Leo, an animated family film from Adam Sandler’s production company Happy Madison, hits Netflix at an ideal time: the holiday season is approaching, family time is becoming more frequent, and the weather is becoming chillier and chillier. What better time to cozy up with a crowd-pleaser?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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 is a cute movie with endearing friendships and a really sweet message.
