Molotera on 2022
Welcome back to my annual film overview, the sixth edition of what originally started as some throwaway Tumblr post, and now it has evolved to become a tradition to talk about the animated films I saw this year. I will admit I was already looking forward to starting work on this post since April so I may have been working on this long before December, and why you also may find this edition to be longer than usual. :p
2022 saw more film studios and distributors continue to open up and release more films in theaters as a somewhat sense of “normalcy” settles in following the pandemic. A relevant topic this year was the impact of streaming services on films and TV series, namely how they are starting to be less seen as works of art and more as indistinct content, best demonstrated during the Warner Bros./Discovery merger; with many films and series getting removed from HBO Max, many other projects getting canceled or shelved, and CN Studios getting merged into WAG. While the ruthlessness of corporations is nothing new unfortunately, I’ve never seen them in such a raw display of power, it at least brought the attention of the public to the artists and showrunners working behind the scenes and how they often get tangled into these decisions with little-to-no say.
There are the films I saw this year, sorted by release date on Letterboxd:
My Sweet Monster: At first I did not care about this film but following the Twitter circlejerk around Pauly Shore’s involvement in Pinocchio: A True Story (and some animation aficionado claiming it was “surprisingly decent”) I decided to give it a try. I did like Shore’s character in this film more than him playing Pinocchio, his character was essentially Jesper from Klaus but evil. About the film itself, I do not know how Russia provided a decent-looking film like SMCA last year and then gave us this in 2022. Now it is unlikely we are ever seeing another film like this again (or my desired SMCA series) because Putin finally gave into his irredentist craves and now Russia is fucked.
Fireheart: Another female-led film coming from L’Atelier. It seems like the studio wanted to do something larger in scope after Ballerina; but, unlike their first project, Fireheart is more of an action-packed film. Nothing wrong with that but at least Ballerina featured a female character overcoming a realistic adversity to accomplish her dreams, whereas Fireheart does not really tackle the gender discrimination issue its premise claims to do.
Hotel Transylvania Transformania: Incredibly Sony wanted to put this in theaters like Disney wanted to do with Artemis Fowl back in 2020, perhaps Adam Sandler not returning was a bad omen. While this sequel returns its focus to the relationship between Dracula and Johnny; it seems that, even after three films, Drac still hates Johnny’s guts. With this possibly being the final entry in the HT series, they do not really address the fact that Drac and Mavis are going to outlive their spouses Ericka and Johnny respectively.
The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild: Ice Age as a franchise is deeply intertwined with Blue Sky’s studio history. From its rise as a major player between Disney and DreamWorks and giving Fox a second chance in the animation landscape, its subsequent stagnation in the 2010s, to its demise following Spies in Disguise’s failure at the box office and Disney’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox. In spite of critics noting the decline in quality of the stories, a dedicated team of artists were nonetheless still working on creating quality visuals and animation for each subsequent film (What’s the Matter Martha? creator Kevin Temmer worked on Collision Course). With that said, Adventures of Buck Wild is nothing else but an empty shell of a franchise that contributed to the birth of a studio and stayed until its final days. It’s up to Disney what it plans to do with Ice Age.
Chickenhare and the Hamster of Darkness: I have not seen any other nWave film than The Queen’s Corgi but I was personally interested in this one as their first adaptation. It’s just as painfully average as the rest of nWave’s films.
Turning Red: Domee Shi proves to be Pixar’s latest dark horse with Turning Red, a story of tradition versus modernity in the life of a Chinese diaspora teenager. The relatability does not simply lie on being a minority but also being a horny teenager in the 2000s. I think it is great Disney allowed this kind of awkward, coming-of-age story to be produced, further demonstrating that Pixar is giving a chance for new talent to shine following Lasseter’s departure.
The Bad Guys: A lot of critics said it was very formulaic but fuck them, I love spies therefore I love thieves and this film was no exception. Even though I have never seen Ocean’s Eleven I could feel it was an homage to that film and other heist genre films. The art direction is amazing too.
Marmaduke: I do not have a lot to say about this film other than even the character designs of the non-Addams family characters from the 2019 film had more effort gone into them if they wanted to make toothpick people.
Finnick: Currently Russian animated films are kind of in a limbo following the war, with many western distributors promising to stop acquisition and distribution of them, but some have managed to skip these “indirect sanctions”. Finnick starts decently but soon after we are settled with the protagonists and setting, the plot picks up ridiculous speed as we go from “do a little trolling” to actual catastrophes happening in town, all the work of an invisible criminal. The story bills itself as a detective story but the pace and structure does not do it any favors.
