Board 8 > Board 8 Ranks Animated Movies 3 - The Rankings

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Inviso posted...

I feel like every time we do one of these lists, one thing holds true: I have a much higher tolerance for dumb, inane shit than most other people who participate in these rankings. >_> There's still absolutely zero excuse for my number 40 not being dead last among everyone, and so help me if this is on your heads Red and Karo.

I'm surprised Trolls World Tour isn't out yet either if I'm being honest =/

36. Trolls World Tour

Karo: 19
Inviso: 24
Evillord: 24
Johnbobb: 31
Ermine: 37
Red: 37

Total: 171

Karo: Everyone discovers suddenly that they are living in one of the six kingdoms of troll land that are each based off a type of music and the rock troll queen is trying to collect the six infinity strings so she can use their cosmic power to make all the other trolls shop at Hot Topic.
Poppy enthusiastically embarks on a quest to unite all the kingdoms against this villain, only to discover that the others actually hate the pop trolls because they steal everyones music. This is kind of ironic because every other musical genre featured in the movie's soundtrack has generally been popified to all hell.
The first problem with the film lies with the character of Branch, who is no longer the misanthropic hermit he used to be, yet they still try and duplicate the humor between him and Poppy that was central to the first movie. They go with a sort of 'wah, my girlfriend won't listen to me' thing to try and artificially generate conflict between the duo but it is not the same. They try to fill the void with singing, and I mean a LOT of singing. Like in the first movie they had songs in structured places to help enhance the impact of the story. Here it is just everyone constantly spewing out a diarrhetic deluge of random pop songs so much it is almost masturbatory.
This is very much the textbook example of a safe sequel, and the wonder of their world and its craft project backgrounds is somewhat blunted because I have seen it all before. It is certainly not offensive, but it is like eating a whole bag of candy. It may be a great experience in the moment but it has no substance and so it doesnt really stay with you.
However, its central message of togetherness is something the world could use right about now, and it is certainly not the worst thing we could be putting into kids' brains.

Inviso: Full disclosure: way back when we did the Dreamworks ranking, I liked Trolls 1 so much that I put it in my top ten. I bring this up, because I wouldnt be even remotely surprised if this film ends up in the bottom three of our collective lists, just based on previous opinions of likely rankers. So yeah, I didnt outright hate Trolls 2, even though I will admit that it is an extremely dumb movie. It manages to get a lot of points from me by nailing the jukebox musical aspect of its design. Having known, recognizable songs in flashy and colorful sequences was entertaining to me, personally. That being said, the first movie at least had a solid plot from beginning to end, whereas this movie felt like a very similar rehash, only without any of the coherent narrative and justification behind the villains motivations.

Also, you introduce the concept of six troll kingdoms, yet two only get a single scene in which the protagonists arent even around, two get a single scene where the protagonists are around, and Im pretty sure that, aside from the Techno Trolls, every single defeat by the Rock Trolls is completely off-screen. I dont even remember the Country Trolls getting captured or having their string taken away; they just show up in captivity at the end of the movie. But yeah, Poppy is still really annoying in her naivete, and Barbs whole I have no friends thing is REALLY weirdly shoehorned into the plot for like, two scenes where its relevant. If it wasnt for the fun music, Id rank this a lot lower, because it does nothing with the concept.

Evillord: I couldn't believe this fucking movie. It's your typical dreamworks garbage substituting dance parties, celebrity voice performances, and licensed music for creativity, but the villains are pretty much explicitly fascist and the subplot about the Funk Trolls has vibes of critical race theory. At that part where the troll doll princess is staring in despair at the flaming wreckage of her conquered kingdom something broke in me and I started laughing my head off. It doesn't come close to being a good movie, but I'm kind of glad I watched this.

Johnbobb: Better than the disastrous first movie in every single way. It's still Trolls, which is bad, and still features James Corden, which is worse, but it also delves oddly into the Trolls lore and features Rachel Bloom as the captivating main antagonist? The movie works better than it should've, which is not at all.

Ermine: Better than the first... but not by much. Poppy is still an insufferable character and despite hearing many people actually enjoyed Barb as a character, I absolutely hated her as well. There was one part I laughed which again, is more than the first movie provided but yeah, Trolls movies will always be shit.

Red: Do you remember the first Trolls movie? No? Well good because this movie doesn't either. I'm pretty sure that movie had a plot and this movie makes near 0 reference to that. Poppy is queen and that's all you need to know. And if you didn't know that you will when this movie grinds it into your head repeatedly. Characters from the first movie hopped dimensions and now the world is comprised just of Trolls attached to a few genres of music and you are going to be bombarded with easily recognizable songs for an hour and a half. I don't know if I could even talk about the plot because it just creates one big plot hole that will be handwaved off for another song.

