Editorial: Top 6 Worst Animated Movies of 2022

I have made it no secret that I believe 2022 has been the most mediocre year for animated features in recent memory. Not that there weren't any good movies or bad movies, but the majority of the movies released this year felt same-y and interchangeable, like the only major difference between one movie and another was that this movie had Sam Rockwell while this movie had Jake Gyllenhaal, this movie had Minions, this one had a robotic cat, this movie had Jordan Peele produce it, this one had John Lasseter. To be fair, that is a major over-simplification, but it really felt like 2022 was full of these okay at best, mediocre at worst kind of movies.

That being said, 2022 managed to surprise me with how agonizing these movies could get. Bland, boring and benign were only the starting point to what was wrong with some of these movies, so I'm gonna count down what I consider the 6 worst animated movies of 2022. Keep in mind, I've pretty much done a first impressions blog on most of the animated releases this year, so don't think there are going to be any surprise entries. Also keep in mind, this is just my opinion, if you disagree, which with one entry I'm positive most of you will, that's fine. Just keep things civil.

With that said, let's get into the list proper shall we?

6. Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank

Despite giving this movie an "Avoid" rating, I could not in good faith put this movie in my top five officially, but I still wanted to bring it up. This movie spent eight years in development Hell, had a nightmare production, and was kept on life support, and the end result was a half-baked and mediocre parody of a parody. I knew from the get go this movie was going to suck, but the fact that it ended up being this bland and boring, it just added insult to injury. This movie has nothing to make it stand out even amongst the worst, it's just a bland movie for kids, it did not make me mad, more just... sad. It made me sad because people spent hours of their life on a movie that was kept on life support, when someone should have realized that this movie was a dud at some point in development. There are some movies I'd rather not have than have in a sorry state, and this was one of them.

5. Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers

I know, I might be too harsh on this movie, it might not be as bad as I thought. Hell, I'll even extend an olive branch and say that I probably went into this movie with the wrong expectations, but I swear I gave this movie a fair chance, and while it was much better than I anticipated, I still disliked it. I can look past the expectations of this movie being 2022's Roger Rabbit (It isn't), I can look past the wasted potential for the cameos that did appear, Hell, I can even look past the controversy of making Peter Pan the villain and having his backstory mirror that of Bobby Driscoll's, but what I can't look past is just how unfunny I found this movie. There were so many jokes that I feel were done better elsewhere, jokes that I feel were wasted potential, jokes I feel were too spelled out, and jokes that I just felt weren't funny. I can extend the olive branch to people who enjoyed this movie, but I'm still on the boat that says this movie is going to be one of those that gets worse every time you watch it. Time will tell, but I have a feeling time will not be as kind to this movie as it is to Roger Rabbit.

4. Ella and the Little Sorcerer

So, here's a funny story, when I initially wrote my first impressions blog on this movie, Letterboxd had this movie listed as a 2021 release. Literally not too long after I posted that blog, Letterboxd suddenly changed it to a 2022 release. I swear Letterboxd had it listed as a 2021 release, was that a flub on their part, is the 2022 release date a flub? Who cares? No seriously, who cares? Does any one care about this movie? it got a theatrical release in my city, and I'm still not convinced it was anything more than a joke, a sick joke that costed me fifteen dollars. This is direct-to-video quality, direct-to-video quality animation and direct-to-video quality writing, I've watched some of the lowest budget trite, movies by the name of Trolled, Bible Bees, Penguin League, and this pretty much fit right in with all of them, sure it looks a smidge better, but the actual animation is still terrible and most of the character models just feel like recyclable assets to use in another schlock direct-to-video movie, I swear that cloud thing was just a fluffy Globglogabgolab model, and the writing was just mediocre at best. I swear, this movie only got theatrically released because my theatre wanted to know if there was a market for non-Disney animated features, or again, as a joke at my expense, and it probably would have only been my expense because I can't imagine anyone else saw it.

3. Pinocchio: A True Story

I mean, do I even need to say anything here? There is a reason most other reviewers tend not to review these kinds of movies. When you get past the the borderline so bad it's hilarious voice acting, all you're left with is a mediocre and boring retelling of Pinocchio. I mean, what can I even say about this movie? It's a direct-to-video animated release from Russia, it's dubbing sounds like it was done in a single go, the story is sloppy, and the animation, I mean... it's a direct-to-video animated movie for kids, what more needs to be said?

2. Luck

You want to know what I think the biggest hot take in animation was for 2022? It was when Mr. Enter, yes, Mr. "Turning Red needed to address 9/11" Enter, made a video where he said that Luck was not actually that bad. Of course, he is allowed to have his opinions, but it just amuses me that Luck of all movies, this absolute nothing of a movie, is the one where he says it is over-hated. As for me, I've made my thoughts on Luck very clear, I hated it. It was an agonizing sit through, watching this woman stumble through her bad luck, and all the time I was thinking "You know some of this would be funny if she actually deserved it", I don't like watching decent people get dumped on, and yes I know the point of the movie is that she overcomes it, hooray, that does not make anything entertaining. Also, how absolutely boring could you have made a magical world? Onward had a more interesting magical world, and that was literally just our world with elves, this movie went for a very corporate aesthetic, which just sucks out any interest this world would have, and I can not stand how all everyone will acknowledge with this movie is the involvement of John Lasseter. Seriously, he was just a producer, not even the only one, yet the movie banked on his involvement, the studio banked on his involvement, and most audience members seem to only care about his involvement. There is a lot more dislike about this movie than the involvement of a problematic figure, let's not forget that.

1. The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wilde

Yeah, I went rather hard on Disney for this one. I spent literally all of my blog ranting to Disney, a company whose employees have much better things to be doing than listening to some nobody on the internet tell them what to do, and only spent the last paragraph talking about this movie, and even then only minimally. Really, did I have to say anything? You all knew this movie was a bad idea, you know this movie was going to be awful, we all knew that this movie was going to be one of the worst things of the year, and watching it only confirmed what we already knew. This movie is just the remains of a scrapped series sewn together to make something, you know, it's fitting that Bob Chapek got fired from Disney considering that under his leadership, Disney was doing the exact same thing that Michael Eisner was doing. It has the look and feel of a movie that is just episodes of a series sewn together human centipede style just to throw it out there and wash your hands of it. Ice Age has been a franchise that just continuously got worse and worse and worse with each passing movie, and at the end of the day, the franchise goes out, not with a whimper, but with the tiniest and most pathetic cough in the world. Well, there was that Scrat series that really sent this franchise off, but that does not excuse this dreadfulness of a movie.

Well, that was that. However, 2022 did have some good movies, so that will be next week.

Honourable Mentions? Umm...

DC league of Super Pets - Bland, Boring and Benign, but some respect for taking itself somewhat seriously

Riverdance: The Animated Adventure - A harmless, if not very entertaining movie

Marmaduke - Absolutely unwatchable, not on the list because, who cares?

Strange World - The definition of Paint-By-Numbers, but not a bad movie so... eh.

Minions: The Rise of Gru - I think I'm just putting this on here because I hate the Minions.