Charles Solomon

Like their Oscar-nominated “A Cat in Paris” (2010), Phantom Boy by Jean-Loup Felicioli and Alain Gangol is a modest, engaging film that reminds viewers of the intimate pleasures of drawn animation in an era of CG blockbusters.

The film is alternately intriguing and frustrating. The visuals are often strikingly handsome and oddly funny. But the movements are stiff, the characters chatter endlessly, and the unnecessary songs bring the plot to a grinding halt.

Background stylist/co-director Eric Radomski has created a terrific-looking world of film noir-influenced Art Deco skyscrapers, shadows, gargoyles and windows. Unfortunately, some of the worst-animated characters in any recent feature get in front of those stylish backgrounds.

Hosoda brings emotional depth to what could easily have become a formulaic martial arts saga. Instead, Boy and Beast is a bracing tale of two flawed individuals who find the love and discipline they need to assume their rightful places in their respective worlds.

The filmmakers give Hinako weaknesses and doubts as well as strengths and talents. She’s a more complex, fully realized character than many heroines in recent American features.

Although it is often moving, the film is less satisfying than it could be.

Demonstrates how exciting and vital contemporary animated filmmaking is in Japan. The characters may not move with the fluidity of their American counterparts, but the story unfolds with a sinister grace that any live-action director might envy.

Yuasa's bold imagery and sometimes convoluted storytelling defy the conventions of traditional animated filmmaking, but he is clearly an artist with an individual vision whose work offers something genuinely new and eye-catching.

Director Shinsuke Sato’s film may lack nuance, but fans of martial spectacles will have an enjoyable if exhausting time.

The filmmakers seem to have been trying for the kind of animated film noir that has been done so skillfully in Japan, but Cinderella the Cat never approaches that level level.

The audience's response to The Prophet is likely to be determined by their feelings for the original book rather than the eclectic, imaginative visuals.

Disjointed and unfocused.

Some of the special effects are genuinely spectacular, but the narrative is often difficult to follow.

"Riviera" suffers from a weak story with an obvious ending.

“Broly” delivers exactly what “Dragon Ball” fans want from a feature; newcomers may find themselves lost in places.

Like "A Cat in Paris" or "Sita Sings the Blues," Extraordinary Tales reminds viewers that animation can enable an artist to realize an individual vision, even on a limited budget.

A bright, upbeat comedy that should appeal to audiences of all ages. [18 Nov 1988, p.1]

Contemporary viewers are more likely to find Fritz the Cat a mildly amusing period piece, as dated as a Nehru jacket.

Song of the South is essentially a nostalgic valentine to a past that never existed, and within those limits, it offers a pleasant, family diversion for holiday afternoons when the children get restless.

While individual sequences are genuinely entertaining, Monster Hunt remains considerably less than the sum of its many parts.

Although it was made on a smaller budget, "Neverbeast" is a more coherent and entertaining film than the bizarre jukebox musical "Strange Magic."

Directors Jean-François Pouliot and François Brisson fail to organize the material into a coherent story or strike a consistent emotional tone.

Much of the dialogue is too literal and undercut by its stolid earnestness, and many of the characters are left underdeveloped.

Talky, relentlessly affirming and as predictable as a paint-by-number.

MFKZ is obviously modeled on Katsuhiro Ôtomo’s “Akira” and Taiyô Matsumoto’s “Tekkonkinkreet,” but it lacks the gritty brilliance of the former and the underdog poignancy of the latter.

Writer Dennis Marks and producer/directors William Hanna and Joseph Barbera can't seem to decide whether they're making a with-it musical for teen-agers or re-creating the ingenuous humor of a '60s TV show, and don't do either very well.

Genndy Tartakovsky is a talented director who knows how to telegraph what an animated character is thinking and doing and how to move a character in ways that suggest personality.

In an effort to generate some excitement (and disguise the limits of the animation) director Nelson Shin keeps the camera constantly in motion. The Transformers has so many cuts that it looks like the film was developed in a Veg-O-Matic. Because it features ineptly blended drawn animation and computer graphics, The Transformers is billed as state-of-the-art. It seems more like state-of-the-marketing. [08 Aug 1986, p.8]