Review: 'Coco' is a Moving Journey into Mexican Culture

The winning team behind Toy Story 3 is back with Coco, more than 7 years after their previous film: Lee Unkrich (director) and Darla K. Anderson (producer) team up again, this time to bring us a story inspired by Mexican culture; one about Día de los Muertos.
Read our spoiler-free review below.

French Animation, Chapitre 9 - The Big Bad Fox and Other Tales

Previously: April and the Twisted World

What is it?
While the United States are currently enjoying Cars 3, Pixar's latest outing will only open in August in France. Instead, French animation fans are treated with a new feature film by Benjamin Renner, one of the directors of the critically acclaimed Ernest & Celestine.
This time, Renner adapted one of his own comic books, Le Grand Méchant Renard, which was published in 2015 and for which he took his inspiration from French literature classic La Fontaine's Fables.
Though he was only a director on Ernest & Celestine, he co-wrote this one with Jean Regnaud and co-directed with Patrick Imbert.

'The LEGO Batman Movie' Review: You Had Me at 'LEGO'

Back in 2014, when The LEGO Movie hadn't been released, the LEGO cinematic universe was nothing, and nobody expected the film to be great - or do great at the box office. Yet here we here, three years later, and pretty much everyone is hyped for The LEGO Batman Movie. The trailers have been hilarious and we were expecting a very funny film. Was the hype justified? Well, we're glad to confirm it was: The LEGO Batman Movie is funny, and is also much more. Read our spoiler-free review below.

Review: 'Moana' Knows the Way

For the first time since 2002, the Walt Disney Animation Studios are releasing two films within the same year. Funnily enough, the second Disney film in 2002 (Treasure Planet) was a Clements/Musker production just like the movie we'll be talking about today, Moana.
Read our spoiler-free review of the film below and see if we think Disney did it again.

Review: DreamWork's 'Trolls' is a Flawed But Charming Movie

Trolls is DreamWorks Animation's CGI take on the troll dolls (aka good luck trolls), a toy brand created in 1959. Trolls made brief appearances in the Toy Story movies, but here they are given their own musical, with Anna Kendrick and Justin Timberlake starring, and Mike Mitchell (Shrek Forever After) and Walt Dohrn directing. Read our spoiler-free review to find out how well the film works.

'Kubo and the Two Strings' Review: Don't Blink

It's been out for a while in the United States, but that's the chaotic worldwide release schedule for you: Kubo and the Two Strings is only being released in some European countries now, and as a result our review is pretty late, and everything (or close) has already been said on the film. Still, because we think Kubo is a terrific film we'll consider it's not too late, shall we? If you must blink, do it now; then consider reading our spoiler-free review below.

The Boy and the Beast Review

In a busy Tokyo street, a boy called Ren stands alone. He looks at his surroundings with hate and fury. He steals some food and goes to an abandoned corner to eat it. Two hooded figures approach him. One of the figures lifts his head and Ren looks, in horror, that the figure is a beast. The beast, Kumatetsu, asks Ren if he wants to become his apprentice. Ren doesn't say anything and Kumatetsu leaves. After the shock wears off, Ren follows Kumatetsu and enters the Beast Kingdom where beasts live. After a while, Ren becomes Kumatetsu's apprentice and helps his master perfect his technique so he can become Grandmaster and in the process, learn to let go of his anger and discover the meaning of family.

'The Secret Life of Pets' Review: To Déjà Vu, and Beyond!

The new film from Illumination Entertainment (Despicable Me, The Minions) is here. Actually, it's been here for a while in the UK (a month) and US (almost three weeks), but it's just arrived in this reviewer's country. So, how good is The Secret Life of Pets? It has to be amazing, judging by those trailers. Well, nope. Read what we think of this movie in our spoiler-free review after the break.

Review: 'The Red Turtle' Delivers A Beautiful and Multi-Layered Tale

The Red Turtle is the first feature film from Michaël Dudok de Wit, and what a good effort it is! The movie is a French-Belgian-Japanese (Studio Ghibli - and more precisely Hayao Miyazaki - was impressed with Dudok de Wit's Oscar-winning short Father and Daughter, and reached out to him) co-production. Here is our spoiler-free review for it.

'Finding Dory' Review: On Why it's a Worthy 'Nemo' Sequel

Rarely is a sequel worthy of its predecessor. Sequels often disappoint us, because we enter them with big expectations and a pre-conceived idea of what this universe should be; of what the tone should be. The filmmakers are then faced with a dilemma:
- either stick to what has been done with the first film; that means keeping the same structure, tone, and facing the risk of repeating yourself; we'll call that the Home Alone 2 syndrome.
- or they do something completely different, unexpected, with the consequence of losing the fans of the first film. That's the Cars 2 syndrome.

Fortunately, there's also a third option. The one for the worthy sequel which finds the right balance between looking back and saying something new. On this spoiler-free review, I'll explain why I think Dory is a rare example of that kind of sequel.

'Zootopia' Review: Shut Up and Take my Bunny!

