The BEST Animated Movies of 2024

So... I'm gonna be honest, 2024 sucked for animated movies. I have made my opinions clear on the matter, but let me state, now that the year is over, Two-Thousand-Twenty-Four Common Era absolutely SUCKED for animated movies, that isn't to say this was a totally bad year for animation entirely though, animation critics who, y'know actually do this for a living, or are just better than me, might be able to point you in directions I couldn't for things like TV animation, Anime, Indie Animation, Hell they might even be able to point you into directions to movies I haven't, couldn't, or wouldn't see. Basically what I'm saying is just because one area of the year wasn't great, doesn't mean the whole year was bad, and also please support other animation reviewers, we're a small community we need attention.

That all being said, this year wasn't a completely barren wasteland for movies either, it's just that... well, you're less likely to see them in theatres, I think. Most of the movies I heard of this year, were not theatrically released, The Tiger's Apprentice, the Megamind sequel, at least half of my worst list, all went directly to streaming in one form or another. This is a problem because it means accessibility to thee movies is very limited, so while really big movies might get a theatrical release, others that are still fairly notable might not. I'm not entirely convinced their isn't some other motive to putting movies directly on a streaming service, like other than a studio having full control over something, but it is kind of concerning.

Anyway, here are the movies that didn't completely suck.

5. Kung Fu Panda 4

I know not everybody has positive feelings for this movie, but I gotta be honest, I had a good time with it. I am always in awe about how well each Kung Fu Panda sequels feels like a natural step in the story being told, going from Po learning to become the Dragon Warrior and ending with Po having to pass on the title. Sure, it isn't as good as Kung Fu Panda 2 or 3, but those are immensely tough acts to follow, so the fact that it is good in general is good enough.

A lot of people also criticize the villain's backstory, saying that it makes no sense, I have wanted to talk about this for a while, but it does make a lot of sense that Po, a person who faced discrimination and prejudice in the Kung Fu circle due to his body, is facing a villain who also faced discrimination and prejudice in the Kung Fu circle against them due to their body, again, it's these links that make the Kung Fu Panda villains great.

No, the movie isn't perfect, I do miss the Furious Five as much as everyone else, the Mr. Beast cameo was kind of dumb, then again most YouTuber cameos in movies tend to age poorly, and I'm not entirely sure how I feel about Awkwafina as an actress, but over all, I had more positives with the movie than not, and James Hong and Bryan Cranston were easily the highlights of this movie, so that has to be worth something.

4. Piece By Piece

It might seem crazy what I'm about to say, but I never really got into Pharrell's music. It isn't all bad, but when you tend to gravitate more towards Alt. Rock and Metal, you do tend to miss out on some good stuff. That all being said, the idea of doing this documentary in Lego style intrigued me, not that animated documentaries haven't been done before, but doing it in Lego, why not?

I was ultimately more interested in how the story was told instead of what story was being told, but that isn't to say I don't think Pharrell is an interesting person, I'm just stating my biases as someone who isn't really into this kind of music. Still, the way a lot of the things were visualized, like the different beats that were produced and how they're stored, a lot of it really is complimented by the Lego visuals, and I don't think you could really do scenes like that in a traditional style. I think this is one of movies that does still make me hold onto hope that there are still unique animated movies out there, and I won't say this is one of the most unique or risky movies, but this was an idea, and not a bad one at that. I can't really say more about it, this was just a good movie.

3. The Wild Robot

I can hear it now, "The Wild Robot at Number Three? It should be Number One!" and yeah, I see why, this was a really beautifully done movie, easily one of DreamWorks' best in recent years. It's these kinds of movies that really do show how different DreamWorks is from studios like Disney or Illumination, and why they are my favourite of the big three.

That all being said, I am a little disappointed in this movie. I never read the book this movie was based on, though I might give it a shot in the future, my disappointment comes from one thing; from the initial trailer, I thought this movie was gonna be a really powerful movie told with zero dialogue, imagine DreamWorks taking a risk like that, making a movie with zero spoken dialogue with such a grand scale that their best movies have, that would be so cool. I'm not going to say that this movie failed to live up to my expectations in terms of quality, if anything, when I learned it was going to have dialogue I grew a bit worried, so the movie exceeded my expectations. Still, I think it would have been cool if this movie had no spoken dialogue.

