Mr. Caffeiguy88

A great crossover with the Grinch and the Cat in the Hat. This being one of the only original Seuss specials, it honestly holds up quite well. Seeing the Grinch returning to his evil form and antagonizing the Cat is an interesting plot. I love the creative animation, just like Chuck Jones Depatie Freleng is perfect for Dr. Seuss cartoons. It’s so colorful, wacky, and even cartoonish. The songs are also surprisingly good even though it isn’t Allan Sherman since he passed away in the 70’s. It’s a fun crossover special.

Aside from Turning Red, The Bad Guys might be the best animated movie of 2022. So The Bad Guys is based on the book series by Aaron Blabey. I’ve never read any of them so I cannot stay if it redeems itself with the source material. Anwyay, the story is about these “bad guys” who are criminal anthropomorphic animals trying to learn to become good after a while of being the most popularly known injustices to society. I have to say, this movie’s story feels very well put together and zany. There’s a lot of funny scenes but also interesting chemistry between the characters who are also up against a secret villain. Aside from what may seem predictable, I personally got a lot of laughs from this. The characters are very par. The main few being the bad guys who are hilarious but also show strong feelings later on for each other and how much their friendship means as they’re infamous for being jail broken criminals. They show lots of interesting traits between each other and also to everyone that witnesses them. The villain while I am tired of the twist villain cliché is passable. Atleast the villain has a good motivation here. The voice actors also bring the comedy to its finest with their performances. The animation is very unique. I love the 2.5D CGI blend this film takes especially for Dreamworks. The characters appearances look great and the film has a very interesting color palette that fits the style of the book illustrations. It’s animated in a much more cartoonish way that makes the scenes as funny and action packed as they are with neat 2D effects blended in. The Bad Guys is a great comeback for Dreamworks and I honestly hope they continue to make better animated movies like this.

Toy Story 4 is the fourth film of the franchise and well, I hate to say it but it really just feels like a rushed cashgrab. Now don’t get me wrong I loved Toy Story 1-3 and Pixar has been known for the best and most unique animated movies but this one just didn’t feel necessary. So the story is about Woody and his friends going on an exciting adventure after Bonnie makes it to the carnival, well I wish. What really happens is she gets a new toy who is a spork and replaces him with Woody while not much really happens in the carnival. It still has some nice moments here and there but the pacing is surprisingly slow to the point where I nearly fell asleep in the theater and the adventure feels very watered down in a way. Which leads to the biggest issue, the characters. So many of the other characters like Rex, Slinky, and Potato Head barely get a role. One thing that made Toy Story so fun to watch was seeing them all get together with their funny antics to save Woody or Buzz. Here they just stand there in the van and watch. Woody and Buzz seem to completely forget how much they’ve come since the predecessors with Woody forgetting about sticking together and Buzz apparently forgetting he’s a toy who came up with great advice. Bo-Peep became a tomboy which ruins the gentleness of her character who does reveal why she didn’t appear in Toy Story which I’ll admit was nice. Forky is quite funny but this movie tries to make him look like a Woody 2.0 which in no way should he be since Andy gave Bonnie his favorite family toy away to her. The new characters have some minor humor and charm but they don’t hold up like in the previous films. Gabbi-Gabbi is terribly weak for a villain and the film tries to make her look likable in the second and third act but she really isn’t after how she treated Woody. It’s also kind of sad that some of voice actors for the other roles barely got any dialogue for this film since they were all pushed away. The animation however is definitely top notch. I will say for Pixar they have really found an outstanding way to upgrade the animation for not only the Toy Story films but their animated movies in general. They make the environments feel a lot more realistic but also very colorful in its own way. Additionally, spoiler alert. On top of every problem with this movie, the ending was also quite a disappointment. As I’ve said the message about Toy Story 1-3 was to stick together and continue fulfilling that purpose and opportunity you have. Here it’s the opposite. Not to say that moving on is a bad message, but for Toy Story destroys what it’s done so far. Woody leaves all of his friends, including Buzz, behind to become a lost toy with Bo Peep. I get it, Bonnie lost interest in Woody because of a spork named Forky that she created. But for Woody to do this still doesn’t feel right. I’m sorry but Toy Story 4 is overrated. It got a lot of praise during its release but I really don’t feel the same about it. Toy Story 3 ended the franchise perfectly, this feels more like a direct movie off of the Toy Story Toons shorts.

Buzz Lightyear of Star Command: The Adventure Begins is your typical action spin-off from Toy Story, but by Disney Television Animation instead of Pixar’s theatrical studio. As this is a start to the series that comes after it, it’s okay with its story. The story is basically just an extended pilot introducing the characters for the show with a decent plot about Buzz learning about teamwork. The characters are well introduced. Human Buzz is the fun space ranger with Tim Allen reprising his role. Zurg makes a fun action packed villain. The green aliens even appear which makes sense. The rest are mostly okay as well, somewhat humorous even. The animation is not bad for direct-to-video standards, the designs aren’t too bad for the translation from CGI to hand-drawn. The backgrounds and shading look really good. The action scenes are sometimes eh but it’s not a bother. It’s a mid start to the Buzz Lightyear of Star Command television series, nothing special or amazing, but fun and adventurous in outer space.