Zootopia (also known as Zootropolis in the UK) is the new animated feature film from the Walt Disney Animation Studios. With talking animals… Humm… Disney has pretty much done everything there was to do with animals, right? Obviously not, as proven by this gem, which is not only an hilarious and gorgeous movie, but also - and more surprisingly - one of the deepest and richest animated films in recent history. Read our full and spoiler-free review below.

Review: 'The Boy and the Beast' is the First Great 2016 Animated Feature

Sometimes living in France is a good thing; while the apparently catastrophic Norm of the North was released this weekend in the United States, French cinemas got another family film instead: The Boy and the Beast. The new Mamoru Hosoda movie was a hit last summer in Japan, and it just opened in France this week. It will arrive in the US soon (12th February), yet there is still no official date for the UK, but hopefully it will open in 2016 as well.
So yes, The Boy and the Beast is indeed better than Norm of the North appears to be. Read the review below to find out why.

'The Good Dinosaur' Review: A Breathtaking Journey With Arlo and Spot

It's finally here. The Good Dinosaur has been announced, then pushed back, was sort of remade and the finished filmed just reached our theaters. Originally, Bob Peterson (co-director of Up) was going to direct it, but he had to leave the project in 2013. Pete Sohn (Partly Cloudy) took over as the solo director; a change of director is usually not a good sign. However, Pixar has had a few of those situations in the past, and at least one of them ended with a brilliant film (Ratatouille). Some other times, it hasn't been that great (ahem, Cars 2).

Fortunately, The Good Dinosaur is closer from Ratatouille than Cars 2. Our review below.

French Animation, Chapitre 8 - April and the Twisted World

Previously: Asterix: The Land of the Gods

What is it?
April and the Twisted World (aka Avril et le Monde Truqué in its original version) is a 2D animated adventure film set in a steampunk/uchronic world; in 1870, a single event derails the course of History, and in the 20th century France is still an Empire ruled by the Bonapartes (most of the film happens under the tenure of Napoléon V). The great scientists of the world are mysteriously disappearing, which causes scientific advances to stall. As a result, everything runs on steam or coal and the Earth has gone through a massive deforestation.
The story follows April, a young girl living in Paris with her talking cat Darwin. She'll have to find out what happened to the scientists, including her missing parents.

Review: 'Mune, le Gardien de la Lune' is an Imagination Jewel but Lacks in Story

Mune, le Gardien de la Lune (which translates as Mune, The Guardian of the Moon) is a French CG animated film (with some sequences in traditional animation) directed by Alexandre Heboyan and Benoît Philippon. Though the film has been finished for about a year, and has already been released in Italy this February, it just came out in France.
The film caught our eye when this trailer was released, as the worldbuilding seemed interesting. Does it deliver? On the worldbuilding, the answer is yes, absolutely. On other aspects, not so much. Our review below.

Inside Out Review: Pixar's Cleverest

After two years without a Pixar movie, Pete Docter's Inside Out was highly anticipated. And it's not only because of the two year gap; it's also because its concept was one of the craziest ever cooked up by the Emeryville Studio, which is saying a lot (WALL•E's story was also pretty out there).
So, could the Pixar people make this mad idea work? Oh yes. Yes, they did.
Read the spoiler-free review below.

The Little Prince Review: A Lovely Adaptation

Loosely based on Le Petit Prince, a book by French author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince is a film directed by Mark Osborne (Kung Fu Panda). It's a combination of two animation techniques: CG and stop-motion. Does the movie do justice to the source material? Yes, mostly. Read the review below.

Tomorrowland Review: Enjoy the Roller Coaster

After the very well received Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, Brad Bird is directing yet another live action film. Will Tomorrowland be as universally praised as all of his other works? Well, no. It isn't.
But I still think people should see it it; more than that: I actually loved the film. Find out why in the following review.

'Avengers: Age of Ultron' Review: Avengers, Disassemble!

Warning: This review contains minor spoilers.

Here it is. Blockbuster season is upon us. And the film starting things off is none other than the highly anticipated and sure to be one of the most successful films of the year: Avengers: Age of Ultron. The Avengers (2012) managed to assemble all the characters coming from solo movies in a compelling way, without facing any pacing problems. It struck an extremely good balance between epic action scenes, funny banter, and characterization. I don't know about everyone else, but when I left the theatre in April of 2012, I felt euphoric, overjoyed by what I had just witnessed. Did I leave the cinema with the same sentiment this time? Not exactly, but maybe that's the point. Read our review below.

'Shaun the Sheep Movie' Review: You Should Flock to See It

Following The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists (2012), Shaun the Sheep Movie - written and directed by Richard Starzak and Mark Burton - is the latest Aardman Studios production. Shaun first appeared in the Wallace and Gromit short A Close Shave (1995), and got his own TV show in 2007 (which is still ongoing). This is is first feature film. Do the Aardman crew deliver once again? The answer is a resounding 'Yes!' - Find out why below.