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My pick: The animated short of the year surely must be Domee Shi’s “Bao,” a bittersweet reverie on motherhood that features one of the most hilariously shocking moments onscreen this year.
The gorgeous and once glorious fantasy series comes to a flat conclusion, one in which the stakes feel way lower than they should and the spark that once animated and elevated the story is missing.
Our expectations are a lot higher now after the unexpectedly wildly inventive first movie… and this sequel delivers, digging with witty subversion into Hollywood’s glorification of its male heroes.
Has a verve rare in big-budget movies at the moment. Fun and fresh and legitimately engages with its source material on the levels of story, visuals, and mythology all at once. It feels like discovering storytelling anew.
This tenderly animated Japanese film about sibling rivalry is lovely with its fantasy, but too convoluted for children and too slight for adults.
Candy-colored slapstick and kindergarten-level humor make this perfectly suitable for small children, and perfectly bland and inoffensive to the adults accompanying them. Somehow, I don’t think Dr. Seuss would entirely approve.
The superhero movie we need, and also the one we karmically deserve. A riot of hilariously zippy animation that gleefully shreds the clichés of the genre while also lovingly embracing its self-referential geek experience.
Epic yet intimate, this is a visually gorgeous and emotionally lush fantasy drama about love and hope set in a violent but beautifully realized invented world.
Beautiful and startling, bursting with both brutality and hope, this animated adventure is too intense for young children, but the brains and bravery of its young heroine will inspire older kids and adults alike.
A flimsy treasure-hunt plot, a sexy song-and-dance number, and more of the same Elton John songs deployed with trite, lazy tedium. They mean to keep cranking out these dumb, dull movies, don’t they?
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