With all my hate towards Disney making this movie after shutting down Blue Skies aside, I feel like the direction of this movie was a real train wreck entirely. Everything about The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild feels like it wanted to be a spin-off series to the franchise, but instead this is a sixth installment to the franchise that nobody asked for. This is an entire movie focused on Buck and the two possums Crash and Eddie. They go on a surprisingly dull adventure back to the dinosaur world. The pacing is awfully slow unlike any other Ice Age movie in the franchise with barely anything to be excited about. This feels more like a direct sequel to Dawn of the Dinosaurs if anything, but this movie actually takes place after Collision Course as stated in a short recap in the beginning. Which leads me to the characters. A few characters are noticeably absent in this movie. We don’t get any Scrat segments and none of the characters like Peaches or Sid’s family ever appear in this movie, they’re not even mentioned. The continuity is just broken. Our main few characters from Ice Age 1-3 only exist in this movie who don’t even know the later characters even existed. They all barely get a role in this movie and mostly just appear in the beginning and end. Crash and Eddie are very annoying as main characters as if they’re the funniest characters in the movie. The movie’s new characters are no better. Orson is a terribly bland villain who is literally just a generic dinosaur who just wants to foil the whole adventure, like even the villains in Collision Course were somehow done better than him. Buck’s girlfriend Zee is just your typical love interest trophy. These characters do not feel movie worthy at all. The animation is noticeably cheaper than the rest of the franchise. I know this movie released straight to Disney+ and apparently tried to bring back the look of the first film. While it may have looked impressive for a movie in 2002, it certainly would look dated for a movie 20 years later. If Toy Story 4 tried to replicate the dated look of the first Toy Story movie in 1995, it would be a major downgrade. The voice acting sounds really off aside from Buck himself since Simon Pegg is the only returning actor. These new actors do not replicate the characters’ voices properly due to the low budget in casting. I feel like this would’ve worked better as a spin-off series to the franchise, even the title looks like it was made to be a show. I’m not defending Disney but if they were this desperate to revive the franchise they could’ve made it into a Disney+ exclusive animated series, the type of budget this production had would’ve made sense doing it that way. If you’re gonna have lower quality animation, a more profitable cast, and an entire premise about a side character on his very own adventures with many of the rest pushed aside, it should not be a movie. This movie should not exist even if it was made to be a pilot to a future spin-off series it fails to work. Even if you enjoyed Ice Age: Collision Course this movie will feel like a complete waste of time.

Alright I really don’t understand the hype for Encanto. People online have treated this movie like it was the next best Disney movie to hit theaters before and after its release just like with Frozen. The film takes place in Colombia with Mirabel who is the only child within the hidden mountains who doesn’t get a gift like the other children. The story is not much more than your typical modern Disney princess feature, not that Mirabel is really a princess but there’s really nothing appealing about the story. It tries to show an interesting message and explore Colombian culture in its own way, but it doesn’t seem to grasp the Disney magic like with Mulan, Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, and Beauty and the Beast. It just feels like the story is targeted to a more cultural demographic. The pacing is also very slow due to the fact that the story gets interrupted by its soundtrack a lot. The only thing close to a Disney written story is the conflict of the broken house. The characters are very bland. While Mirabel is a great protagonist to root for, this movie seems to have too many other characters that don’t get any time to properly develop. There’s also no villain in this movie, what’s a Disney movie without a villain? I know theories say it’s Dolores but this movie doesn’t do much with her. I also don’t understand Bruno’s character, I feel like the only reason he exists is for the popular musical number “We Don’t Talk About Bruno”. But for the next greatest Disney movie you would maybe expect some talking animal friends, an interesting villain, and some kind of comic relief sidekick along the way. This movie only provides basic human characters aside from the main character herself. The animation is visually well done. The CGI is beautiful and yes I will admit the character models do look a bit better than other modern Disney animated movies. I do appreciate the designs. The backgrounds do a great job showing off the village and the characters move in a more cartoonish way which makes it feel more worthy of being animated. The songs are very well performed and somewhat catchy in this movie, however what nobody seems to mention is the fact that basically every musical number seems to pause the storyline. Again this movie provides a great soundtrack but the songs are all thrown together into the plot. It becomes very distracting whenever I watch this movie for the plot and some character starts singing out of nowhere for 3-5 minutes putting the story on hold. It tries to execute itself making the storyline and characters feel too lackluster just to grab my attention to this movie being a musical. Disney movies especially from the Renaissance era knew how to make great musical numbers that actually moved the story most notably in The Lion King. Here the songs just feel like filler. It’s safe to say that if you’re not a fan of plot-pausing musicals and expecting this movie to be what everyone else says about it like it’s the greatest Disney movie since The Lion King or even Frozen, you’re going to be disappointed immediately. This is just another princess musical movie without an actual princess that so many people find redeemable. This movie is overrated, enough said.

