Animated Movies Throughout the Years: 2013

Animated Movies Throughout the Years: 2013

 

In February, there was Escape From Planet Earth, which is Planet 51 in reverse with character designs we have all seen before.

 

In March, there was DreamWorks' The Croods. It's best described as a cross between Disney•Pixar's Brave and Don Bluth's The Land before Time. While one of DreamWorks’ weaker films, The Croods got the Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature, but lost to Frozen.

In May, there was Blue Sky Studios' Epic. It's not a horrible film, but it's very clichéd. In fact, one critic described it as a cross between The Dark Crystal, Fergully: The Last Rainforest, Honey, I Shrunk The Kids, and The Secret of NIMH.

In June, there was Pixar's 14th feature film, Monsters University. It got mixed reviews, but it earned over 744 million dollars at the box-office. However, by this point, some people, myself included, felt like Pixar lost their magic touch. It wouldn't be until 2015, the year Inside Out premiered, got glowing reviews, and gave Pixar their spark back.

There were two animated features released in July. The first was Despicable Me 2, which earned over 970 million dollars worldwide at the box-office. DM2 also got the Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature, but lost to Frozen.

The second was DreamWorks' Turbo, which was a bit like Disney•Pixar's Cars but with snails. Unfortunately, Turbo would be another box-office flop for DreamWorks.

In August, there was Disney's Planes, a spinoff of Cars. However, it got rather negative reviews, with a rating of only 25% on Rotten Tomatoes.

In September, there was Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2. It's basically Jurassic Park with food animals instead of dinosaurs. Plus, the names for the animals sound like they were copied from Cartoon Network's Chowder, while some of the designs look like they came from Adventure Time.

In November, there was Free Birds, which is basically a cross between Chicken Run and Back to the Future. It was the first movie from Texas-based animation studio Reel FX, but got rather negative reviews.

Also released in November, Disney released their 53rd animated feature, Frozen, and if you're counting, their seventh CGI film, and we all know seven is a lucky number. It became the highest-grossing animated movie of it's time, and was Disney’s first movie to win the Oscar for Best Animated Feature, as well as Best Original Song.

And finally, in December, there was Walking With Dinosaurs, a hybrid film similar to Disney's Dinosaur (not to be confused with The Good Dinosaur). The animation house behind this film was Australia-based Animal Logic, who also did Happy Feet and Legends of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole. While the film had breathtaking CG dinosaurs interacting fruitfully with live-action landscapes, it suffered from a clumsy script with potty humor all over it. That's all I have to say for this week's Animated Movies Throughout the Years! Tune
in next week when we talk about animated movies from 2014, in which Disney satisfied us with our care with Big Hero 6, DreamWorks soared to new heights with How To Train Your Dragon 2, Laika decided to release a more light-hearted film with The Boxtrolls, and Phil Lord and Christopher Miller brought the world-famous plastic brick toys to life with The LEGO Movie.