Animate This! My Favorite 3-D Animated Movies

2604   7.2   8.1 

One of the best voice castings for the lead roles I've seen (or is it heard?) & it has a great story, full of charm, wit & family chemistry. I always thought that Hollywood never seem to be able to put out 100% in any feature dealing with superheroes, but they really did with this one. The effects are incredibly cool, the over-all visuals are stunning & the characters are all drawn with an equally high level of quality & dynamicism (.... is that really a word?). Added with the "Jack Jack Attack" story on the DVD, & I know that it will probably be a long time before the family "I's" get dethroned from #1 on my list.

The Mighty Celestial's rating:

1104   8.3   8.6 

While not so surprising in that I (we?) expected the details in the graphics of this film to be as detailed & realistic as they were, it's still quite stunning to behold.

WALL-E is a futuristic story that involves themes of loneliness, environmentalism, technological over-dependence & the effects of idleness on the soul of humanity when it is stripped away from the natural strife of life.
And even though these are all themes that are ones we've seen many times before, it's still quite surprising how often & consistantly filmmakers are able to intergrate the amazing graphics into the quality of the storytelling in a manner that seems fresh & keeps the messages from feeling too cliche. At the rate that these types of highly sophisticated computer animated flicks are being released, it's remarkble that the ratio has been so much more good than bad.

The Mighty Celestial's rating:

1734   7.8   8 

Is it a Halloween movie with a Christmas twist, or a Christmas movie with a Halloweenic slant? Or is it both?
For me, I look at it like discovering that your trick-or-treat bag has been filled with presents instead of candy.
And no rocks. Well, maybe one coal.
IMO, the best thing by far to have Tim Burton's name on it. Such a great cast of creative & endearingly maniacal characters. Innocent enough for kids who can still see the world thru bushy-tailed bright-eyed glasses, yet twistedly dark enough to keep the interests of those of us adults who've had that part of our spirits crushed a long time ago.
An inter-holiday movie for all ages on either side of the perspective spectrum.

The Mighty Celestial's rating:

393   6.5   6.8 

Tho the animation in Monster House doesn't have the chance to get as creative as comp.-animated movies that focus on non-human subjects, they do very well with what they have. The facial expressions are choice quality & the movements during the action sequences are both smooth & dynamic. For what it is, the story is well done, the characters are engaging & the action scenes are very high in the area of thrill.
Even tho the animation in this film doesn't have the chance to get as creative as other comp.-animated movies of this generation & that focus on non-human subjects, this movie does very well with what it has. The facial expressions are choice quality & the movements during the action sequences are both smooth & dynamic. While there have been many animated films that have come along that look "better", this one for me, is one of the rare ones that have the whole package. The story is does not insult the intelligence despite being based on a child-based fantasy genre,
the characters are distinguishly engaging,
& the action scenes are very high in the area of thrill.
Monster House flows with the same roller-coaster ride that was felt with some of those high quality Spielberg-ish action flicks of the 80's.

The Mighty Celestial's rating:

38   7.6   7.2 

So far, the most updated amazing computer animation in any animated feature.
Simply put, the computer-generated visuals in this film truly have to be seen in order to be believed.
However, even though the story is solid, as the sci-fi epic that Appleseed's visuals aspire to be, it does lack some originality in it's plotline. It is for this reason, combined with the indistinguisnness of the faces (as is usually common for most 3-D anime) that prevented this film from being ranked higher on this list, despite the fact that the graphics are, so far, some of the most favorite that my eyes have ever laid upon.
That said, there wasn't a frame in this movie where I just wasn't completely stunned with awe. The technical details & intricate designs in Ex Machina are some of the most striking ever to be generated on film.
Iron-Man's armor looks like it was created by Fisher-Price compared to the "hardwear" that these guys are sporting.
A true marvel to behold.

The Mighty Celestial's rating:

1061   7.7   8.2 

The idea of combining the points of views of both rodent & restauranteer made this a great vehicle for using sharper & more creative angles in the storytelling that could only come closer to perfection through the use of this medium. For my money, it's where the heart & beauty of this film is.