Outlier Rankings:

Inviso: 55
Johnbobb: 44
Karo: 38
Red: 37
Ermine: 36
Evillord: 33

Things tightening up a bit

Good job Red

Also Barb is an LGBT icon

It's not even like I LIKED any of these movies. This was a bad list. But the fact that my number 40 is not out yet is absolutely disturbing.

But we just lost Trolls! That had to have been...

Oh

35. Fritz the Cat

Evillord: 8
Ermine: 10
Johnbobb: 32
Karo: 38
Red: 39
Inviso: 40

Total: 167

Evillord: This shit paved the way for American Adult Animation. Everything from the Simpsons and South Park, to maybe even the furry fandom, owes something to this. It fits into the best kind of satire, where it makes fun of everyone and everything it portrays. This didn't just piss off overprotective parents, it upset everyone, even the creator of its own source material, who thought it was too critical of leftist politics. It's probably the most culturally significant film on the list. As for me, I think it's pretty good.

Ermine: What in the fuck did I just watch?

No seriously.

Like this takes vulgarity to a whole new level I've never experienced before. Puts Sausage Party to shame... but I sorta like it? Well... I mean I hate it, but I also kinda like it. Some of the dialog and back and forth between the characters was actually really funny. I laughed out loud at least ten times.

But things like... "Get the Fuck off my Car!" or... "Hey guys... that's uncool, don't do that.", when that girl was getting attacked with the chain. Comedic timing was there for sure. Fucking Fritz man. Just uncool huh? That's all?

Also he literally got blown up by a bomb and then was okay because those babes came back to say hi? How did he do that!?

Seriously though? If you remove all the booba and sexy time stuff, what's left is a pretty interesting film to me. I mean sure, you have to have that stuff because Fritz is fucking zonked out of his mind, but I really don't need to see that shit for minutes and minutes on end.

I think the most revolted I was was when that dog guy or whatever smashed up all his chickens with his plank + nail. That was seriously messed up.

Yeah, I have no idea how to rank this, like at all. It's so incredibly different from every other animated film I've watched so uh... it can go wherever it ends up. Who knows?

Also how did they fit so many people in that tub at the beginning! That was a bit unrealistic.

Oh one last thing. I actually think I was starting to like Fritz as a character in the last 20 mins of the movie.

Far out.

Johnbobb: I have respect for some of what this film attempted. At its core, there's a really good story there: the story of a white, naive college kid running off a high of sex and drugs into situations he doesn't understand, trying to lead a revolution that doesn't involve him mostly out of boredom and disillusionment. Its influence on the genre is undeniable, and there's some real excellence here; Duke's death stands out as a brilliantly shot scene, with the bounce of the pool balls matching his heartbeat as he dies trying to save Fritz from his own mistakes. There is something smart in the writing here in terms of racial and political relations... and it's bogged down by unironic racist stereotypes and bizarre sexual violence played off for laughs. It's like someone took a political philsophy degree and drew horny doodles on it.

Karo: A dubious film adaptation of the exploits of underground comix artist R. Crumb's fursona.
Some of the scenes are taken from the various short comic strips starring the character, generally extended unnaturally or fused together awkwardly, which only adds more confusion to movie that already sees far too many hallucinogenic drugs taken by both the characters and the writers.
The jokes that actually land are few and far between, and the plot is the usual patchwork quilt of idiocy from Ralph Bakshi, who generally has his head so far up his own ass he is in danger of suffocation.
The story is literally as follows: Fritz has an orgy in the bathroom and then wanders off and meets racist depictions of black people (and fucks one of them) then he goes on a roadtrip and everything blows up and he ends up in the hospital where he fucks everyone again.
The film is a thoroughly unpleasant experience featuring amateurish animation that looks pulled from one of the CD-i zelda games, incoherent and mumbly voice acting, and many unattractive animal girls who have their boobs randomly pop out of their shirts for no reason. Like seriously, if you are going to make half of your movie furry porn at least make it GOOD furry porn.
When you make a film adaptation so bad that original creator kills off the main character solely because of it, you truly know you have fucked everything sideways in a bathtub.

Red: I'm pretty sure this movie is just here to bait us all into putting a movie in dead last. Weird furry sex fantasy made in the 70s for some reason. Every character is made to be unlikable and it succeeds. There aren't a whole lot of redeeming qualities to this movie, it is exactly what it presents itself to be and at the end of the day that isn't very good. If there is one redeeming, if you want it that, factor it is the weird cynical take on the world is oddly still applicable in 2022, complete with nazis. The Disney characters cheering on the bombing got a good laugh from me too. But this is still mostly trash.

Inviso: This is one of the worst films Ive ever watched. Im a furry, and this was utterly aggravating. Obviously, we have to talk about the animation choices, namely how this whole film feels like the School House Rock animators decided to draw a porno with cats. The visual aesthetic is horrific, and I hate every aspect of it. I do not need to see poorly-drawn, early seventies boob animation from every character, none of whom are the kind of animation youd WANT to see au naturale. But beyond the visuals, the story sucks, and Fritz is an obnoxious fucking douchebag. Hes an over-the-top caricature of a hippie white boy from the late sixties who thinks hes hot shit, but really just drifts along in life. He gets a crow (by the way, way to be racist as hell, movie) killed with his call to arms, then fucks off and ultimately faces no consequences. Despite being involved in the bombing of a power plant, he ends the movie having a fucking orgy. This movies is AWFUL. Across the board.