2. Flow

Flow is the movie I thought I was going to get out of The Wild Robot, a truly unique and risky animated feature. Flow was such an interesting movie, there is zero spoken dialogue, not even subtitles, and yet you can still infer what the characters are thinking, feeling, in some cases even saying. I love moments in movies and cartoons where the imagery tells the story more than the dialogue does, how the body language and facial expressions speak about the characters thoughts more so than can be put into words. Flow is entirely that, it's just reading the animals' body language.

On top of that, this movie got really tense at points, there were several moments I thought this poor cat was gonna drown or get eaten by something, and it always kept me on edge, it was fantastic. I also have to applaud the fact that the team used the open-source Blender to render this movie, which really does prove you can do fantastic things with available tools. Now we just have to wait for the animated movie where each and every frame was hand drawn in Microsoft Paint.

So, if this is my choice for the most unique animated movie of the year, why isn't it number one? Well... Maybe I didn't actually want The Wild Robot to have zero dialogue, because I think this movie is more fascinating than it is entertaining, and don't get me wrong, I think it's a great movie, but in the same way I think Fight Club or Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas are great movies, where there is just something fascinating about them, that keeps them in my mind, but very rarely do I ever think about actually watching them that often. I would love to re-watch Flow with friends, but it might not be one I watch that often. What movie would I watch more often?

1. Transformers One

If you were to tell me that a Transformers movie would top my list of best animated movies any year, I'd be open to the possibility. Even though I'm not huge into Transformers, I have a fondness for the franchise, the original Michael Bay movie completely blew my mind when I was a kid, and I'm not completely shocked that Transformers is still a popular franchise, but at the same time I was not a huge fan of the original 1980s Transformers movie, even putting it on the list of the worst animated movies I reviewed. So this is still a little bit of a shock.

It's also shocking because, is this movie unique? Not particularly. Is it groundbreaking? I don't think so. Is it a risky movie? Not in the slightest. You know what this movie is though? This movie is damn good, and in 2024, I needed a Damn Good movie, I love when a movie is unique and takes a risk, but I don't think 2024 needed that, I think 2024 needed movies that were good before they were risky or groundbreaking. 2024 needed a Transformers One, because everything else before it... No, not all of it was bad, but very few of it was better than "Okay", I know a lot of people like Ultraman Rising, and it wasn't bad, but it just felt pretty standard. Transformers One was the first movie of the year that I watched as thought, "Yeah, that was pretty good". What does that say about this year as a whole...

If I had to give a theme to the movies on this list, I would probably say... Ambitious? Each movie is taking a fairly risky step in one way or another, DreamWorks' best movies are often pretty risky in one way or another, Flow and Piece by Piece are certainly unique movies that are begging to attain a cult following, honestly, even Transformers One, the notion of making an animated Transformers movie after the Michael Bay movies, with Michael Bay as a producer, frankly I respect the gall. Was this year completely bad? I don't think so, but I also thought negative about 2022 and now I'm willingly looking back on that with rose-tinted glasses, maybe 2025 will be a different year, one with better and more interesting movies to talk about. Well, let us leave 2024 behind us, and look forward to something better... 2030! Yes, I'm talking about more than animated movies here, let's just move on to the Honourable Mentions.

1. Ultrama: Rising - I mean, it was okay, kind of predictable, but kinda cool seeing Ultraman get a fairly big push in the west.
2. Rotten: Behind the Foodfight - This doesn't count, it's a live-action documentary about an animated movie, but it is worth the mention.
3. Sonic the Hedgehog 3 - This also doesn't fully count, but if it did, it would easily be number one.

The WORST Animated Movies of 2024

How would I describe 2024 for animation? Well, that is kind of a meaningless question. As a whole, animation has had its ups and downs this year, and there was plenty of good stuff, like The Amazing Digital Circus, that was absolutely peak. LS Mark released the pilot to his new animated series this year, and that was pretty good. There was A New Wish, which I hear most people quite liked. Batman: Caped Crusader, which was... I mean it was alright. X-Men '97 has gotten some good attention, and there is probably quite a bit I am not mentioning, mostly because I just don't really have any time for animated shows, I barely have time for new movies, but I did watch quite a few, but I do want it known that I couldn't watch everything, so if you want a more thorough look at the Animated Cinema of 2024, I'm sure Animated Antic can give you that.

