By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) Wendell & Wild, which is being released directly to Netflix for Halloween following its premiere at TIFF, is the latest stop motion film from director Henry Selick, the creative mastermind behind classics like The Nightmare Before Christmas and Coraline. This is Selick’s first film since the Neil Gaiman… Read More Review: Wendell & Wild (Netflix)
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) Conceived as a loose remake of the classic Mel Brooks comedy Blazing Saddles, Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank (which originally had the somewhat better title Blazing Samurai) is a gonzo animated film that often boggles the mind over how it even came to be. The result… Read More Blu-ray Review: Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank
By John Corrado ★★ (out of 4) Paramount’s animated film Rumble imagines a world of “monster wrestling,” where giant creatures fight each other for entertainment with the help of human trainers, and each city has their own massive kaiju to represent them. The most famous of these trainers was the late Jimbo Coyle (Carlos Gómez),… Read More Blu-ray Review: Rumble
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) DC League of Super-Pets is an animated comic book movie about Superman’s best friend; a super-powered dog named Krypto (voiced by Dwayne Johnson) who came to earth with him as a baby from the planet Krypton and continues to be his closest companion. Krypto has settled into a… Read More 4K Ultra HD Review: DC League of Super-Pets
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) Cars on the Road, which premieres on Disney+ tomorrow as part of their annual Disney+ Day programming, is a short episodic series from Pixar Animation Studios that finds trusty tow truck Mater (Larry the Cable Guy) and race car Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) reuniting for a road trip.… Read More Disney+ Review: Cars on the Road
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Minions: The Rise of Gru is a sequel to the 2015 film Minions, which was itself a prequel to the three Despicable Me films, showing the origins of those little yellow guys who speak gibberish and have taken the world by storm. And, five films deep into this… Read More 4K Ultra HD Review: Minions: The Rise of Gru (Collector’s Edition)
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) I Am Groot, the latest Marvel series premiering on Disney Plus, isn’t really a series at all, but rather a collection of brief little shorts featuring Guardians of the Galaxy breakout star Baby Groot (voiced once again by Vin Diesel) going on a series of adventures between the… Read More Disney+ Review: I Am Groot
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) DreamWorks Animation’s The Bad Guys, adapted from the book series by Aaron Blabey, is an animated heist movie that riffs on everything from Reservoir Dogs to Pulp Fiction and the Ocean’s Eleven movies. And it’s a lot of fun. Filled with car chases, twists, and double crossings galore,… Read More 4K Ultra HD Review: The Bad Guys (Collector’s Edition)
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Marcel the Shell with Shoes On opens with a tennis ball rolling around and bouncing down the stairs. We soon learn that our pint-sized protagonist Marcel (voiced by Jenny Slate), a one-inch tall shell wearing pink sneakers who will steal our hearts over the next ninety minutes, is… Read More Review: Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) Pixar’s Lightyear, a spinoff from the Toy Story film series that purports to show the origin story of the famous space ranger, opens with subtitles explaining that, in 1995, a boy named Andy saw a movie that made him want a Buzz Lightyear action figure, and “this is… Read More Review: Lightyear
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers is technically the latest in Disney’s long line of live action reboots, reviving the fan favourite Disney Channel cartoon series. But in the hands of director Akiva Schaffer (from comedy troupe The Lonely Island), this one serves as a satirical sendup of the… Read More Disney+ Review: Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Did Richard Linklater really go to the moon as a kid? Not likely, but his latest film, the very charming and sweetly nostalgic Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood, will make you believe he might have for a little over ninety minutes. Done in a similar rotoscoped animation… Read More Netflix Review: Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The 2016 film Sing was a cute and colourful animated jukebox musical from Illumination, the studio best known for the Despicable Me movies. It was a crowdpleaser that knew exactly what it was trying to be; you know, a bunch of animated animals performing a variety of upbeat… Read More 4K Ultra HD Review: Sing 2
By John Corrado ★★ (out of 4) Despite unceremoniously shutting down Blue Sky Studios last year following their acquisition of 20th Century Fox, Disney continues the company’s signature prehistoric franchise with The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild, an in-house spinoff that is being released straight to Disney Plus. The sixth film in the Ice… Read More Disney+ Review: The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The latest animated film from producers Phil Lord and Chris Miller, following their Oscar-winning Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, The Mitchells vs. The Machines is a madcap adventure from Sony Pictures Animation that mixes sci-fi action and zany comedy with sincere family drama about a queer, film-loving teen reconnecting… Read More Blu-ray Review: The Mitchells vs. The Machines
By John Corrado The MTV animated series Beavis and Butt-Head was a pop culture staple of the 1990s, following the misadventures of two idiot teenaged slackers voiced by the show’s creator, Mike Judge. A feature length film, Beavis and Butt-Head Do America, was released in theatres at the height of the show’s popularity on December… Read More Blu-ray Review: Beavis and Butt-Head Do America (1996)
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Encanto is Disney’s 60th animated feature, and it’s a bright and colourful film that feels like somewhat of a return to the studio’s musical roots, while also pushing things forward in terms of cultural representation by setting its story in Colombia. While this is technically not Disney’s first film to… Read More Review: Encanto
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) DreamWorks Animation’s 2017 movie The Boss Baby was essentially a one-joke film. Yes, I know, it was loosely based on a picture book by Marla Freeze, and set up a whole world of baby corporate leaders. But the purpose of the movie was really just an excuse to… Read More Blu-ray Review: The Boss Baby: Family Business
By John Corrado ★★ (out of 4) Spirit Untamed, one of the latest animated offerings from DreamWorks, is a spinoff of both their 2002 film Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron and the Netflix series Spirit Riding Free, and it’s the very definition of generic entertainment made to capitalize on an existing IP. The film mainly… Read More Blu-ray Review: Spirit Untamed
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The latest animated film from Waltz With Bashir filmmaker Ari Folman, Where is Anne Frank is a valuable and often moving animated history lesson that draws parallels between past and present discrimination. The film serves as an adaptation of The Diary of Anne Frank, but it takes a… Read More #TIFF21 Review: Where is Anne Frank (Special Presentations)
