Spring Break
Five animated films that missed the point completely
Rachel Love
Issue date: 2/6/09 Section: Diversions
A couple weeks ago, in anticipation of the new stop-motion flick "Coraline," which comes out today, I discussed some of my favorite animated movies. It goes without saying that that list could have easily been 10 times longer but, in the interest of time, I managed to whittle it down to my top six.
Today, I don't have to deal with that problem. When compiling the following list, there was an abundance of qualified movies, but I was easily able to limit my selection to five. Why? Because they were so awful. Compiling more than five would have been entirely too painful. So, without further ado, here are my top five worst animated movies.
5. "Shark tale" - "Shark Tale" was Dreamworks' answer to "Finding Nemo." Released a year after "Nemo," and with a large ensemble of celebrity voices, "Shark Tale" could have been a hit. But it wasn't. Why? Because it was creepy. Instead of fish with one human characteristic (such as the ability to speak), the "Shark Tale" characters were basically fish-shaped humans. They had fish shops, fish TVs, "shell" phones and fish paparazzi. They also had fish versions of famous celebrities, like Mussel Crowe, Katie Current and Cod Stewart (Get it? Ha ha!). As if the movie's heavy reliance on pop culture references as jokes wasn't enough to turn you off, the plot also happens to be highly inappropriate for its target audience (um, children). Basically, the Will Smith fish pretends to kill the shark mob boss's son. Yeah.
4. "Madagascar" - It's really too bad that I have to put Dreamworks on this list again since they were, after all, responsible for the highly-delightful movies "Shrek," "Chicken Run" and the feature film Wallace and Gromit story, "The Curse of the Were-Rabbit." Unfortunately, "Madagascar" sucked. Hard. I went to see it with my three older sisters, all of whom enjoy animated films almost as much as I do, and all agreed that the first portion of the movie was so painfully boring that the one good scene (where the lemurs dance to "I Like to Move It") seemed almost maniacally funny in comparison. The movie would have been much improved if it were reduced to an hour long Lemur dance party set to outdated music.
Today, I don't have to deal with that problem. When compiling the following list, there was an abundance of qualified movies, but I was easily able to limit my selection to five. Why? Because they were so awful. Compiling more than five would have been entirely too painful. So, without further ado, here are my top five worst animated movies.
5. "Shark tale" - "Shark Tale" was Dreamworks' answer to "Finding Nemo." Released a year after "Nemo," and with a large ensemble of celebrity voices, "Shark Tale" could have been a hit. But it wasn't. Why? Because it was creepy. Instead of fish with one human characteristic (such as the ability to speak), the "Shark Tale" characters were basically fish-shaped humans. They had fish shops, fish TVs, "shell" phones and fish paparazzi. They also had fish versions of famous celebrities, like Mussel Crowe, Katie Current and Cod Stewart (Get it? Ha ha!). As if the movie's heavy reliance on pop culture references as jokes wasn't enough to turn you off, the plot also happens to be highly inappropriate for its target audience (um, children). Basically, the Will Smith fish pretends to kill the shark mob boss's son. Yeah.
4. "Madagascar" - It's really too bad that I have to put Dreamworks on this list again since they were, after all, responsible for the highly-delightful movies "Shrek," "Chicken Run" and the feature film Wallace and Gromit story, "The Curse of the Were-Rabbit." Unfortunately, "Madagascar" sucked. Hard. I went to see it with my three older sisters, all of whom enjoy animated films almost as much as I do, and all agreed that the first portion of the movie was so painfully boring that the one good scene (where the lemurs dance to "I Like to Move It") seemed almost maniacally funny in comparison. The movie would have been much improved if it were reduced to an hour long Lemur dance party set to outdated music.
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