There really is no other way to say this, but for animated movies, 2024 sucked, and this will not be the last time I say that in 2024, I'm repeating myself a lot but I really don't know how else to word it. It's not that this line-up was completely bad, there were some good and unique pieces of animation this year. However, it's very clear that we are officially finished that wave of "Pandemic Ideas", ideas that were bred out of artists of many varieties finally being able to take a breather and let their creativity flow and allow them to work on and polish up something truly unique. It would almost be amusing that we have learned nothing from the pandemic if the world wasn't completely on fire, both metaphorically and practically literally.

Really, all this list really goes to prove is that I'm a miserable curmudgeon who wants to go back to the days of watching Disney VHS tapes and racing around to get my pajamas on and my teeth brushed before the previews were over, and that was awful. Still, 2024 is not over until the worst of the worst have been named and shamed, so let's get to it. Here are the worst animated movies of 2024. 

6. Despicable Me 4

Oh... we're starting this list off strong when Despicable Me 4 is only the bottom of the list. Really, this movie should be higher considering it's from my least liked studio, Illumination. Still, I can't be surprised this movie wasn't good, I mean, did we really expect them to start making masterpieces after The Super Mario Bros. Movie? It's not like they were suddenly gonna start making things that would actually rival Disney or DreamWorks, though movies like this don't help with the feeling that The Super Mario Bros. Movie was not a total fluke.

The big problem was that, they had a lot of ideas and just didn't flesh any of them out. The movie is mainly a combination of three major ideas, Gru goes into witness protection, Gru assists a young villain-to-be in pulling off a heist, and the Minions become superpowered, and then a bunch of smaller ideas that spring off of those three plots. Really, I think if they just picked one plot here, the movie would have been a Hell of a lot better, and picking one or another would give them the chance to flesh out some of these ideas. I like the idea of one of the characters having to lie about their identity while not wanting to lie, that is a good dilemma, but that goes nowhere. I also like the idea of Gru having to decide about whether he wants to have his family and his good guy image or if he does miss the thrill of villainy, but that ultimately does not happen. I'll say it again, if the movie was just Gru and Poppy or Gru and Maxime, it would have been much better, but they had to go with Gru and Poppy and Gru and Maxime and also Super Powered Minions because... we need a new way to get merch sales out of these giant sentient tic-tac mutants.

It's only number six on this list because... let's be real, it's an Illumination movie, and Illumination is pretty much incapable to making anything that's really worth getting angry at.

5. The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim

Easily the most disappointing movie on this list, if the only thing I took into consideration for this list was wasted potential, this would be number one, because there is almost a good movie creeping through here. Hell, I'd even go so far as to say there is a great movie hidden within, something to prove that the Lord of the Rings extended universe can be just as good as the Peter Jackson Trilogy. Instead, we got definitive proof that maybe the Tolkien estate should have kept the film rights under lock and key.

It's not even that there is one glaring issue that makes this whole movie suck, it's a bunch of small things that chip away at my enjoyment of the movie bit by but until the massive marble block is little more than a pile of rubble with a Squidward nose stuck to it. My biggest issue was the camera, they tried so many 360 shots and pans and all kinds of camera movement that half the time I swear I was watching The Gondor Witch Project instead, and it doesn't help that the animation just doesn't look right. I am going to say it, I think this movie has worse visuals that Ralph Bakshi's movie, because I'm not convinced that A.I. wasn't involved in this movie whatsoever. Characters look separate from the backgrounds as though they're greenscreen, which should not be a problem because this is 2D Anime inspired animation, but even then the characters are often too anime, Héra often looking more like a character out of Final Fantasy than Middle Earth. On top of that, she just isn't a good character, she's hyped up to be this badass character, but her God damn horse gets a more badass moment than she does, she really does fit the whole "Strong Female Lead TM" nonsense.