Outlier Rankings:

Ermine: 61
Inviso: 60
Evillord: 60
Johnbobb: 47
Karo: 41
Red: 41

lol

What the ever-loving FUCK, Ermine of all people (I don't know Evil well enough to judge him).

Anyway, thank God. That's genuinely one of the most unpleasant movies I've ever watched, and it genuinely baffled me to see it survive over poorly-made, but ultimately generic kids movies. Not that I'm gonna outright praise anything out thus far, either. My list basically goes:

40: Worst Ever
39-36: Boring
35-31: Aggressively Stupid
30-27: Still Boring, But Better than Aggrssively Stupid
26-22: Mindless and Harmless
21-12: Slightly Interesting
11-3: Decent
2-1: Genuinely Good

I think it's funny how the actual furries put this all near last place.

Huh

The next 8 movies are all within 7 points. Wowza.

JB if only you could have put Fritz like 7 spots higher, Vis would be having a conniption for like 8 more reveals lol

Zigzagoon posted...

JB if only you could have put Fritz like 7 spots higher, Vis would be having a conniption for like 8 more reveals lol

after the pool ball scene, I was kinda tempted to!

When I was putting my list together I ranked Fritz in the top 10 without a second thought, but at the same time I can't really say I'm shocked to see it place this low. I think it deserves more credit than a 35th place behind two Illumination films just considering its historical importance to animation, but I totally get why anyone would find it unpleasant to watch. Maybe it helps that I've always lamented how American animated movies tend to feel "stuck" being overly kid-friendly, so I appreciate the movie as an earlier example of something that was trying to push against those boundaries. I knew it had to be Inviso's #40 because it's the only movie on this list offensive enough to get that kind of reaction lol.

I don't think R. Crumb's decision to kill off the character really speaks to the adaptation being bad, that guy's head is even further up his own ass than Bakshi's has ever made it. The movie is better in almost every way imo. Most of Fritz' dialog is verbatim from the comics, it's only his little speech right at the end that enraged Crumb, apparently. Fritz is even more despicable in the comics. He's the primary instigator of the abuse of Harriet in the original version. I thought the movie's take on that scene was actually meaningful, because it was the only time in the film that something was so appalling that Fritz, a completely hypocritical and self-serving person, actually took a stand, however weak it was.

The character design is definitely ugly, but between that and the sort of "naturalistic" voice acting, which I actually liked, I thought it had a deliberate aesthetic going for it. The actual animation on the other hand is great, and there are some really visually creative parts, my favorite being Fritz' rant about his exams, where he imagines himself being buried alive in papers. The pool scene where he meets Duke is another great example, it really comes a lot more alive and is much funnier than in the comics, where they were just sitting on bar stools and chatting. The gross sex scenes might actually have bothered me less because I'm gay, I think that entire section of my brain just turned off at those parts. I did like how they animated Fritz' dick bouncing around in that one scene lol

Fritz was one of the movies I didn't have a clue on where to rank. It was just about at the bottom of what I'd watched, but what I hadn't watched was insipid cashgrab sequels and Jimmy Neutron. It tried, was influential and had some genuinely creative parts. On the other hand, it was so viscerally disgusting and thoroughly dislikeable on almost every level that anything other than last feels wrong. I think I may have erred on the side of ranking it around the 34 or 35 mark because it only made me hate the people involved in its production, compared to The Secret Life of Pets 2 which made me hate myself and everyone to ever walk the earth.

I haven't seen Fritz, but if it's really as bad or worse than all the ultra-garbage kids movies on this list then I might have to watch it eventually. I just can't imagine how something people actually liked could be that awful.

I am not bothered by the sex scenes in Fritz, they are laughably tame for today's internet standards. It's just feels like it is made by these edgelords who just want to stuff a blunderbuss full of erotica and stereotyping and fire it as the screen trying to be as offensive as possible but lacking in any direction or purpose. It's just cringey and doesn't work. See South Park for how to do something like this that works a lot better.

Yeah the sex stuff didn't bother me either, but other aspects of it definitely did

34. The Secret Life of Pets 2

Ermine: 2
Red: 18
Inviso: 31
Karo: 35
Johnbobb: 37
Evillord: 37

Total: 160

Ermine: I loved the first film and this one is no exception either. Max is adorable and I love him and Rooster was a fantastic addition to the movie.

I actually think that the idea of a dog going through the stress of having a little kid to look after is a really cool and I WISH that this was more explored throughout the film. What I mean by that is I wish that the whole movie's focus was just on that and got rid of the other side stories that we had to watch. It made the movie feel disjointed and that the writers just wanted to give screen time to the other characters from the first film.

