Butterfly Tale
Finding a nice balance between fun and learning, Butterfly Tale chronicles the animated adventure of a flutter of monarch butterflies as they migrate to Mexico.
Animation
The Monkey King
The universe has sent me a remedy after slugging through last week’s Toopy and Binoo The Movie. That medicine is Netflix’s The Monkey King, an action-packed fantasy that’s inspired by Chinese literature and works as a tribute to the comic humour of Stephen Chow (Shaolin Soccer, Kung Fu Hustle, Journey to the West). Chow serves as an executive producer on The Monkey King – the production must’ve been tickled pink.
Toopy and Binoo The Movie
The Toopy and Binoo franchise, featuring a very confident motor-mouth mouse named Toopy and a kindhearted mute kitten named Binoo, is new territory for me. I’m unable to comment on whether it’s faithful to the book series created by the movie’s co-director/co-writer Dominique Jolin or the animated television show co-created by Jolin and the film’s co-director/co-writer Raymond Lebrun.
Katak, The Brave Beluga
The French-Canadian produced animated movie Katak, The Brave Beluga is a copycat of other family flicks. But as far as knock-offs go, this is certainly one of the better ones.
Ainbo: Spirit of the Amazon
Hey, parents! Do your kids like Moana? The Lion King? FernGully? Those Ice Age movies? They might find fleeting moments to enjoy in Ainbo: Spirit of the Amazon, if the movie doesn’t frighten them first.
The Bad Guys
The Bad Guys is a big screen adaptation of a popular book series for kids, perhaps to tide over the Diary of a Wimpy Kid crowd. But even as someone who was completely unfamiliar with the series, I thought its feature-length debut was great. It’s one of the coolest and most exciting films of the year.
Spirit Untamed
Spirit Untamed is a cute movie with endearing friendships and a really sweet message.
The Mitchells vs. The Machines
The Mitchells vs.The Machines is very much cut from the same talented cloth as Sony Pictures Animation’s Oscar-winning hit Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. The brilliant artists at Sony Pictures Animation, yet again, set a new bar for computer animation; offering audiences indescribably energetic visuals that astonishingly never lose the film’s lightning-fast pace. But just like Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, the story struggles to keep up with the film’s skill. The movie assuredly commits its general theme to the…