On top of that, it was just so anti-climactic, the antagonist gets killed by being choked with a shield, like come on, like their could have been something more to it, which would have made it more tragic too. Just a disappointing movie, and the archived recordings of the late Sir Christopher Lee do not help, yeah, you totally just added them for marketing hype, you printed that archived recordings were used and gave him a total of eleven lines. I really hope that we don't get anything more like this in the future.

4. The Garfield Movie

I think the main reason I can't say that this is the most disappointing movie of the year is that, I did kind of anticipate a middling, mediocre at best, but still watchable movie. Maybe it was just because Chris Pratt was involved, I dunno.

Really, the strengths of this movie is that, on some level, the crew behind it really did have some understanding of  Garfield, like this wasn't just a quick cash-in like some other Garfield movies were, but at the same time, it doesn't get as heavy or rough as some of the earlier Garfield specials did, or even as some of the comics did. Garfield saying goodbye to his mother is ten times the heart-breaking moment that anything in this movie, and they really do try, but it just didn't come together. Maybe with a better script something may have been decent, but it is kind of difficult to really do a decent Garfield anything when Garfield hasn't been good for a long time. The dry wit and sarcasm of the original strips long since been replaced and so are nowhere to be found in this movie, which sucks because there are moments that do almost, if not entirely, feel like Garfield.

It really is clear to me that Mark Dindal's strengths as a director do not like in movies like this, they lie in the zanier movies like Cats Don't Dance or The Emperor's New Groove, but even then, maybe not. Maybe those movies were just flukes, and The Garfield Movie might just prove it.

3. The Casagrandes Movie

On some level, writing these year end lists is easier for me than other reviews because I can just paraphrase or truncate any First Impressions that I have done, or expand upon any Social Media post I made. That being said, when a movie as completely boring and uninspired as this one comes out, really what else can I do?

I don't want to lift my original First Impressions word for word, but there are only so many ways I can say something is boring and doesn't put any new spin on old, tired jokes and clichés. I was finished with this movie when the ancient God was speaking in modern teenage slang, but I kept soldering on, because maybe this movie would have been somewhat watchable. Instead, it was the most boring animated movie of the year, and at one point I might have put it at the top of this list.

2. Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie

Frankly, I still think y'all are too harsh on this movie. No, it is not good on any level, but it is still better than Sponge on the Run, I mean do you guys remember Sponge on the Run? No, of course you don't, you remember zombie pirates with Snoop Dogg and Dany Trejo, Keanu Reeves in a Tumbleweed, Plankton Booty and Mr. Enter doing another Angry SpongeBob Review. Let me tell you, Sponge on the Run is the worst, because it does not feel like a SpongeBob movie, with the soundtrack full of modern popular acts (seriously the days of Ween and Motorhead cameoing in SpongeBob are over), attempts to satirize common animated movie tropes and moral about inner beauty or whatever... you know what all that reminds me of? Shrek, Sponge on the Run is a Shrek movie with SpongeBob's skin, and worse, it's not even a good Shrek movie in SpongeBob's skin.

With all that in mind, comparing it to a movie that didn't even feel like SpongeBob, what does this movie have? A line about SpongeBob not being able to watch his streaming shows? Uncanny live-action mixing? A weird moment where Sandy Cheeks gets DeviantArt Inflation put upon her? Yeah, really the worst thing about this movie is that even with all of that, this still isn't as bad as Sponge on the Run, there were moments here that did feel like SpongeBob, which I guess is more the shame all things considered. Really, it just falls under the category of "That Kind of Animated Movie", but even then only barely, and really it's only at number 2 because frankly, it's a much more interesting entry than The Casagrandes Movie. Still, I do think there is something that you can get somewhat upset with here, like SpongeBob means a lot to a lot of people and seeing stuff like this doesn't help. In any other year, I probably would have conceded to popular opinion and put this at number one, just because it would have given me the most to talk about, you know without the stigma of a good movie trying to break out of it like with The Lord of the Rings movie.

But this shockingly, was not just any other year, this was 2024 and 2024 gave us one massive surprise that we frankly should have seen coming, yet none of us did.

1. Where the Robots Grow

What, you didn't see this movie? Of course you haven't, at most, you watched Saberspark's video about it and promptly forgot it existed, lucky you.

