Rotten Tomatoes: 50 Best Animated Films

[jekylljuice]

Perhaps predictably, there's an awful lot of recent and contemporary stuff in that list (only three of the top 10 predate the last two decades)...one of the major weaknesses of Rotten Tomatoes, at least from what I can make out, is that contemporary movies tend to receive a higher volume of critical reviews (understandably, given that they're easier to locate and document than reviews which predate the internet itself), and thus have a better chance of gaining a more impressive-looking tomato-meter all-round, provided that the film is positively received. It would probably be a little hypocritical of me to complain about this, given that so many of my own favourite films (of any genre) tend to hail from either the 80s or the 90s (largely because this is when most of my favourite film-makers have been active), but I thought I'd make a point of any way.

Very few surprises there, for me - not because I agree with all the choices (certainly don't - if I had my way, Shrek, Shrek 2, The Simpsons Movie and a few others wouldn't be anywhere near that list at all) but because I've seen enough "Greatest Animated Movies" lists over the year to be able to predict what'll usually go into them and what won't. There aren't really many dark horses here - the total lack of When The Wind Blows does sadden me, but it certainly doesn't surprise me. It would definitely make my personal Top 10 list of animated flicks, but very few other people seem to have seen it. Well, it's one of those films that only ever gets shown in the early hours around here.

Actually, what does interest me is not so much the movies which have made the list, but the placement order, which seems slightly peculiar. I like Toy Story 2, but I'm kind of surprised that it managed to surpass the original, let alone claim the prime spot - which perhaps has something to do with it having arrived on the scene a bit more recently...then again, I see that Aardman's 2000 film Chicken Run has obtained a higher placement than their 2005 film Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were Rabbit, with which I do not agree, since W&G is an infinitely superior and more characteristic Aardman film in my opinion (CR is good, but nothing too outstanding in my books - certainly not Top 10 material). It also interests me somewhat that The Lion King, a film which everybody else seems to revere, but which I consider to be somewhat overrated myself, missed out on the Top 25. That at least makes a nice change, if nothing else really does.