Arrrrrrrrrdman.

Aardman returned to the silver screen relatively quickly after the festive release of Arthur Christmas last year with The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists. It’s a little different to Arthur Christmas in that it’s reverted back to its original style of using placticine models instead of computer animation.

There wasn’t anything wrong with the computer animation in Arthur Christmas, but I do prefer Aardman material that uses the typical placticine models. Imagine Wallace and Gromit done solely using computer animation; it’d be horrible!

The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists is actually a very good movie filled with all the Aardman charm you’ve come to expect. It’s charming, witty, well animated, has a great script, some controversial characters and has impeccable timing throughout the entire thing.

Top 7 Animated Movies of 2011.

It was a reasonably decent year for animated movies in 2011. It was quite unique in that Pixar’s yearly offering, Cars 2, was pretty poor. This meant other animated movies had to pick up the slack and they all did a decent job in doing so. I saw 7 animated movies this year, obviously not enough to do a top 10, so here are my top 7 animated movies of the year…

The Cat in the Hat (and Boots).

The Shrek series is one that Dreamworks have enjoyed milking over the years. Since Shrek 2 though, the franchise hasn’t really improved at all, in fact the quality has dropped. They had babies, which means inevitable baby jokes. Sigh.

So perhaps a spin-off movie starring one of the more popular characters would help give the franchise a much-needed boost. Up steps Puss in Boots.

Did it succeed in breathing a bit of life into the series? Well, yes, but only a little.

Puss in Boots is a good character, and he represents pretty much the only draw in this movie; the other characters don’t have the same care and attention put into them that Puss has had. Though attempting to pull off a movie like this with one character alone is difficult, Puss in Boots manages to pull it off reasonably successfully.

The Ruddy Doors.

Pixar have made some great animated films over the past 10 years. With titles like Toy Story, Monsters Inc, Finding Nemo, and Wall-e, you’d be hard pressed to find a production studio with a higher success rate than theirs.

They have some of the most original ideas in animation and their creativity is amongst the highest in the business. As the years tick by they’ve moved more and more into adding sequels to former movies. Toy Story has had three movies now dedicated to it and Monsters Inc will be getting a sequel in 2013. Both of the originals were great movies and therefore deserving of sequels. Strange then to see that this year’s Pixar animation was a sequel to their 2006 movie: Cars.

Kung Fu Panda 2: Black belt or black eye?

It’s a bit of a year for animated sequels this year. Pixar are serving up Cars 2 this summer while Dreamworks have released Kung Fu Panda 2. To be honest both of them look a little underwhelming, Cars is probably the weakest film Pixar have done so it’s a strange choice to bring out another. Kung Fu Panda was a relative hit, a decent movie that is probably more variable than Cars to get a sequel.

That being said Kung Fu Panda 2 doesn’t really capture the same magic of the first instalment. Po the Panda is already a Dragon Warrior so the object of this movie is simply stop the bad guy from doing evil stuff.

Paintballing without the pain.

The latest animation from Blue Sky studios is Rio, the story of a rare blue macaw who must travel to Brazil in order to mate and save his species. Blue Sky are probably most famous for the Ice Age series, which I liked, but it did peter out towards the end so I was interested in seeing how Rio was going to turn out.

It was a good movie that I have to say I quite enjoyed, all be it at the start of the movie the colour was all in pink, resulting in the movie stopping abruptly and starting from the beginning…of the trailers. The projectionist simply skipped forward as if it were a DVD, which it probably was, and on we went!

The chameleon who stands out.

There’s another animated movie doing the rounds in cinemas. It’s called Rango, at least I think it is, if you were going off movie posters then you might think it’s called Johnny Depp.

Yes, Johnny Depp does the voice for the little lizard and the marketing for Rango has been completely focused around the A-lister. This did concern me at first as I didn’t know much about it, and the studio seemed to just be running with Depp’s inclusion in it rather than telling me anything about the story and whatnot. It could’ve been rubbish.

Disney lets its hair down.

So I’ve seen Tangled. You have a problem with that? Well, it was free after all so why not, and I have to say I don’t regret going to watch it.

In a nutshell: it’s a Disney movie. So yes, now you know what to expect. Wait, come back, I haven‘t finished! Although it’s a Disney move that is clearly aimed at kids, I have to say there were a few moments that had me chortling away into my Capri-Sun like a hyperactive child at a picnic.

So long... Partner.

Pixar’s latest masterpiece, Toy Story 3, came out on DVD last week and I really would recommend you grab yourself a copy of it. The last in the trilogy, this movie ties up the franchise neatly and fittingly in a tear jerking finale no one will want to miss.

The story centres around the lives of a group of toys who live with their owner, Andy (no relation). Now, ten years have passed since Toy Story 2; Andy has grown up and is now off to college. Naturally the toys have become seldom used and now take residence in Andy’s toy chest, never to see the light of day again.

Persistently, the toys attempt to get Andy to play with them, but they fail and are grouped together into a trash bag and hauled into the attic, with the exception of Woody who gets special treatment and is placed in the box headed to college. However, the toys don’t make it to the attic, Andy’s meddling mother mistakes them for trash and leaves them on the kerb for collection. I wish we still did that here, all these wheelie bins are doing my head in. But that is a rant for another day...