The Mighty Celestial's rating:

311   7.5   8.6 

Stop-motion with a British flavor, that doesn't try to whack you over the head with it's look, humor or more importantly, with any kind of "universal life-lesson".
With it's distinction from other films is much more subtle and evenly consistent, the overall result of The Wrong Trousers left me not so much with a roaring laughter that other animated features try to shoot for, but more with a satisfying smile that was firmly set in place from beginning to end.

The Mighty Celestial's rating:

704   7.1   7.7 

It seems like these days, every season, an animated movie comes out displaying the next level of computer-generated visuals. At the time of this posting, it's this movie & Wall-E. While on one end, this film comes with all the standard plot devices that usually accompany the story of these animated features, Kung Fu Panda has enough of it's own style to stand away on it's own. I don't think that the story was told as successfully as many of it's predecessors, but the next level of the "anthropormorphic" facial expressions & the characteristics of the movements achieved in this film seem to make up for it.

The Mighty Celestial's rating:

2432   7.2   8.1 

The first computer movie that showed how sophisticated graphics can be intergrated into a really top quality & solid story.
One whose visuals matched it's plot in emphasizing the warmth & color that was starting to become more & more "faded" in the tired 2-D animated family films that movie producers had seemed to be tiredly cranking out at the time.

The Mighty Celestial's rating:

3095   7.6   8.2 

As good as the story was in this Finding Nemo (and a it was a story I did like) the world of the undersea looked just so beautiful in this flick, that it felt like this Nemo's story could've used more of an extra punch, just to meet the same high level of quality in the graphics.
And if it's seems like I'm being picky with this film, it's only because I think that while it's a solid feel-good family-fare that was very good, it's one that had the potential to have been great.

The Mighty Celestial's rating:

470   8.3   8.5 

A cranky old man & an annoying little kid team up with a talking dog & a flightless giant mother bird named "Kevin",
to embark on an semi-Indiana Jones type of adventure.
Colorful, but not overwhelming (like Cars or Speed Racer),
touching, but not over-sentimental,
exciting, but not at the cost of the story.
Another score for the people over at Pixar.

The Mighty Celestial's rating:

456   7.9   7.9 

As a comicbook nerd, I first became aware of Coraline as a graphic novel written by comicbook writer Neil Gaiman (though, it's original format of release is as a novella).
It's horror fantasy for young readers and as a film, it's a fine modern update of the Alice In Wonderland theme, with it's mixed ingredients of creative psychodelica, slightly edged childlike wonder, along with a nice dash of horror, but just enough to gurgitate a lump of fear in the throat of the kiddie audience within its targeted age. But not so much that it would scare any of it's viewers to the point of absolving their parents of any responsibility for any trauma that might lead 'em up to the top of a building with a sniper gun, later on in life.
Hopefully.

The Mighty Celestial's rating:

233   6.5   6.8 

A tribute to all those 50's black & white sci-fi horrors flicks, but now in cool 3-D-like computer graphics. And in full color.
The graphics are absolutely top-notch,but some of the sheen has been lost due to the fact that they're also something that I'm sure viewers are pretty much starting to become accustomed to by now. And teen-agers today, let alone the more targeted little kid audience, will barely, if at all, get any of the connections to Attack Of The 50 Foot Woman, Black Lagoon & the like.
Now don't get me wrong. I think that this film comes off as entertaining enough, but to some, it may feel like it came out a fews years too late.

The Mighty Celestial's rating:

932   6.8   7.5 

The story in Cars really isn't too stong, the characters, while a worthy effort, aren't very memorable, and just the very concept of a universe of cars talking doesn't lend itself very well as a consistent idea in believability, no matter how much suspension is put into one's belief.
However, the visuals on this thing are insane.
After watching Cars, it truly boggles the mind of where computer graphics will be in twenty, or even in just ten years from now.

The Mighty Celestial's rating:

292   7.6   7.5 

Philosophical musings accompanied with expressionistic graphics of computer-generated "paint", overlayed on top of life-action.
And if that description is hard to understand, then let me instead say that Waking Life is definitely not a kid's film.
Or for those who watch films exclusively so that they can turn their brains off.

A unique movie-enjoying experience when approached with the right frame of mind.

The Mighty Celestial's rating: