I decided to sit down today and comprise a list of my top 10 animated movies when I realized to myself, there are so many animated films that I like but not so many that I love. So here are my top 5 favourite animated films, subject to change but have been in my playlist for the last three years.
5. Wallace and Gromit,
Curse of the Were Rabbit.
It may not be my favourite animated film anymore but back in 2006 I couldn’t get enough of it. The story didn’t have any morals, nothing that would normally draw me in to something but the two key factors were Wallace and Gromit’s friendship and the subtle warm humour.
I swear there wasn’t a bad bone in the film, as even though it was obviously G, it still managed to have me swept up in its humour once upon a time and even though it may be more than a year now since I last saw it, it still remains a memorable film that got me to look into the shorts that came before it.
4. Kiki’s Delivery Service,
Some people may say this isn’t Hayoe Miyazaki’s best film and they’d be right, some may even call this movie one of his most boring (I know I have.) but one thing that always makes me think of this film is how unconventional it is, even for something main stream. It doesn’t have any driving plot until the last twenty minutes but it’s just watching the film unfold and the realisation that it’s a girl trying to live away from her parents and that’s it, really gets to me.
The animation for an 80s film is brilliant, some of the best. The character of Kiki really is just a normal girl trying to help people, when she forgets that she has to help herself. The story is so simple yet when it finally has that moment when Kiki looses her magic, and she talks about how she took it for granted, makes this movie for a tiny second more mature than the average kid film, and the climax, even though it is odd how they choose to show it, is something which not many films make me actually pay close attention to. I wouldn’t give this movie more than 8/10 but just for the last thirty minutes of it, that’s what I always remember and that’s why it made the cut.
3 The Iron Giant.
I don’t know what it is with me and picking less than memorable films, but this movie does still have some dedicated fans, and I would be a new one. When I first saw this movie on a plane when I was 6, I found it so boring. I turned it off straight away and watched Nicktoons instead. But as I hit 17 my interest for animation was suddenly reunited and I was all of a sudden digging up films from the past, examining them and falling in love. And this here, was exactly how I tried this film out again. For one of Warner Brother’s only successful animated films, this one definitely deserves the title and I’ll tell you why. It’s one simple line of dialog which has never been spoken in animated film I’ve seen since
“It’s wrong to kill, but it’s not wrong to die.”
How deep was that? How deep?! For a kids film (and I really do mean kids film- this was the nineties) that was incredibly mature. Where people always blame others for dying we must remember that death is a natural part of life. I don’t think I ever heard a film give that message, whether animated or not and that is a very important one which made me look twice at this film only recently. Number 3, definitely.
2. Coraline
We all have our guilty pleasures, and even though Coraline is a great animated film on it’s own the only reason why it’s so high up on the list is because of its animation. I know this was helmed by the director of Nightmare before Christmas but the reason why I love this film so much was for the stepping stone it gave for Stop motion. It really advanced the industry, made stop motion finally raise its stakes yet for some reason I don’t seem to hear many other people noticing this.
The movie itself in other aspects is incredibly stylised, the character are not what you’d necessary call mainstream and it is a lot more darker than any other kid’s film released in the last ten years but you know what, I completely ignored all those facts because I could buy the animation, I could buy the facial expressions and I could buy the story. Now to be honest, when I first saw this movie I didn’t like it, and I think the reason why was because I expected it to be something mainstream. But mainstream isn’t always right, and this even though still keeping things PG, has an atmosphere that I still can’t put my finger too even after 3 years. This movie showed what Stop motion could be, Screw Tim Burton and his limited “Corpse Bride”, this film pushed the boundaries and now that I see the studio Laika (the creators) newest film Paranorman coming out I can tell that they pushed stop motion further still, I just wished Arrdman and Tim Burton would realise that this is a golden opportunity to go further than before; but seeing their upcoming films, it seems style is more important to them than improving the animation, shame.
1. Treasure Planet,
Dum, dum, dum! Yes, have you heard about this film? One of Disney’s big flops of the early 2000s and basically destroyed any thoughts of hand drawn animation in the future. This movie pushed the boundary in trying to make CGI and hand drawn work as one and you know what, it did it. I don’t understand why this movie was a flop or why no body remembers it but I am guilty of that fact too. I only stumbled upon it in a library early 2011, decided… well this looks lame but I can rent it for free and you know what… I liked it. I watched it a second time and you know what, I really liked it.
This movie is mainstream down to the very last detail but that doesn’t bother me and you know why? Because it had no romance. For once a Disney film had no romance. You wouldn’t even miss that fact. This movie was targeted at boys but I fell head over heals for it myself and you know why.
For once Disney gave us a real character. Jim could’ve literally been a teenager grabbed off the street and put in this film. He was moody, back answered, lethargic and not bothered to talk to anyone about his real feelings. His father also abandoned him which is very common but hardly ever presented in a Disney film (the other parent is usually killed off). This story, even though it was about pirate aliens in space was the most realistic in how it dealt with Jim. And also how they presented the antagonist/protagonist John Silver.
He isn’t your typically Disney villain, he actually has a heart, and heck, even though Silver is as Ugly as Fuck, I still fell in love with the guy. He was a charmer. And Jim and him make such an unlikely bond that I had to give this movie props. The friendship was real; it developed slowly and won over everything in the end. It also showed Disney that a film can still be good without an evil bad guy, even if it doesn’t draw in the money. I’d take Silver over Scar or Jafar any day. This movie, even though I may only watch it every once in a while (and that for me is every two months) still brightens my day and proves that you shouldn’t throw away your future just because you don’t think your worth anything, but fight for a better tomorrow for yourself and your family.
AND THAT is my top 5 animated movies. As you can probably tell I prefer character development stories more over typical romance stories and also that I like a whole range of animated films. I still love most Disney and Dreamwork productions, heck some of them could possibly be in my top ten, but these are the five films I remember most.
Honorary mentions: Basically any animated film ever made.
Ta ta!