Really, on principle this has to make number one, because the use of A.I. in creative spaces has truly been the death of creativity. A.I. is little more than legalized plagiarism stuck inside the uncanny valley, and the fact that any movie can be made with A.I., that just has to make it the worst animated movie of the year by default, doesn't it? I don't blame people for not watching it, why would anyone bother to watch a movie that nobody could be bothered to make? At least with the Lord of the Rings movie, I can convince myself that it was all done by human animators, I can believe it was all humans who made it. Really though, this is just giving the creator, or should I say the prompter, what they want, attention. They probably did hope that this was the movie that would make everyone change their mind about A.I. in creative spaces, or maybe they just wanted to show it can be done and get all the attention off of it, well guess what; No.

Come to think of it, I haven't actually watched this movie myself, really. Can I qualify it for this list if I didn't watch it? No joke, I seriously did not watch this movie before writing all of this about it, it is literally number one because it was made using A.I. and really that isn't entirely fair, is it? Can I put this movie on here by principle? Yes, the answer is yes. Yeah it isn't fair, but it also isn't fair that A.I. is being used to replace genuine creative talent while also stealing from said creative talent so I think it's fair game for everyone to call this the worst animated movie of 2024, even if they haven't actually watched it. I don't swear on this blogs, but ---- this movie, just for existing.

Well... that was fun, 2024 was not a great year for animated movies, but I am hoping that 2025 will be better. Like I said, I couldn't watch every animated movie this year, so while Megamind 2 and Mufasa: The Lion King would have been total shoe-ins for this list, sometimes I am just going to have to miss a few things. That being said, the big trend I notice in this batch of garbage is that, at the core of every movie here, there isn't a bad movie, except maybe for the A.I. movie, but honestly most of the movies here weren't even that infuriating, like I genuinely can't think of any real reason why to be mad at the existence of most of these movies, which is entirely why Where the Robots Grow was an easy number one entry. Really, 2024 was the year of the disappointment, where some movies just were not as good as they could have been.

Anyway, to round out the list, here are a few dishonorable mentions:

1. Orion and the Dark - I just did not enjoy this messy film, but I can see why some might like it.
2. Thelma the Unicorn - A very predictable and very mediocre movie, but harmless enough.
3. The Imaginary - This movie just... rubbed me the wrong way, would have been on the list if I actually got around to finishing it. Maybe I'll give it a review in 2026 or something, but no promises.

Old and Forgotten YouTube: Why The Microwave Show Could Never Exist In Modern Times

Author's Note: Look, I can't predict the future, if I knew that Disney was gonna do something terrible, which frankly is as safe a bet as you can possibly make, then I would have decided to wait and write about that. The problem with weekly posts is, when you have something ready by the deadline, you can't really replace it, and when you have time to write about it, it's no longer at the height of relevancy. So, to begin this post, I'm gonna state, for the record, screw you Disney, and Trans Rights!

End Author's Note

When I was a kid, YouTube was an entirely different beast than it is now, it really was the type of place where anything was available, and most of us used it to watch pirated TV Shows and movies, but there was original content, and if you thought YouTube could get weird today, well where do you think it came from? On some level I guess I do miss "Weird YouTube", some would argue we still have it in places, but what do we really have today? Don't Hug Me, I'm Scared? That began in 2011, plus, the animations of David Firth are way weirder. The Amazing Digital Circus? That's not weird, that makes tons of sense compared to compared to stuff like There Is Nothing or Olivier de Sagazan, "Transfiguration" performance. You think any of the big name YouTube stars are doing weird things, explain to me what the Hell Shay Saint John was. I should probably clarify here, "Weird YouTube" wasn't just spooky and unnerving stuff, it mostly became that because weird and spooky go hand in hand, but "Weird YouTube" was an era of YouTube when literally any dumb idea could take off, case in point, I have a question to ask you; Is It a Good Idea to Microwave This?