The Patrick Star Show clearly epitomizes everything you shouldn’t do when making an animated series in general. Regardless if Stephen Hillenburg never wanted spin-offs, this show is still just as terrible. Right off the bat this is a spin-off series based off the comic relief character of SpongeBob SquarePants. Lovable idiot spin-offs tend to fail due to the fact that the character is only meant to make a funny joke, usually implying something dumb off to the side throughout the series. Making an entire show with this type of character as the main role becomes uninteresting and even painfully unfunny fast. In terms of Patrick Star himself his personality is just as braindead as he is in the modern episodes of SpongeBob SquarePants. He doesn’t do anything funny or interesting, he’s just obnoxiously dumb for no reason. Not to mention, this show still uses the majority of the main characters from the original SpongeBob series which defeats the point of a spin-off. Everyone in Patrick’s “family” are also annoying as hell and have no character at all, and the writers completely destroy continuity with Patrick’s real parents and his sister Sam from the original series with an entirely different starfish family with an adopted squid sister Squidina who appeared in the modern episodes of the original show. I know Vincent Waller stated that they would be too boring to bring into the show but it still doesn’t make any sense and they all just act the same, so this doesn’t get their point anywhere. Nickelodeon also announced that this series would have no rules, and this type of premise is honestly one of the worst influences I’ve ever heard of in the animation industry. Patrick can basically do whatever he wants in a universe where anything can happen. To me it’s just an illogical excuse for the writers to not even try to make this work. All that really happens is Patrick being a dingus who constantly bounces off the walls for 11 minutes in each episode. This show painfully tries to execute itself with crazy visuals and the loud and random equals hilarious shtick. It doesn’t work in the slighest and just makes this show even more unwatchable. The animation is also just as bad as the modern episodes of the original SpongeBob series. The characters in this show just have to show overly exaggerated expressions every second, like when is the animation director going to realize that this is not Ren and Stimpy? The modern animation style was already despised and they decide to continue it here as well. Even the voice acting is terrible, everyone for some stupid reason has to obnoxiously shout their dialogue and I honestly feel sorry for all the voice actors that were hauled into this show like Bill Faggerbakke, Jill Talley, Tom Kenny, and Roger Bumpass especially when Nickelodeon made them talk about this show on camera on their social media. If you are an aspiring cartoon creator, please don’t ever let Nickelodeon get their hands on your creation, because this is exactly what will happen if you let their executives take it over. Seriously, do not sell your production to Nickelodeon Animation Studios. They massacre every good show that they’ve worked with. This show says it all.

So Disney decided to make a direct sequel to The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh with their main studio, we’ve had a lot of Winnie the Pooh since the 1980’s especially by DisneyToon Studios, but then we got this movie. The story is very simple for a Winnie the Pooh film, it’s nothing special and does feel like it could’ve been better. However it does do a very good job with its source material from the A.A. Milne stories and does have some very funny and adorable moments. The characters are all great in this movie. I especially love the antics they get into with Pooh being the bear of very little brain as quoted from the film. Eeyore and Rabbit are the funniest of them all. It’s even a nice touch making the red balloon an inanimate character as well, I feel like it fits Winnie the Pooh simply but interestingly. Owl is also quite an entertaining character as he warns everyone about a creature called the Backson. Everyone is funny and charming in some kind of way to where I just can’t help but love them all. The animation is very fluid as this is the last Disney movie to be traditionally animated. The character designs capture the classic style of Winnie the Pooh and friends very well also giving Christopher Robin better eyes like Disney once did with the mice from The Rescuers: Down Under. The backgrounds look amazing capturing the style of the Ernest Shepard illustrations into a theatrical screen. The way the characters move and express is also top notch. The characters do look a bit too clean with how they’re animated at times in this film, but it’s nothing to nitpick about. Most of the voice actors do a great job portraying their roles in this direct sequel. Jim Cummings reprises his role as Pooh and Tigger with magnificent performances. Tom Kenny has amazing enthusiasm for Rabbit. Bud Luckey and Travis Oates are kind of mid replicating Eeyore and Piglet but they’re nothing bad. John Cleese also makes a fun narrator. The songs while they’re not written by the Sherman Brothers aside from the classic Winnie the Pooh and The Wonderful Thing About Tiggers songs are actually really good here. Zooey Deschanel is a great singer recreating a fresh feel to the soundtrack with a fun feel to the instrumental. I especially adore the end credits song. As unnecessary as this film may seem, Winnie the Pooh is still somehow a solid sequel to its predecessor. Despite all the previous movies and even TV shows we’ve had about the silly ol bear, this film somehow still manages to work in its place.

Scoob is a waste of time. This movie tries too hard to modernize itself for the newer generation of kids. The animation is great but that’s the only positive I can give this movie. The story is a mess, the jokes are unfunny, the characters are watered down, and even the voice acting is off. It’s not worth watching.