If you take Max's story at the farm with Rooster and make that the whole film, I think it would be awesome... but also likely miss the target audience then. Ah well.

Still, this film makes Max a much more likable character than the first (even though I liked him there too) and Secret Life of Pets is by far and away Illumination's best series, I hope they continue with them, despite how mindless they can be at times! Give me all the dogs.

Red: Secret Life of Pets was one of the more surprisingly decent movies from the last list. The sequel, not so much. We're going on more absurd adventures, we're going to pretend the bunny wasn't a villain and change his character for plot convenience, and everyone is going to get split up because oh god we have to make a sequel and don't know what to do. The characters are still likeable from the first, and that goes a long way to not being low on this list, but we're still suffering some sequelitis like almost half the list.

Inviso: Having made it 3/4 of the way through this list as of this write-up, Ive found that a lot of the sequels from lesser companies (see: not Pixar, kinda Disney/Dreamworks) arethey often feel like quick cash grabs. In the case of Pets 2, the plot feels like its completely all over the place. The first movie was almost entirely around Max feeling like his position was being usurped by a new dog. It was a straight-forward story, with some wackiness and side characters thrown in. Pets 2 felt the need to craft stories for three main characters, and kinda had them come together at the end of the moviebut none of them really feel like they concluded in a decent way.

Max starts out with a story about his owners new kidbut that gets almost completely dropped as the story turns into him overcoming his anxiety. He goes to a farm and meets a sheep dog who trains him, and then the sheep dog leaves with like two thirds of the movie left to go. No real conclusion to HIS story arc other than feeling sad that Max is leaving. Meanwhile, Snowball is pretending to be a superhero and gets enlisted to rescue a captive tiger from the circus, with help from Tiffany Haddish dog. They succeed, but the tiger is tracked down and recaptured, so Snowball (with Max, who is suddenly onboard with this plot after learning of it in the SAME scene as his enlistment) go to rescue the tiger. Much like the sheep dog, Tiffany Haddishs character is missing from the ending, which is weird, given that shes one of the main characters in the film. And finally, Gidget has a whole thing about needing to infiltrate a cat ladys house, so she learns to be a catbut then her plot wraps up easily, and barely needed that whole training sequence, since she uses another solution.

While the plot is super-convoluted, I will give the movie a ton of credit for characterizing the animal characters in a very satisfying fashion (a lot like the original movie). The pets feel like real pets, and the little character moments of animalistic actions are fun and add personality to a film that doesnt hit the plot beats I typically want in a film. The characters are likable, which is more than you can say in a lot of the dumber kids movies on this list.

Karo: The sequel to Illuminations hit-and-miss city animal adventure movie.
Much like the first film, there are three main plots going on simultaneously. One is Gidget trying to recover a lost squeaky toy from the crazy cat lady's apartment, and even though the scenario is kind of arbitrary our little pomeranian puffball again shows why she is the best character in the series.
There also is this extremely dumb story of Snowball becoming a superhero and trying to save a captive circus tiger. While the little bunny has never really been all there mentally, now he has become a complete imbecile on the level of the Minions, and watching him do anything here is extremely excruciating.
But it is the third tale of Max's random farm trip that really makes me uncomfortable, largely due to the introduction of the new character of Rooster the farm dog. Let's just say that if dogs could vote this one would certainly vote for Donald Trump. This wonderful character constantly complains about all the liberal pansy bullshit that the newcomers bring to his farm, such as how they refuse to let a preschooler run around unsupervised and fall off the giant fucking cliff that is apparently right next door.
In one atrocious scene that has aged as well as rancid milk, Rooster literally rips off Max's doggy cone because he thinks protective medical equipment is for pussies.
But the thing that is really bad here is the way the film pushes the idea that Rooster is so cool and awesome and admirable onto the impressible minds of the kids watching the movie. When the main moral of the story is seemingly that our slightly effeminate canine protagonist needs to man up and stop being a little bitch, that is of course going to rub me very the wrong way.
All in all it is an extremely poor followup that learns nothing from what it did wrong and what it did right in the first movie, all while deciding to double down on mostly doing the wrong things, and these parts of the pets lives should have honestly remained secret.

Johnbobb: The first Secret Life of Pets wasn't great. Not terrible, but mostly whatever. But this cash-in, insubstantial sequel is significantly worse, and barely qualifies as a movie. This feels like they tried to make an animated series pilot about Kevin Hart's bunny, but that failed, so they had to squeeze an entire movie runtime out of it. So the literal main character of the movie is sent away on a boring, insignificant B-plot. And Gidget, the funny dog that was really the best part of the first film? She ALSO gets an even more insignificant B-plot.

Evillord: This movie is by Illumination.

Outlier Rankings:

Ermine: 93
Inviso: 63
Evillord: 63
Red: 56
Johnbobb: 50
Karo: 42

OhMyDog

EASY Outlier. Like, the fact that people questioned it.

