James and the Giant Peach (1996)
Dec 1, 2000Fantastical Journey/Stop-Motion Animation/Roald Dahl Adaptation
Henry Selick's follow-up to The Nightmare Before Christmas, a Roald Dahl adaptation filled with enormous visual creativity
Karey Kirkpatrick
Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves! (1997)
Jul 30, 2000Miniaturised Adventures
The second sequel to Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. Things are feeling uninspired where this just repeats the first film where he it is the adults that are shrunken
The Little Vampire (2000)
Oct 29, 2000Children's Vampire Film
The film version of a popular series of children’s books about a buy who befriends a young vampire kid. Lightweight and likeable enough
Chicken Run (2000)
Jun 25, 2000Aardman Animation/Talking Chicken Escape Movie
The first full-length Claymation film from the UK's Aardman Animations. With typical Aardman eccentricity, this is a parody of a WWII escape film conducted with talking chickens
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (2005)
May 2, 2005Gonzo SF
The big-budget film version of The Hitch Hiker’s Guide phenomenon is a disaster that fumbles Douglas Adams’s absurdist wit and blows everything up with big-budget effects and a pitch to American audiences
Charlotte’s Web (2006)
Feb 11, 2007Talking Barnyard Animals
Charlotte's Web gets the Babe treatment and is turned into a live-action film with CGI barnyard animals and name actors. Here the enormous charms of the original are replaced by cute and mawkish cues
Over the Hedge (2006)
Jun 21, 2006Animation/Talking Animals
Likeable DreamWorks animated film filled with much slapstick energy about a group of talking animals that venture into a housing estate in search of food
The Spiderwick Chronicles (2008)
Apr 21, 2008Secret World of Magical Creatures
Film version of a popular series of children's books that has a good deal of fun bringing to life a secret world of trolls and goblins
Imagine That (2009)
Mar 3, 2010Stock Predictions from a Child's Invisible Companions
Eddie Murphy in a script from the Bill and Ted writers should have been a riot but what we get is another of the lame flops that marked Muprhy's career in the 2000s in which he is a broker who gets stock tips from his daughter's security blanket
The Smurfs 2 (2013)
Aug 11, 2013Cute Blue-Skinned Creatures
The first film was vaguely passable but this is an agonising piece of commercial product that has reduced everything to lazy slapstick sequences, cutsie laughs and smartass lines played for the single-digit age groups
Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget (2023)
Dec 30, 2023Aardman Animation/Talking Chicken Caper Film
After 23 years, Aardman Animation make a sequel to their first feature film. Another chicken caper film where they try to capture some of its dotty charms and largely succeed