FANTASY– tag –

My interview with the director of the outstanding French adult animation I Lost My Body is available on the Animation For Adults website here, while my article on the film is available on the AllTheAnime website here. The film itself is ...

(Neo, Uncooked Media) Thanks to his friend, Ryo, the sensitive, weepy Akira is merged with a demon in a blood-drenched orgy. Now he transforms into the berserk hero Devilman, created to save humanity. Or was he? Now on Netflix, Devilman ...

(Sight & Sound, BFI) Towards the climax of the Chinese cartoon Big Fish and Begonia, there’s a watery apocalypse. Huge tubular waterfalls break through clouds and hammer down on the green fantasy realm where most of the film takes pl...

(My review of the 1998 Berserk TV series, published in Neo magazine, is below; my reviews of the film versions are underneath.) In a medieval-style world, as brutal as Game of Thrones, the ragtag Band of the Hawk wins acclaim on the batt...

My review of Kiki's Delivery Service was posted on Anime News Network.

My review of the original 26-part Durarara! series is available on the Neo magazine website, along with my review of the first sequel series, Durarara!! x2 Shou. My Neo review of the second sequel series, Durarara!! x2 Sho, is below. Fol...

(Sight & Sound Magazine, BFI) In recent years, the Japanese animated films which have reached British cinemas have tended to be Studio Ghibli products or films like them, such as The Wolf Children (2013) and Giovanni’s Island (2014)....

(Neo, Uncooked Media - I also made further observations in an article on the film on the AllTheAnime website) Have you seen the series The Tatami Galaxy? If you have, then this film is Tatami Galaxy: The Movie, from the same maverick dir...

(Sight & Sound, BFI) In London, 25-year old Jamie Morgan lives with his mother, Marion. Jamie has birthmarks on his face and body, and feels outcast from society. Hooded gangs commit a spate of murders. Jamie sees the thugs as reptil...

(SFX Magazine, Future Publishing - there are also further reflections on the series in an article I wrote for the MangaUK blog.) Oh, you’re awake. Lie there on the ground for a moment, and listen to me. Welcome to the Afterlife Battlefro...

(Sight and Sound Magazine, BFI) The recent Toy Story 3 featured an opening fantasy sequence in which various oddly assorted toys starred in a madcap adventure that began as a Western train heist and ended with forcefields and porcine spa...

(Neo, Uncooked Media) Grimgar does something unusual and impressive. It tells a fantasy adventure story that’s a small story of everyday, mundane, universal life and death. It’s about kids in a world of magic and monsters, one of the mos...

(Judge Dredd Megazine, Rebellion) The Cabin in the Woods (out now), produced by Joss Whedon, directed by his former Buffy collaborator Drew Goddard, and written by both of them, has had a favourable reception from reviewers. The film is ...

[Whereas I have an entry on the original Kung Fu Panda film in my 100 Animated Feature Films book, here's my review of the third film for Sight & Sound magazine, published by the BFI. I also wrote an article on the film's significanc...

(Sight & Sound, BFI) It’s common wisdom among animators that humans are the hardest species to simulate realistically, because we know the true articles so well. Director Robert Zemeckis takes up the challenge using the same CGI tech...

(Sight & Sound, BFI) Denmark, AD 507. The ageing Norse King Hrothgar holds debauched revels in his drinking hall. These disturb a monstrous giant in the hills above, who attacks the hall and slaughters many of Hrothgar’s people. Hrot...

(SFX Magazine, Future Publishing) Song of the Sea was among the contenders for Best Animated Feature at the Oscars this February. It didn’t win, but now we can finally see it, it’s clear why it was nominated. This is a lovely, crafted fi...

(Sight & Sound, BFI) Shrek Forever After is the fourth, and apparently final, computer-animated film to feature the grumpy green ogre who’s been the unofficial mascot of the Dreamworks studio since the first Shrek nine years ago. The ori...

(Judge Dredd Megazine, Rebellion) “John Carter of Earth? John Carter of Mars sounds much better.” So the titular hero of the planetary-romance screen blockbuster John Carter renounces his birthworld and homo sapiens peers, as Sam Worthin...

(Judge Dredd Megazine, Rebellion) Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale is a completely different kind of “horror.” Directed by newcomer Jalmari Helander, it’s close – though perhaps not close enough, commercially speaking – to Joe Dante fare s...

(Neo, Uncooked Media - I also add further observations in an article on the AllTheAnime website.) Schoolgirl Hitomi is whisked to Gaea, where there be dragons, princesses, cat-girls and a war waged by an enemy fixated on fate. Protected ...

(Sight & Sound, BFI) Disney’s new version of The Jungle Book remakes a 49 year-old cartoon – the 1967 Jungle Book – using post-Avatar technology. Directed by Jon Favreau (Iron Man), the film was largely made in CGI, with the live-act...

(Sight & Sound, BFI) Jack Frost is an ageless boy who delights in freezing the world at winter, but is frustrated that no ordinary people can see him. He’s bundled off to the North Pole to meet the Guardians, protectors of children: ...

(SFX Magazine, Future Publishing) If you saw the Frozen trailers and thought, “Meh, a Disney princess film,” then think again. Frozen is flawed but it’s Disney’s boldest cartoon in ages, sometimes more Stephen King than Snow White. Altho...