I'm struggling to think of any way to ask how Ermine got that ranking without being incredibly insulting. I would struggle to find 38 movies which are worse if I tried. At least some explicitly offensive and bigoted movies are fascinating to watch to get a glimpse of what's going on in the heads of some wackos. This one is just insidiously money-grubbing, corporate and sterile, but doesn't even have the decency to be mildly entertaining or even worth analysing the themes of. The fact that someone watched Spiderverse, Isle of Dogs and It's Such a Beautiful Day and thought this was better than at least two of them just blows my mind.

Pets 2 is a vast improvement over the first which unfortunately isn't saying a whole lot. Illumination as a whole is a textbook example of mediocrity in animation. Pretty much all the work they do is competent, but that's about all I can give it any credit for. They struck gold with the first Despicable Me then proceeded to milk it until it ran dry... but that property is the cash cow that always has at least one drop left. Can't wait for Minions 2: Rise of Gru coming to a theater near you in 2022 (but hopefully never really)!

Edit: Actually I do enjoy the Sing movies for what they are. Quite a bit, even.

Sheep007 posted...

I'm struggling to think of any way to ask how Ermine got that ranking without being incredibly insulting. I would struggle to find 38 movies which are worse if I tried. At least some explicitly offensive and bigoted movies are fascinating to watch to get a glimpse of what's going on in the heads of some wackos. This one is just insidiously money-grubbing, corporate and sterile, but doesn't even have the decency to be mildly entertaining or even worth analysing the themes of. The fact that someone watched Spiderverse, Isle of Dogs and It's Such a Beautiful Day and thought this was better than at least two of them just blows my mind.

Ermine likes dogs

HanOfTheNekos posted...

Ermine likes dogs

I count at least two other films with dogs playing a major part in them and one of them is somehow still below SLOP 2.

Ermine really likes that dog.

If you're someone who likes cute animals and cute dogs, then Secret Life of Pets/2 does a good job of creating cute animal characters who behave in a manner the is relatively similar to the behaviors of real animals that one might find cute. As such, it makes sense that someone might find the films appealing if they are an animal lover. I disagree personally, but at least this ranking makes sense for Ermine's sensibilities.

Unlike another top ten entry for him >_>

That one's also easy to explain.

Ermine is Canadian.

ah yes, me and ermine on oppposing sides, the world is going back to normal

and the secret life of pets movies are bad

33. Spies in Disguise

Karo: 18
Inviso: 21
Red: 21
Evillord: 28
Ermine: 32
Johnbobb: 40

Total: 160

Karo: So the main character is a famed superspy who is basically Will Smith playing James Bond, who is an arrogant jackass to his supporting spy crew in just about every way possible. It actually calls to mind Smith's other animated voice role in that movie whose name shall not be spoken. However, the big difference here is that this movie openly acknowledges that his character is a twit, and never tries to force an artificial feeling of pulling for him.
Anyway, a series of events result in Agent Smith being transformed into a pigeon for silly and arbitrary reasons, and this unfortunate incident causes him to need to rely on his eccentric and unappreciated gadget man to both find a cure and to do all the things humans do, and much hilarity ensues as their opposite personalities and philosophies clash.
Blue Sky's last movie turns out to remarkably be one of their best, and despite how utterly stupid the premise of the plot seems at first glance we are given a funny and touching story with excellent performances from everyone involved.
It is a shame that Blue Sky got shut down, what with the decent nature of this film and the potential of the upcoming one, but Di$ney gonna dis I guess.

Inviso: Blue Sky is not exactly a high-minded company when it comes to the animated film products they produce (there is so much toilet humor and weird, gross-out humor in the first half of the film that its genuinely off-putting). However, the concept behind this film is SO weird and unique, and it manages to give a slightly different spin on your classic buddy cop movie plot, that I actually kind of enjoyed it. The back half is a lot stronger than the front half, at least aside from one scene (namely the scene after Sterling turns human again and sends Walter away so he can face the bad guy alonewhich feels poorly-placed in the timeline of the plot for that particular heel turn). I mean, I just appreciated the suave, stylish, popular Sterling having to get schooled by nerdy outcast Walter, all while dealing with life as a pigeon. I think it would only have been better (and admittedly, thats on a curve for sure) if Walter had learned to be cooler as the plot progressed, matching the change in Sterling. Ive been far too down on the movie in this write-up though; it was really interesting and fun for what it was.

Red: Going to take a moment to point out this title is a complete lie. There is a single spy, hes not really in disguise and hes transformed against his will. If I took it by the trailer I'd have assumed all the birds were spies but that was apparently a lie too they are just birds. Some of the actual spy and gadget stuff was actually kind of entertaining, but the main characters endlessly annoying each other is a match that just never feels like it works and drags on for far too long until it is plot convenient.

