Hello to the remaining who actually care. I am really sorry for not being able to post this on new Years……. or January…….. or early February. One of the main reasons why this was stalled was that I could not find a copy of The Star to watch before the deadline that I set for myself, and……. I still can’t find a copy of it, so I am forced to leave it out. Another main reason is that 2017 was such an uninspiring year for animation, so having to relive it for this post was more draining than I could handle at the moment. Anyways, the films I am including are:
The Lego Batman Movie
The Boss Baby
Rock Dog
Smurfs: The Lost Village
Captain underpants: The First Movie
Cars 3
Despicable Me 3
The Emoji Movie
The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature
The Lego Ninjango Movie
My Little Pony Movie
Coco
Ferdinand
Also, I am not going to use the same formula that I’ve used for the last 4 years, since I simply do not have the energy, and it is ridiculously lengthy, since half of it I already said in my reviews. Since there are 13 movies, I am going to go with the middle film (7th place), and then go from the 6th worst, to the 6th best, 5th worst to the 5th best, so on and so forth.
Honestly, this film is probably one of the more forgetful ones. It was clear that this film was a product of Warner Bros trying to capitalize off The Lego Movie, and it was even worse, when The Lego Batman Movie was released earlier in the year. It was so obvious that this film was setting up a formula with the obnoxious comedy for most of the film, while trying to pull at the strings, but it didn’t do it in an organic or an interesting manner that made it stand out. There isn’t really anything that is BAD about it, but there really isn’t anything that is GOOD, or at least MEMORABLE. For a comedy, the humour is weaker than most of the movies that I have ever seen, which is a HUGE flaw.
The next few films are separated only by a few percentage points, so it really says a lot about the output this year. The film is overall fine, the characters are overall fine (though very lackluster), and there is some charm in the film. Nothing horrible, but nothing good either really. I do think this film has more pacing issues and weaker animation than The Lego Ninjango movie though.
Rinse, and repeat about what I said about the other two films, and put it in here. There is some charm in here, nothing really bad, but nothing really good. My main critique is that the format of the movie would fit a lot more better on television, and the transition to film is not a good one. The characters are really weak, and the animation, as well as the settings are pretty interesting. There was a lot of potential in this film, but it was not fully realized.
I know many people (including myself) are peeved that this movie is an Oscar nomination, but it was no shock to me. It was one of the only films that made a financial profit noticeable enough to the general public, it became a franchise, and DreamWorks needed something to push to the awards. Regarding the actual film, I really like the message and the essence of childhood and imagination that is covered in the film, but they use it to form a bunch of conveniences and contrivances that made the film worse, and kind of used the excuse that it’s imaginary to not make sense. A lot of the jokes fell flat, and behind the message that had so much potential, the film just failed overall. You can have a brilliant concept, but if the concept is horribly portrayed on film, and cannot be well-paced, it does not matter. Overall, it has the same flaws as My Little Pony, but with more annoyances.
Like the other four films, this film suffers from relatively the same flaws, but this one is better because the humour is not as bad as the others, the pacing is not as horrible as the others, and the characters aren’t as flat. There is a lot more footing that this film has, but that does not mean that this film is a particularly strong one. It generally suffers from what a lot of franchise films suffer from. Nothing remarkable, and you can tell that this film was just following a checklist and formula.
Borring, but not abbhorent to watch, which is what I’ve said for damn near every film thus far. This film does have a lot more characterization and pacing issues, so it is lower than the others. Much better than the live action hybrids, but that is not saying much, and they blew the opportunity to really make this world stand out in a brilliant manner.
Cars 3 was everything I was expecting it to be. A lot of emotional moments, great pacing, and developed a car world as much as it could develop it. It was the sequel that the second film should have been like, and with the lineup of this year, it stands out a lot. Of course it does not get the academy nominations because it is a Pixar sequel, and for some reason, people thought Boss Baby was brilliant. It did kind of put an end to the Cars franchise with it’s disappointing numbers, so I am grateful for that. Good film, but not great.
The predecessor to this film was the first film I ever reviewed when it was live for my yearly reviews, and I was expecting the worst with this film. Luckily, they improved on a lot of the criticisms that many people made (especially with the animation, and unlikable characters), and it’s a good thing. Despite that, this film is still pretty bad with horrible pacing, lots of filler, and the characters were still flatter than crepes. Don’t get me wrong, the film is still painfully unfunny, the characters are horrible, and I am still slightly confused with the setting. Overall, this film should have never been made, and it didn’t retool enough to stand out in a positive manner.
I am going to address the elephant in the room regarding it being snubbed in the awards. To be honest, I saw it coming, since it was one of DreamWorks’ least financially successful films (around Spirit levels), and there is already a distaste for DreamWorks, even with the good films. This film executed the childhood imagination and the world of being little better than The Boss Baby did, and it really does help that it was paced well, and the characters are charming enough. It does character development pretty well, and developing the setting, but there are times that things gets a bit too random, and the last third gets a bit too jumbled up for my liking.
Everyone knows why this film is bad, and it has become a trend to bash this film relentlessly, which I am just not interested in. Lazy storytelling, lazy characterization, weird animation at times, and the film was just boring and uncomfortable.
I am shocked that this ended up tying with Coco for #1, but it makes sense. Neither film are amazing, but there is a lot of greatness in it. Emotion, depth, strong characterization, nice humour, and great pacing. It is sad that the entire franchise is falling flat on its face so soon afterwards, and this film ended up underperforming.
I’m gonna keep this one relatively simple; I should have kept this film off the list like everyone else did. I can barely even conceptualize my thoughts on this film, since it is just a waste of everyone’s time. This film is just bad in ever single avenue.
There really is no contest, but this ended up tying with The Lego Batman movie. I do not think this was one of Pixar’s best movies, and despite the themes and story being really good, I found the main character to be way too annoying for a majority of the film, which did hold it back for me.
At least this list is done before the Academy season ended. Hopefully 2018 is a lot more interesting, though it seems to be the year of sequels.
I was pretty surprised by your pick for the worst film, because I’d honestly forgotten Rock Dog existed. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, or both.
I forgot about it until I looked up through the archives too. I was definitely blindsided as well with it being last, but it was just boring in all of the awful ways.
animatedkid 
Always look forward to this list!
Whoa, Rock Dog was worse than Emoji Movie?
Thanks!
I forgot that it ended up being the case. Probably because the Emoji hate got so tiring that I might have been a bit easier on it than most.
I was pretty surprised by your pick for the worst film, because I’d honestly forgotten Rock Dog existed. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, or both.
I forgot about it until I looked up through the archives too. I was definitely blindsided as well with it being last, but it was just boring in all of the awful ways.