The Croods

Go see this movie.
No, seriously, go see it.
This was the one movie of Dreamwork's that made me think they might be going by the wayside again, but they have proven that thought WAY wrong.
There isn't anything in this movie that I thought was bad. There are one or two things I might've done differently, but on the whole it is just great.
I don't want to ruin any bit of it by explaining anything about it, just that it is incredibly funny, has fantastic and creative visuals, and has an animation style that doesn't look like pastel markers! There is dirt on those characters! DIRT!
Go see it! If you have children or are an animation fan, go see it! Don't believe the Rotten tomatoes rating for it, it should easily be in the eighties if not the seventies. (and parents taking your children; keep an open mind. The theatre we were in had none of the parents laughing, and I assume so because in their minds they were just watching "child silence fodder." This is significantly better than Brave! And more than likely going to be better than Monster University...)




Speaking of Monster University, there are previews to go over.
I'll shall speak of them in order of interest, those lower on the list are likely to be longer due to rants of hatred.

First up, Epic. Epic is the new one-off movie from Blue Sky. (Hopefully one-off. They do better with those. The series, not so much.) It is basically the Spiderwick Chronicles meets The Ant Bully, a teenage girl is shrunken down by magic and sees a fantastical new world filled with anthropomorphised plants. It looks interesting, to say the least, but it may get bogged down by its comedy relief slugs... But, as long as it keeps that to a minimum, I'll probably like it as much as Rio.

Next, Turbo. It is another DreamWorks movie. (I'm as shocked as you are. But, I guess with Madagascar over, they needed something for the second team to do.) It is basically about a snail who gains super speed, and wants to race in the Daytona 500. Okay, I see no real problems here. It isn't as fantastical as How to Train Your Dragon (which is getting a sequel. My fearfulness that they will ruin the series keeps me from squeeing), but it looks like it'll be decent at least. More power to DreamWorks.


Then there is the painful one... the one that may show the full decline of a giant... Monster University.
Before I begin, I feel compelled to quote something:
    "Sully and Mike are forced to work together on a project, either by sheer chance or their rivalry escalates to the point where the professors force it. They continually try to sabotage the other (and attempted hilarity ensues) until they run up close to the deadline, and have nothing. Thus they fake their entire project, and manage to get an A, building a grudging respect for each other. Oh, and Randal is the villain in there, because I really doubt Pixar is willing to give him any sympathy and make him a fallen villain in the original movie...
     "In the end, Sully is offered a job at Monsters Inc because of how mega-super-awesome he is, but says he can't accept unless Mike comes with him...
     "Mixed in there, Mike meets his love Celia, and Sully sabotages his date with her, and that's the point where Sully tries to make it up to Mike and become his friend."

That is from my Monster's Inc review 7 months ago. I continue to stand by it. The recent preview did nothing to change the problems I'm suspecting will be in that movie. In fact, there is actually a NEW problem: Overabundance of childish slapstick humor. It was present in Brave, it appears it shall be present here. It might be funny while you're there, but once you leave you'll have that empty feeling of having wasted over half an hour of your life watching people getting hit with things because it's funny.
Pixar, stop making sequels, and prequels. We see now that you got lucky with Toy Story. Cars 2 looked like a hiccup, but now it looks more like the cliff you careened off of.
My suggestion: do an animated romcom. You are good at the heartfelt stuff, and you are able to use comedy to supplement it, so do what you do best. Stop it with the bears and the cars and the monsters... It's starting to feel like you're DC trying to copy Marvel's success, only you're not copying Dreamworks, you're copying a bad era of Disney.

Apart from the three big animated films (all of which include snails or jokes about them. Strange world...) there is Smurfs 2. Yeah, not going to go see that, can already predict bad reviews and another review from The Blockbuster Buster (link). Though at least we get to have arguments again about how Blonde is supposedly "good" and brunet is "bad" because of Smurfette. I'm on the side of "Why da faq did her hair have to change?"


This has been Fixer Sue. Remember, go see The Croods!