"Is It a Good Idea to Microwave This?", hereafter referred to as The Microwave Show (yes I did use "hereafter" to be pretentious), was a show that originally aired on July 1, 2007 created by director Jonathan Paula and host Jory Caron. The basic concept of the show was that they stuck a bunch of random crap in a microwave and filmed what happened, if anything happened at all. Then they would decide whether or not it was a good idea to do so. I'm not sure if they ever took this idea seriously but after a while the term "Good idea" and "Bad Idea" were kind of just punchlines, like you never really were meant to take this show super seriously, maybe Season 1, but that's really it. The show lasted for 10 seasons, ending in July, 2011 and it aired a few bonus episodes until August 2015. The many countless microwaves, weird experiments and the hosts Jory, Jon and the sidekick Riley Mcllwain are forever etched in the history of YouTube.

The Microwave Show was my eye opening experience to the wonders and possibilities of YouTube, the reason I got a YouTube channel was to watch an episode that was "Flagged" and so you had to be over a certain age to watch it, shockingly it wasn't the episode where they microwaved a condom. You can imagine that this show has some sentimental value to me, and you would probably expect me to say that this show needs to come back, and while I would love to see a return of The Microwave Show, I also have to concede to the point that maybe it's a good idea to not bring the show back.

Of course the first thing people will say is "You're just saying that because the edgy humour hasn't aged well" and, I mean some of it hasn't sure, but that's not the reason. Jon, Jory and Riley weren't working off of any scripts, so everything they said was improvised and off-the-cuff, so if they came back to do another season, I do think we'd get some different kinds of jokes out of them. Of course, the chances of them coming back to do another season are slim considering Jon and Riley both have families and they might not want to do something like this anymore.

The next thing you might say is "Oh you're saying it shouldn't come back because kids will imitate it even though YouTube is not solely meant for kids", and I will admit, that is a part of the reason. That being said, the guys were aware of how bad some of the stuff they did was, putting "Don't Try This At Home" warnings on some of their more dangerous experiments before making it a common feature in Season 7. I also remember there was an imitation on YouTube that was being uploaded around the same time, "What Happens When You Microwave This?" which was more or less the same idea, but without the Good Idea/Bad Idea thing. I would also be remiss if I did not mention this, but there was another alleged imitator who was uploading his own microwave videos onto YouTube, and during one experiment, started a fire that killed his mother. Jon himself talked about this situation on his secondary channel.

So yes, this has happened before, but it does highlight exactly the real reason I think this show should not come back. To put it bluntly, YouTube has changed.

I'm not saying that YouTube has changed in that, this kind of content is no longer allowed on the platform, I mean, The Slow Mo Guys have done several videos with explosives, firearms and sharp blades, so YouTube would still allow this kind of stuff on their site. No, YouTube has changed in the sense that it no longer has become about having that unique and weird idea that gets all the attention, but it's become a giant, globally scaled rat race, a rat race where following trends and making content farms has become more profitable than having unique ideas.

To be absolutely fair, this is not new to YouTube, the previously mentioned imitation shows still existed, particularly "What Happens When You Microwave This?" with one of their most notable episode being when they microwaved ten of the worst video games ever made. I think this show is mostly lost media now. However, there is difference here, these guys weren't making it a content farm or making any indication that what they were doing was a good idea. Really, the rise of the content farm has made YouTube a far more dangerous place for kids than Television or Video Games, because these content farms with their bright cheery music, colourful visuals and usage of smiling emojis will make things that are irrefutably dangerous and make them seem, like doable and fun ideas.

I really have to wonder how everyone feels about the legacy of The Microwave Show, because it genuinely was one of the shows that shaped original YouTube, it defined a bygone era of YouTube that we may never see again, but at the same time, the YouTube landscape has changed to the point where a show like this is a massive risk. While they might put "Don't Try This at Home" warnings on everything and mark their content as "Not For Kids", the content farms that steal from them might not, and they might get someone killed, someone else killed.

If you want a good channel talking about the dangers of content farms like 5-Minute Crafts, Australian YouTuber and Food Scientist Ann Reardon of How to Cook That does a lot of videos debunking bad and dangerous baking hacks from content farms, and I highly recommend these videos.