Gulliver Returns: Ok Letterboxd has this as a 2022 release even though it came out last year so guess I should talk about it but now about the film’s merits without these Ukraine/Zelensky analogies. I was first introduced to this film through a The Guardian review which largely talked about how the original book was written as a satire but later adaptations have stripped off this message, this film being no exception. However, I do not think the message was entirely lost here. The main instigator in this version is the King of Lilliput, who has taken over his father’s role and has such overreaching powers over Lilliput that even nature abides by his decrees, but at the same time he is an incompetent leader who cannot solve the problems of his people; so he alters time and space to bring back this one giant who is gonna solve all of these issues, just to learn there was never a giant in the first place. It is a brilliant premise but it stops right there as the rest of the film focuses back to Gulliver defeating the big bad general of Blefuscu and the King never faces any real consequences other than losing his title. So it is more of a potential satire that is thrown away for an idealistic ending.
Lightyear: Disney finally lets a Pixar film be released in theaters after COVID but it is this one and not Turning Red. Although Lightyear features Pixar’s characteristic improvement in animation and gives it another shot to establish a serious lore to the Buzz Lightyear character, it comes out more as a contemporaneous MCU film than whatever made kids get obsessed in 1977 with the original Star Wars. I think the film would have been more enjoyable if it embraced the camp and simplicity of sci-fi films from that era. Online discourse also likes to bring up the series made by Disney Animation Television about Buzz’s backstory and, while I think it is irrelevant as Disney/Pixar can quickly disregard this as non-canon, it actually embraces more the tone of the first Star Wars than Lightyear does.
Minions The Rise of Gru: Universal did not want to sacrifice the next installment of its cash cow to the pandemic, so they shelved it for later. Two years later and following a positive reception to Sing 2 that drew people back to theaters, Illumination continues Gru’s backstory with Rise of Gru. Like its spin-off predecessor Minions, RoG’s main strength lies in comedy rather than story, but it was disappointing to see the main villains of this film, the Vicious 6, were not really a menace in the way Scarlet Overkill was. Some people thought it was an improvement over Minions but I thought the writing was hazy at best; Gru’s relationship with Wild Knuckles is great, sure, but I would have preferred to see him take a more direct approach to face his idols-turned-rivals. If Matthew Fogel continues to write his animated films like this, perhaps Nintendrones are going to want his head on a silver plate when The Super Mario Bros. Movie comes out. Oh well, I cannot wait to see what is enfant terrible Mike White preparing for us in DM4.
The Sea Beast: I believe this film wanted to become the next big Netflix animated epic alongside Klaus and Mitchells vs the Machines. And some animation fans are going to believe that because reasons, but I think The Sea Beast lacked something to become as memorable as those two previous films; maybe it is the unexpected ending of Maisie going full radical against the kingdom that that does not build up properly until right in the middle of the climax, or maybe I am disappointed there was not enough beast-slaying or piracy going on. Some reviews compared it to How to Train Your Dragon which could explain why this was not of my liking because I am not a fan of HTTYD.
Beavis and Butt-head Do the Universe: I have not seen much of the original series but I have seen Do America a couple of times thanks to my brother and it is so far one of the funniest film adaptations for a TV show to exist. This feels like a nice sequel to the 1996 film, doubling in size for the adventure, and the characters adjust well (or rather they do not) to the current day environment, which is a nice setup for comedy. Not interested in the revival series.
Blazing Samurai: (using the original title because the new title is lame) This film got an infamous reputation for being stuck in development hell since 2015. And despite many setbacks including some of the production companies closing down during production and COVID as well, it finally saw the light of the day this year. Some expected it to be awful with potentially outdated humor and animation, but surprisingly it holds decently. I think the biggest setback here is that it could have taken more liberties with the jokes when you consider it wanted to follow in the steps of source material Blazing Saddles, a film that (in the few clips I have seen) properly embraces the comedy of farce. Blazing Samurai has some nice fourth wall jokes here and there but it largely plays it safe by being the typical underdog story. And, considering they were both playing around the same time in American theaters, Blazing Samurai’s goofiness pales in comparison to the one seen in Rise of Gru.
League of Super Pets: This film is either a funny animal movie at best or another desperate push from Warner Bros. to keep the DCEU relevant at worst. Nothing wrong with the film itself aside from the story pace and character rendering where most of the animals look properly textured but some of the human characters look unfinished sometimes. But, like a lot of viewers, I am starting to suffer from superhero fatigue. Super Pets would have been a decent albeit forgettable film if it was an original story but I have to remember this is related to the Justice League, and I do not really want to be involved in another superhero-related medium anymore.
Luck: I was looking forward to this one ever since Ilion’s negative reception that started after Wonder Park (whose director was ditched at the last minute for “inappropriate conduct”, bombing at the box office, and getting its TV show spin-off canned) and hoping for them to get their reputation redeemed. But when it rains, it pours and Skydance Media bought them and placed John Lasseter as head of animation-just after getting booted out from Pixar under that same reason-, which caused Paramount to drop them from a distribution deal. Luck might look promising on the surface but turns out to be a hot mess of a film; it spends a good chunk of the runtime showcasing the processes to make good luck, it is disingenuous to think a kid is not gonna start to doze off from this. I ironically wrote in my Mortadelo y Filemón review (another Ilion production) praising them for not making a “Disney copycat”, however, Luck looks like it tried to emulate Pixar so bad; starting with a sob story for the protagonist and leaning heavily into worldbuilding, but forgetting to set a smooth story pace in the process. If this serves as a consolation for the Ilion folks, let it be known that a household in northern Mexico is still rewatching Mortadelo y Filemón religiously.