Evillord: This was another one I thought would be really bad but was actually fine. The plot was extremely predictable but both main characters had weaknesses that were relevant to the story and had changed by the end, so the overall writing was competent. Some of the spy hijinks were fun to watch too.

Ermine: This movie has a LOT of misses and disgusting crap that made it difficult to watch, but there were actually a couple funny and enjoyable moments, which is more than I can say about the movies I ranked below this. Normally I hate slow mo moments since I feel they are overdone, but this movie takes it to the extreme and does them like at least 100 times in the movie that it becomes hilarious. One in particular in the car chase scene was actually pretty great.

I'm focusing on the good stuff because the bad stuff I don't even want to think about. *Shudder*

Johnbobb: this is more will smith butthole than I ever thought I'd have to bother with

Outlier Rankings:

Ermine: 94
Inviso: 75
Red: 69
Evillord: 68
Johnbobb: 57
Karo: 57

Wow, Secret Life of Pets as #2. When I was first submitting my list I thought I might have a shot at biggest outlier since I'm the new guy, but I definitely can't compete with that.

Sheep007 posted...

I count at least two other films with dogs playing a major part in them and one of them is somehow still below SLOP 2.

Hmm, movies on this list with major dog characters include:

• Secret Life of Pets 2, as already covered
• Jimmy Neutron, if robot dogs count
• The Grinch, with almost the exact same model as the SLOP dog and even the same name. Ermine's #1 pick, perhaps?
• Peanuts
• Isle of Dogs
• Farmageddon, where Blitzer accompanies Shaun and the alien on most of their adventure
• Wolfwalkers, if we stretch to include other canines
• And honorable mention to Boy & the World, where the kid hangs around with a farmer and his dog for like a quarter of the film or so

This all adds up to substantial dog representation among these 40 movies, which proves Secret Life of Pets must have done so well because it has the best dog.

I would be shocked if Isle of Dogs wasn't Ziggy's #1. I haven't seen everything on this list so there's a very small chance something could have displaced it, but I know he has a high opinion of Chief, and Wes Anderson in general. Plus no way he'd put Pets 2 over

I would be really shocked if it were anything else.

Also while we aren't too far off from it dropping...Universal here launched a Secret Life of Pets dark ride that I never got to ride due to the pandemic. Apparently it was very well received but I had a pass pre pandemic and then let it expire before returning. Unfortunately Universal Studios Hollywood kind of blows and I can't really justify another ticket or pass until they open Nintendo Land.

Leafeon13N posted...

Also while we aren't too far off from it dropping...Universal here launched a Secret Life of Pets dark ride that I never got to ride due to the pandemic. Apparently it was very well received but I had a pass pre pandemic and then let it expire before returning. Unfortunately Universal Studios Hollywood kind of blows and I can't really justify another ticket or pass until they open Nintendo Land.

The eternal rivalry of Universal Studios and Disneyland on full display, folks.

32. Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs

Ermine: 6
Red: 22
Evillord: 27
Karo: 29
Inviso: 34
Johnbobb: 38

Total: 156

Ermine: I think it's safe to say that this is the best Ice Age movie. I think the first could give it a run for its money for sure, the heart and story of the first would definitely edge it out in those regards but this one actually has some damn good humor in it. It doesn't really care about having a good story and just puts the characters in a ton of funny and stupid scenarios which make you laugh more often than not. Sure there's plenty of duds in terms of jokes, but there's enough hits that I can forgive them for the misses.

Buck is a great character. I wasn't exactly sold on him at first, but good god that Crime Scene scene was incredible. "Leaving broccoli?... a vegetable." Best scene in the movie. A++

One thing that I think animated sequels do a lot is ruin their characters from their previous entries. Thankfully this isn't the case here and all of the main chars stay true to their character and even improve in some ways. I think the opossums were better than their introduction movie... though that might be the fault of the 2nd movie really not being that good at all. Ellie is a more entertaining character. Diego is good. Manny stays about the same and Sid is just Sid.

And then we have the Scrat story going on during the movie. This was fantastic as well. I literally gasped when Scrat pushed Acorn away. I wasn't ready for that kind of plot twist and I could feel Acorn's pain. That whole song and scene with Acorn being dejected and everything was great. Good stuff. I'm glad they got back together.

Red: Did you want more Ice Age? If you did, you got more ice age. The same characters are back, they meet an apparently not one-off character because a sequel releases soon with him in the title, have an adventure avoid death and then everyone is back to one happy family with a new kid. This is pretty standard inoffensive sequel fair for this list. Ice age is what it is; this doesn't try to be anything different; it doesn't really spit on itself; it is just another ice age movie. There are already two more of these, I'd be surprised if they were anything different.

Evillord: I couldn't help but catch this movie forcing itself into a cliched kids' movie plot, especially with the contrived fight between the Mammoth and the Sabertooth, but I wound up liking it more than expected. Buck was funny, and I liked the idea of a secret underground world where Dinosaurs continue to exist long past their time. The set-piece where they had to fight off dinosaurs at the same time as delivering a baby was cool too. The subplot about the two squirrels got kind of tiresome, but I liked how it ended.