The Christmas Tree (1991) - The Worst Animated Holiday Special Ever

You know what I haven't done in a while? A "Technically" movie. I love doing these, because if I'm ever feeling burn-out or something, I can always rely on my old standard of "This technically counts". So, the AFI and BFI, those are the American and British Film Institutes, state that a film must be a minimum of forty minutes long to qualify as "Feature Length", so I have a stipulation that any movie that runs over forty minutes but is still under an hour falls under the category of "Technically", and boy was I excited to learn that this counted as a "Technically". I think most people who are in the animation or film review circles on the internet are aware of The Christmas Tree, one of the many animated products of the 1990s that somehow feels like a product of a much earlier time in animation. This movie has a reputation, and sometimes I love watching movies like that, because sometimes, you have to see a movie to really know how bad it actually is. Plan 9 From Outer Space? Not that bad. The Room? Pretty bad. Cat in the Hat? One of the best "So Bad It's Good" movies. Now, I get to scratch another one off my list, because at forty-two minutes, The Christmas Tree does qualify as "Feature Length".

This is one of those movies that I almost guarantee that most reviewers writing about it only sit through about the first ten minutes, because that is more time than you need to figure out every single issue with this movie, honestly the tricky part is where do I start because the problems become apparent with the title and opening credits. I don't normally comment on opening credits, because if you're watching a movie for the opening credits than you're watching it for the wrong reasons. However, I have to comment on this one because, like think of other Christmas specials and their opening credits, they have things like falling snow, winter landscapes, twinkling lights, maybe some cold blues or bright reds and greens. This movie just has a black background, and the music doesn't even have any kind of festive spirit to it, frankly I think that's just a bad omen, if your Christmas special doesn't even have the least bit of Christmas in its opening credits, than how's the rest of the movie going to fare?

Here's a criticism that I don't think anyone has brought up, this special feels like a Philips CD-i game, and I don't just means it looks like one, I mean genuinely it feels like a cheap, early 90s shovel-ware CD-ROM game, the editing, the voice acting, the audio editing, here's a tip for anyone who wants to get into audio editing, always have some kind of a gap between two pieces of recorded dialogue. Does that sound like something that everyone should know even if they're just an amateur screwing around in Audacity? Well, in many cases, you can hear instances where whoever was editing the audio just smashed two takes together without any kind of natural pause. And yeah, let's talk about that animation, because it really does look as cheap as it possibly could. Movement is limited and stilted, facial expressions are weird and uncanny, and lip syncing never matches the vocal track, not that that last point really matters since the voice acting is so awful, the kids are mumbling most of their words and the adults are putting zero enthusiasm into this.

I think the most frustrating thing about this is that the designs are not completely awful. All the kids look distinct from each other, Judy is a fine woman for the most part, and honestly, the backgrounds do look nice, they are the only thing I can look at and make the connection that this movie was made outside of the seventies. It does not convince me that this special wasn't originally meant to be an interactive storybook on CD-ROM though, because the story is undoubtedly the worst part of it all to me. Not the story itself, it's a pretty decent little short story that would make for a classic holiday special, but how the story is told. We get to the Christmas season at eleven minutes into the special and everything before that is just brought up and glossed over, like they want to establish these important plot details, but not actually spend any time to introduce them naturally. It really is just the cherry on top of this crap sundae, and I hate cherries.

I mean, what other rating can I give it except for "Avoid"? It is easily one of the worst animations I have ever seen, like what else is there? Friendship is Witchcraft? 12 oz. Mouse? That SpongeBob Episode where he adopts another pet that terrorizes Gary? Okay that last one may be worse, but this is still up there. It's just so incompetent, the editing, voice acting, animation, there is no quality to this product what-so-ever. One of my favourite critics, Todd in the Shadows, says "The worst is not always the most bad, sometimes it's the least good" and I can't think of anything that is "less good" than this. I almost want it to do something offensive, just to do something that will piss me off, but no, it's just really poorly made. I've seen some really poorly made movies, but I think this is the worst of them, The Misty Green Sky at least had something behind it, I could sense some kind of ambition to it. This has nothing, except the reputation, and I just can't recommend it on any level. This movie gets an avoid.

