finale. In this third film, young Viking Hiccup (Jay Baruchel) and his comrades discover a second, rare Night Fury dragon -- and it's…
Sleeping Beauty (1959)

Sleeping Beauty (1959)

[6] From a technical and artistic point of view, this may be the finest animated film ever made. But it's also dull. I dislike how the three floating fat ladies (Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather) steal the show, while the prince…
Heavy Metal (1981)

Heavy Metal (1981)

[7] Producer Ivan Reitman (Ghostbusters) wrangled together animation companies from around the world to assemble Heavy Metal, a string of six animated shorts based on the popular adult fantasy magazine. The stories are tied together by a loose framing device…
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)

[7] The world's first animated feature film holds up pretty well, even if feminism has rendered its heroine somewhat outdated. Snow White herself is a little annoying, not only because she sits around waiting for her "prince to come", but…
Treasure Planet (2002)

Treasure Planet (2002)

[6] Disney Animation puts a science-fiction twist on Robert Louis Stevenson's classic story. The mix of 2D and 3D animation is interesting, especially when you stop to marvel at an animator's mastery of perspective when 2D characters are seen running…
The Black Cauldron (1985)

The Black Cauldron (1985)

[5] There was definitely potential. A dark Disney movie based on Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain, about a farm boy's brave attempt to stop a demonic king from conquering the land with his army of skeletal warriors? Sign me up!…
All Dogs Go to Heaven (1989)

All Dogs Go to Heaven (1989)

[6] Don Bluth's films (The Land Before Time, The Secret of NIMH) tend to be too mature for children and too immature for adults. Consider All Dogs Go to Heaven, where one moment you have cutsey critters singing a cringe-worthy…
Robin Hood (1973)

Robin Hood (1973)

[6] This Disney flick may be a minor effort in comparison to the company's more perrenial classics, but there's a dated, folksy charm about this all-animal take on the classic Robin Hood legend. The simple story is populated with fairly…
9 (2009)

9 (2009)

[6] Shane Acker's computer-animated post-apocalyptic fantasy is visually interesting, but the characters are bland and the story is wobbly. The movie is a tonal quagmire, trying to balance its dark and dreary subject matter with a kid-friendly PG-13 rating. The…
Cars (2006)

Cars (2006)

[7] Pixar has an uncanny way of dressing up an old familiar formula and making it seem brand new. Cars is a story about life in the fast lane (literally and figuratively), and the dangers of forgetting to smell the…