Karo: The third Ice Age movie, and by this time they had pretty much given up on any sort of historical accuracy about the time period that these characters are living.
So what happens is Sid kidnaps some T-rex eggs so he can be a mommy, and when the mother dino comes to get them back Sid gets dragged along with them to this totally original underground cavern filled with prehistoric critters. The others want the useless sloth back for some reason, and so they all have to go to his rescue, including a heavily pregnant Ellie, which leads to them having to fight off bloodthirsty velociraptors during an impromptu bout of childbirth. Man, with parents like these no wonder the mammoths went extinct.
The movie is still quite funny, and there is a surprisingly amount of risque humor here for a kids flick. Most of the laughs this time come from the new character of Buck and his deranged hermit antics. Sid is not really that funny when separated from his two comic foils, and in fact most of the old characters don't really bring much to the table this time around. This is now just the Buck the weasel show, folks.
Still, there's something missing here that the first two movies had, the feeling of family between all these outcast weirdos and how they would playfully jibe each other but still care. Buck is a funny guy, but it never really felt like he fit in with all that, and the ending put an emphatic stamp on that notion.
It might not be as good as the first two, but still you could do a lot worse when it comes to animated movies from that decade.

Inviso: This movie was frustrating. Its not that the original Ice Age (or even the sequel) were high cinema or anything like that. But this movie just felt completely devoid of any sense of purpose whatsoever. The first two films had Manny as the main character, dealing with the loss of his family, and the slow re-establishment of Sid, Diego, and Ellie as his new family. Dawn of the Dinosaurs has no main character. All three of Manny, Sid and Diego have an overarching story of moving on in their lives, but all three of them are battling for central focus, which means none of them has a properly-established story. Mannys still a worrywart about his impending baby, Sid wants to have a family of his own and gets involved with a T-Rex mother, and Diego feels like hes losing his edge by hanging around with herbivores. None of this is ever developed enough to warrant its inclusion. Throw in the love story of Scrap and the flying squirrel girl, and you have a film that cares more about being wacky and appealing to children, than it cares about telling a compelling narrative.

Johnbobb: ICE AGE IS NOT A GOOD SERIES STOP MAKING THEM PLEASE I BEG YOU

Outlier Rankings:

Ermine: 120
Red: 78
Inviso: 76
Evillord: 73
Johnbobb: 63
Karo: 60

Three huge outlier scores in the span of four movies, this man is unstoppable

Yup, Ice Age 3 was yet ANOTHER animated sequel (Not unlike Despicable Me 3 and Secret Life of Pets 2, both of which are already out) where the producers thought "We have all these characters from previous movies and kids might be fans of any one of them...but rather than maintain focus on a single main character, we're gonna scattershot the plot across EVERYONE, and add NEW characters into the mix, because we know kids don't care about any sort of coherent narrative". I hate the mindset of "EVERYONE needs to have a major focal point and story arc", because, to paraphrase one of the better Disney/Pixar villains, when everyone is the main character, then NO ONE is the main character.

Despicable Me 3 should have been exclusively Gru dealing with the aftermath of getting unnecessarily fired and trying to get his job back by proving his skills of villainy against Trey Parker. None of the stuff with the girls, none of the stuff with the wife. You can introduce Dru and have him complicate things, and that's fine. But the focus should have been exclusively on Gru. And I get that the movie feels very Gru-centric already, but what I mean is...there shouldn't be extra scenes where Margot is dancing with some local boy and then is mistakenly engaged to him. There shouldn't be extra scenes where Agnes and third girl go hunting unicorns and find a goat. These scenes in particular make the move feel bloated, while not contributing to the central story. It's fine if those plots are told through Gru's lens, because he should be the main character, but they're extremely superfluous when the cast is just having scenes and screentime dedicated to their misadventures without him around.

Same thing with Secret Life of Pets 2. Max should absolutely be the main character, because he's the one who has a character arc over the course of the movie. Gidget and Snowball should have been cutaway gags at best (and Gidget largely was). But Max's anxiety should have been the SOLE focus of the movie. Give him more of a relationship with the kid to amp up that anxiety. Keep Rooster being tough on him as a neurotic city dog, sure, because that helps Max grow. But also, play up the relationship with the kid because Rooster doesn't have that on the farm. His life is not a one-to-one translation with Max's, so you can have scenes of him looking forlorn that he doesn't have what Max has, and he can be a bit more empathetic when the climax of the film comes around. Keep the tiger plot, sure. You can have Snowball and Gidget (who could easily have replaced Tiffany Haddish) trying to rescue the tiger, but then the train takes them to the podunk town where Max's farm is. And one thing leads to another, they free the tiger and go to the farm, but it gets recaptured, and in the process, the kid gets captured. Suddenly, Max needs to put his bravery into action to rescue his child and all the plot threads tie together nicely with Max as a hero.

