Here are Cinephile Corner’s 10 recommendations for animated movies like The Book of Life:
Moana 2
Even as someone who wasn’t enamored with Moana, it’s clear Moana 2 is a significant downgrade. It lacks the heart, charm, and polish of the original, delivering a drab, forgettable experience that feels like it was made on autopilot.
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
Guillermo del Toro and Mark Gustafson’s Pinocchio is a beautiful and marvelous return for the ancient story after the dark places it went to in 2022. The stop-motion is clean and stoic, and the story breaths new life into the wooden child. Guillermo del Toro rarely misses, and this is another example of his gothic stories hitting just the right notes.
Elemental
Elemental acts as a surprising return to the roots of Pixar. It’s a movie with a host of relevant themes and messages rolled into a sincere and effective love story. It’s been a a minute since Pixar landed an original story with such a clear balance of narrative and comedy.
The Super Mario Bros Movie
The Super Mario Bros Movie offers an overflowing amount of family entertainment, but at what cost? It sacrifices story to incorporate as much “Mario” as possible – for better or for worse.
Sing 2
Sing 2 is occasionally more entertaining than the first movie, but it rarely competes with some of animation’s recent bests. Hopefully someday they’ll make Kids Bop-adjacent animal movies that are better than this.
Shrek
Shrek stays winning! I don’t think its in the pantheon of great animated movies this century (Pixar has made movies superior to this just in the last few years), but it’s pretty entertaining and funny for what it strives to be. Mike Myers and Eddie Murphy are terrific voice actors.
Wish
Disney’s newest animated movie Wish proves to be a frustrating and occasionally grating cinematic experience. The sporadic moments of enjoyment, courtesy of lively voice acting and catchy tunes, are overshadowed by the movie’s misguided conceptual foundation and lack of narrative cohesion. Ariana DeBose and Chris Pine shine in an otherwise unworthy film.
Nimona
Nimona tries to strike at the same imaginative core that worked so well for a few of Netflix’s animated releases from a year ago, namely The Sea Beast and Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, but instead comes out overbaked – trying to have its way in so many directions that it just ultimately feels lost within so many ideas.
Toy Story 4
I was certainly in that camp in 2019, always favoring original stories over rehashes of the same material over and over (I’ll probably act the same way when Toy Story 5 nears because I clearly haven’t learned my lesson). Toy Story 4 quickly expels any notion that it shouldn’t exist – the different themes and new characters actually make the franchise as engaging as ever.
Strange World
It’s not that Strange World is bad, it just should’ve been much better. The movie has a third act with its positives (I particularly liked the main twist that I’ll avoid spoiling in this review, but it gave me some nice food-for-thought), but not enough to redeem a story that takes too long to set up without much fun or promise. Jake Gyllenhaal and Dennis Quaid lead a mixed voice cast.