How to Train Your Dragon (2010) - An Unfortunate Victim of "Seinfeld is Unfunny"

So, you've probably heard something interesting about this movie. Actually, no, that's a bit misleading, it's not something about this movie specifically that is interesting, it's more something about a different movie that is also the same movie. How to Train Your Dragon is getting the "Live-Action Remake" treatment because... I have no clue why. Seriously, not only is this movie franchise not even twenty years old, but the last movie only came out roughly five years ago, then again Disney is giving Moana the same treatment even though similar can be said about that, really the whole Live-Action Remake trend is just absurd. However, let's pretend there are people who are interested in seeing the upcoming remake, and they want to know if the original is worth watching. So, let's strike while the iron is at a reasonably warm temperature, and let's look at How to Train Your Dragon.

The plot follows Hiccup, the young and not so incredible son of the Viking Stoick, chieftain of the village of Berk, which is frequently attacked by dragons. Hiccup is put to training in order to kill dragons, which is difficult because Hiccup is actually studying dragons, one particular dragon, a Night Fury named Toothless. I heard so much about this movie, I heard critics say it had such a different plot, that is avoided clichés, that is is such a heartbreaking tale, and all I have to say is, I'm sure it was in 2010. Look, the trope "Seinfeld is Unfunny" is about art and media that is hugely innovative and important to their genre, Seinfeld is a sitcom that most modern sitcoms take several cues and gags from, so someone who has grown up on sitcoms made after Seinfeld would go back to it and wonder why it was so innovative and popular. I feel like that is what is going on here for me, How to Train Your Dragon was unique and different for its time, but going back to it after movies like Encanto, Turning Red, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, I see a lot of the influence of this movie in those. I shouldn't be to harsh on this movie for that, but the problem really is that for the first half or so of this movie, it is really standard. I think the reason it is so loved for not going in certain directions is because it made you believe that it was going to go in these directions, and so the first half is fairly standard. The problem is that, again, it's the "Seinfeld is Unfunny" trope, I imagine a lot of the people who worked on Puss in Boots: The Last Wish were decently influenced by this movie.

But okay, plot is not the saving grace of a movie, I mean I thought Klaus was horribly predictable but I still enjoyed it in the end, so let's talk about the characters. To be fair, the Klaus comparison is not ill-fitting, both movies have very visible character arcs where we can see how the characters move from point A to point B, Stoick gets praise for his character arc. I think my issue is that, these aren't very unique characters to begin with, Hiccup is your dorky protagonist, Astrid is your bad-ass female co-lead, Stoick is your gruff authority figure, like these aren't bad places to start for characters, there is a reason they are tropes, but they do kind of pigeonhole you into one or two arcs. It isn't that these characters are bad, and honestly it isn't even that they're generic that gets to me, it's the fact that the arcs are fairly predictable, like of course Hiccup is gonna end up taking charge of a team, and Stoick is gonna learn the error of his ways. Stoick and Hiccups relationship arc is wonderful, but compared to the later Encanto, it just kind of falls flat.

To be fair though, the animation is pretty solid, it's pretty standard DreamWorks animation, but I will say I absolutely love the fog, it really does make much of the environments look cold and almost lifeless, but for the most part it is pretty standard. To be absolutely fair though, there is one bit I absolutely loved in the movie, it's towards the end after the climax, and Hiccup is in bed and he sees that he lost a leg in the fight. His face and body language is perfect and then cutting to the shot of the floor, revealing his prosthetic was just a brilliant piece of storytelling, again, it is kind of standard, but when it is done well, it is done really well.

I'm actually kind of sad that I don't have better to say about this movie, it really isn't a bad movie, it's like Toy Story, on it's own it is a good movie, and a highly important one as well. I really can see how this movie influenced a lot of the animation landscape of the 2020s, especially in cinema. I really don't have much to say though, it's just an unfortunate victim of the "Seinfeld is Unfunny" trope. The plot is stuff I've seen, the characters are ones I've seen, and frankly I just think they've been done better. So uh... I guess that does mean I have no reason to want to see the live-action remake. Okay, you what, I'll extend an olive branch here, because I don't think I'll come back to this movie, but I can't say I don't recommend it on any level, again this movie is good at its core and it is influential in its own way, this movie became the start of one of DreamWorks' most notable franchises for a reason, so I do think it is worth seeing at least once, and hey, with the remake coming out, maybe more people will see it. At the very least, we can all agree, live-action remakes are unnecessary and bad!