Ice Age 3, first off, you've gotta get rid of the Diego subplot. It is completely pointless. And Sid's subplot is just dumb altogether. The plot should exclusively be about Manny fretting over being a father again, worrying about Ellie, and then the dinosaurs show up to wreak havoc, and Manny has to rescue Sid (and maybe Ellie's brothers) because he needs to be a protector for his burgeoning family. Similarly to the changes with Max up above, build Manny up as overly worried about safety, and then over the course of the movie, he has to go out of his comfort zone to rescue his adopted family, proving that he's strong and brave enough to handle anything life throws at him with his new child.

All three movies, you just need to center the film solidly around a main character. You can still have goofy little subplots, but you NEED a main character to emotionally ground the story.

Don't a lot of these animated kids movies just exist to push toy and merchandise sales?

The cynic in me says that's the reason why they explode every sequel out with unnecessary characters and plot threads.

31. The Grinch

Ermine: 8
Karo: 21
Inviso: 22
Red: 29
Johnbobb: 36
Evillord: 39

Total: 155

Ermine: This movie plays it INCREDIBLY safe in a way that is almost shameless but the highs of this film are too much for me to pass up. I absolutely love Welcome Christmas as a song and really enjoy the versions of it in this movie. It dials up the emotion and just christmasy feel up to eleven whenever it plays and I wish they just went a BIT further with it in that way. That version of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen was actually pretty fun too, along with that scene.

This is also by far the best Max the dog has ever been. Holy moly did he steal the show for me. What an adorable pupper who deserves all the love. I would have loved to see his relationship with the Grinch a bit more but alas.

Cindy Lou sucks but she always has and the plot/subplot with the kids is just wholly uninteresting. It's a bit of a shame since there's a lot here that hits for me, but a ton that really doesn't and brings the rest of it down. Still fun.

Karo: The latest animated adaptation of the tale of the mean green guy with the undersized blood pump.
Things go pretty much how you would expect, the Grinch hates christmas, wants to steal it, etc, though they do a pretty good job making the Grinch seem human (or whatever he is supposed to be), rather than just some cackling cartoon villain.
The way the main characters behave quite similarly to certain individuals from Despicable Me is quite noticeable and somewhat distracting. You're a mean one, Mr Gru.
There is a lot of fluff in the middle of the movie to pad out the runtime of a story that wasnt really meant to be feature length, and this part of the film really drags on. It is neither original or exceptional, but it is still quite touching, and mercifully Jim Carrey is nowhere to be found.

Inviso: Obviously, the original Grinch (the short TV special based almost verbatim on the Dr. Seuss book) is a classic. This is fine, even though it does run into a lot of the pitfalls inherent in translating a short childrens book into a feature-length film. Theres a lot of filler in terms of building up Whoville as a Christmas village, or Cindy Lou Who as a character of ANY kind (and her subplot about trapping Santa to ask him to help her momwhich is fine in the context of a feature film I guess), or adding an unnecessary reindeer character. But ultimately, the movie is about the sentimentality of Christmas and the Grinch learning about the Christmas spirit and how its more about being with people you care about than the commercialism of the holiday. It is weird hearing them sing Christmas carols, because that implies that the world where these strange Whovillians exist is the same as our world, where Jesus Christ is a thing. Also, Max is absolutely adorable in this, and he is the goodest boy.

Red: In the land of sequels we have a remake. A remake of something that already had a remake even. Have you seen The Grinch before? Yeah, you have? Well congrats because you've seen this movie before. The big problem is that everything this brings new to the script ends up going nowhere and you get the exact ending you've probably seen a hundred times around Christmas before. They had a chance to leave us with more developed characters than either of the prior Grinch movies and then nope. The Grinch just isn't grinchy enough and it makes the ending feel weird and the Grinch less organic.

Johnbobb: why does this exist? who in their right mind thought this needed to exist? It's just How the Grinch Stole Christmas, but longer, uglier, and overall worse.

Evillord: Predictably, this feels like the 20-minute special stretched to feature length that it is, and the extra time is filled with Illumination's hackneyed and boring tropes. At the risk of overanalyzing something so stupid, the big problem with this (and the Jim Carrey Grinch) is that making the Grinch this sad and misunderstood villain is missing the point. The Grinch is a story about redemption that shows how even the world's biggest jerk can learn not to be so shitty if he tries. That doesn't work if he's a secretly nice guy who just needs love.

Outlier Rankings:

Ermine: 143
Inviso: 85
Evillord: 81
Red: 80
Karo: 70
Johnbobb: 68

The Grinch hits its alotted runtime goal and throws out everything to get back to the sane old story in a less organic and less entertaining way.

Also the Grinch Smash leak never had an ounce of credibility and just shows how gullible people are when you feed them something they want. Every leaked character pose could be traced back to a stock image photo on the internet but people were in huge denial.

the grinch what leak