Tadeo Jones 3: I am personally a fan of this franchise after the first film surprised me by how competent it was so La tabla esmeralda was my second most anticipated film after Rise of Gru and it did not disappoint. The film provided even more big adventures in different locations like its predecessors. However, my personal issue is that Momia was given a more prominent role; in the second film he was the comedy relief and, although annoying, he was just a goofy side character. Now Momia is directly involved with the plot and therefore entitled to more exposition, and it sucks because he now has an unfunny wannabe influencer shtick instead of a fish-out-of-water one. I also think Sara is getting more and more sidelined in each film which is really unfair considering she was prominent in the first one and could essentially work as a mentor to Tadeo in his path to become an archeologist, and her subplot with Victoria is not even properly elaborated on. Creator Enrique Gato once said he has plans to make seven films so there are plenty of opportunities to develop more of these characters.
Wendell & Wild: Look, I like Selick and his stop-motion films, and I loved Peele’s Get Out (and cannot wait to catch up with the rest of his films). Wendell & Wild is a largely experimental film that tries to lay out relevant issues in the plot and storytelling, but sometimes it does not work the way it wanted to. There are a lot of interesting characters and loose ends that I think the film needed more time to develop (such as Siobhan having a sudden change of heart about the prisons, Kat elaborating on her experience with them would have been a logical way to resolve this). However, I applaud the liberty the filmmakers had to produce such an unique-looking film like this, even if the plot is largely hit or miss.
The Soccer Football Movie: Another bottom-of-the-bin Netflix film, not as gross as Marmaduke but even more boring and unremarkable. I admit I watched this because I could not recognize which studio made it, it was made by Splash Entertainment a.k.a. the Norm of the North people btw.
Strange World: I never thought WDAS’ next vehicle was going to be bad, despite claims on social media that Disney “wanted to bury it” just because they had seen no marketing. But I never expected it to be such a caricatured film in regards to story, character development and the topic of inclusion. The themes and humor are really on the nose, the titular Strange World fails to gather your interest with a dull design (yes, I am aware it has a plot purpose, but it looks really bland even for Disney’s standards) and the characters do not seem to be too invested into it either. But the most egregious thing about the film is how it integrates the theme of inclusion, which a Twitter mutual best summarized it as “it’s what a right wing would imagine woke Disney movies are except it lives up to that bs”. I do not think this is some evil scheme by Disney to smear progressives as some would like to assume, but more like them tripping over their own feet.
Scrooge A Christmas Carol: I was first interested in this after seeing a first look and thought the art style was great. But eventually some people started to point out it looks like something out of a mobile game ad and now I think that is very amusing. This A Christmas Carol adaptation brings nothing new to the table other than it being a musical.
Puss in Boots The Last Wish: “Is Universal bringing Shrek back?” is a question everybody made right after they got hold of DreamWorks in 2016. After keeping this franchise somewhat afloat through different Puss in Boots spin-offs, the eponymous character returns to the big screen a decade after its first spin-off film. The Last Wish boasts a change in art style and animation different from the one used for the Shrek films, and resembles more the one seen in The Bad Guys; this might come as a jarring change that some viewers might not welcome warmly, but it is visually stunning to see in the big screen (specially for those still starstruck by SPA’s Into the Spiderverse). This film also got Shrek fanservice, as other characters from the franchise show up in flashback scenes, including Shrek and Donkey; but nothing prepares you for the final scene in the film, which caused the audience in my preview screening to cheer. And I am afraid it makes you look back into the question I made at the beginning of this entry.
The Academy of Magic: Ok Letterboxd please fuck off, I let Gulliver Retruns in this list because I could use it to mention the war in Ukraine and now you are telling me this is also a 2022 release? This film is very dull. Go watch Bradley Smith’s take instead, he is the reason why I watched this film in the first place, not to mention he gives some insight of the voice actors involved in this.
Huevitos congelados: I was hoping Un rescate de huevitos was going to be the last Huevos film but I was wrong. To their credit however, the plot was not as convoluted as the previous film; they tried to create a cliched but palpable family film, although is ultimately dragged down by the size of the cast and the change in character dynamics (the main focus now is Toto’s chicken nuclear family whereas Willy and Bibi are now relegated to secondary characters, and they did not even bring Tocino to the journey!). While Huevocartoon is still creating adult-oriented cartoons (produced Los Lopeggs for Pantaya in 2020) they now have their sights on expanding into the family film market. Nonetheless, the last 3 films are a far cry from the first two, and not just talking about the shift from Flash animation to CGI.
Previous editions:
