Whoops – another movie that, perhaps surprisingly, perhaps not surprisingly, would’ve been perfect for the Halloween marathon next week. I hope this movie at least gets nominated among the Best Animated Features at the Oscars next year, and so far, I’m hoping it’ll win, ‘cos compared to the many samey, mediochre-to-apparently-abysmal animal movies, even though this is as guilty of borrowing as the next CG extravaganza, this one is at least a little different. Mostly this movie reminded me of The ‘Burbs and I think The Monster Squad, or even Fright Night. Which I guess brings me to the most surprising thing about the movie – that it really will scare the pants off some small children. Reading around, it seems some people think that’s tantamount to child abuse these days. I think it’s awesome. I think it’s a beacon of hope for children’s cinema. Can’t you remember being scared in the old Disney movies when you were too small for the cinema seat, or at panto if you’re British?

This is one of those many animated movies this year where I almost wept at the trailer because it just looked so damn ridiculous. But, I’ve gotta say, the animation here is freakin’ beautiful. It’s done using the same motion-capture system of The Polar Express, I think, only they’ve bettered that movie by going The Incredibles route on the look of the human characters rather than trying to make it completely realistic. They actually kinda look like they’re made of fuzzy felt or something, not shiny like Pixar’s stuff. I really couldn’t take my eyes off these characters. I’ll watch this again definitely.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 24th, 2006 at 3:58 am and is filed under 4 hearts, Movie Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.