Maybe I was a bit hard on 2022's line-up of Animated Movies. To be honest, going through this year, what feels like an absolute dry spell for animated cinema, it has me looking back at the previous year, kind of with rose-tinted glasses. I'm looking back at movies like The Bad Guys and even Lightyear, and just thinking about the stuff I liked, kind of wishing that something new will come in 2023. We've had a fair selection of movies, to be fair, but it really seemed like 2022 was just this big explosion of animated experiments in cinema, stuff that we haven't seen before, and will probably never see again. It kind of makes sense, considering the major events happening in 2020 and 2021, but it does seem like 2022 had a particularly bad swing, but still ran a home run, if that metaphor makes any sense. It should have been evident what kind of year 2022 was going to be, when the first selection of animated films were released, The House, Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wilde, Turning Red and Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood.
Apollo 10½, at it's core, is a look back at life in the 1960s, and what it was like for a kid to grow up there, specifically in the Houston area in the late sixties, during the turmoil of the war, political unrest and the conflict with the Soviets. This movie follows two major perspectives at this time, a child's perspective of being surrounded by the excitement of the space race, and being in the middle of such a culturally significant time, and a fantastical, pseudo-alternate history story of a young boy being enlisted in a space program to head to the moon in a rocket that was accidentally made to small for the Apollo 11 mission. The mix of reality and fiction lends itself to a very fascinating movie, with the nostalgia of the sixties being front and centre. Now, I am not a sixties kid, I stated in my last post I just turned 25, so I'm really more a 2000s kid. However, I myself am feeling a bit nostalgic for the 2000s era. I'm remembering it a lot as the era of massive movies, engaging television, and video games galore. I imagine if I did some nostalgic look back at the 2000s, it would probably be akin to how this movie does it.
And I mean that in more than one way, because this movie does not romanticize or sugar coat the sixties that much. It was a tumultuous era, it was full of issues and practices that would not fly today, dangerous games, no massive concern over safety, they do not hide the fact that this era had its ups and downs. It's not like when Disney looks back at what he was nostalgic about, it is very upfront about the kind of things that went on in the late sixties, and all from a child's perspective. It can feel a bit like hand-waving or giving lip service to these awful things, but honestly the movie itself puts it best, when you're a kid, the bad stuff usually seems to be confined to the television. It isn't really a celebration, nor is it condemnation, it is just the era, and I love that.
The acting is top notch, Milo Coy, the actor for the main character, did an excellent job, and of course, Jack Black was always great as the narrator and older version of the lead. There is also a good mix of familiar names, and lesser known names, which is always nice. That being said, some of the sound mixing was a bit wrong. There were times the narration was drowned out by a loud sound that probably should have been in the back, like I get they wanted to emphasize how loud the sound was, but I feel like there was some way you could do that without getting in the way of the narration.
Where the movie shines the most though is the animation. Richard Linklater has done animated films before in the past. He usually makes experimental, rotoscoped animation. Rotoscoping is a form of animation where you draw over what is already filmed, like animating a filmed person or animal and making them something else. Ralph Bakshi did this for the 1970s Lord of the Rings movie I previously reviewed, but if you want good rotoscoping, that is of high quality throughout the entire movie, this is a good movie to check out. They don't just do the lazy thing and only animated the characters, when everyone is watching a movie they also go over that with a bit of rotoscoping, so it looks like part of the universe and not completely out of place. Linklater also did Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly, both movies I want to check out some day, if this movie is any indication, I think those films will be worth checking out.
Apollo 10½, is a truly remarkable movie. I think this should have been the point where we knew that 2022 was going to be an interesting year for animated movies, maybe not a good year, but an interesting one regardless. It's kind of a shame I didn't get around to doing a First Impressions on it. I ranked this movie as Number 3 on my list of the best animated movies of 2022, which, honestly may have been a bit generous, I would definitely say that The Sea Beast is a better movie, and since I have to put Puss in Boots: The Last Wish on that list now, I'd probably rank this at Number 5 currently. Still, it is a really good movie, with wonderful visuals, a nostalgic feel and some excellent acting. It really is something special, and I give it a solid recommendation. I don't think it will be a lot of people's favourite movie, but it is one that will stick in your mind.
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