I saw Happy Feet last night and I gotta say I was pleasently surprised… in a weird way. As an animator, I naturally frown on any mo-cap movie that comes out, so maybe that’s why I had low expectations. Plus I was a little peeved that it won “best animated feature” when it wasn’t really “animated,” it was mo-cap’d. But whatever… I don’t really care much for the “look” of the penguins either, but there was some good freakin cg on the seals, elephant seals, whales, etc.

think the point that really got me interested (spoiler, stop reading if you haven’t seen it and still care to) was when the little guy go put in the glass display, and started losing his mind. Catching fish from the sky, and just standing with his head against the wall. I don’t know if anyone has seen penguins in glass displays, but some of them do that! It’s the creepiest thing, like they lost there mind or something. Then they go and put live action humans running around on cell phones, something I would normally consider blasphemy! But because it so unexpected I liked it. I also enjoyed the ending, they all danced for the humans and won there fish back

My roommate Jeremy made a pretty good comment describing the pacing of the film:

If you haven’t got around to seeing 300 yet then stop reading this and go to the theater immediately! It was fantastic, slightly better than what I expected. That being said, I’m always slightly disappointed when something meets my expectations,” but I think the exaggerated story and style of the film are more than enough to push it over common expectations. I almost wish I hadn’t seen any previews or “making of” journals online. i always think a film is better if I’ve gone to it blindly then if I’ve already seen the best parts in the previews.

Of course it’s excessively violent which normally bothers me, but it’s so stylized it looks just like a combination of photoshop brushes speckled accross a canvas.

Great pacing, great story, and best of all great art direction. I don’t know how this movie slipped down to a 62% on rotten, I would give it at least a 90. The critics must not understand comic books…

Open Season. Not to bad for Sony’s first full length animated film. Not to good either. There’s no denying the beauty of it all. The character design is top notch, the technical aspect of every shot is executed to near perfection, and who wouldn’t love those adorable rabbits. It seems like in every high budget CG film that comes out the technical sides are getting better and better. The fur, water, and entire forest almost makes this film worth seeing.

In my opinion the animation was lacking, or maybe just inconsistent. Parts of it I thought worked really well, but I was slightly disappointed in some shots with the bear and pretty much every shot with a human. As for the voice acting… For me this was the lowest part of the film. Martin Lawrence and Ashton Kutcher make terrible cartoon characters. After a while I kinda got used to Kutcher, but Lawrence never seemed to fit his character. The story was also lacking but that was to be expected after noticing it’s 49% on Rotten Tomatoes, which I think is right on. Overall a pleasing film to look at despite a few manufactured accidents. Just try not to listen to it. Thus concludes my lame attempt at a Movie review.