OVP: Best Animated Feature Film (2023)
The Nominees Were...
Hayao Miyazaki & Toshio Suzuki, The Boy and the Heron
Peter Sohn & Denise Ream, Elemental
Nick Bruno, Troy Quane, Karen Ryan, & Julie Zackary, Nimona
Pablo Berger, Ibon Cormenzana, Ignasi Estape, & Sandra Tapia Diaz, Robot Dreams
Kemp Powers, Justin K. Thompson, Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, & Amy Pascal, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
My Thoughts: The recent decline in Disney as a box office powerhouse (you have to go back to Toy Story 4 and Frozen II in 2019 to find cartoons that you could call unqualified hits from the Mouse House) has left a lot of openings here in recent years. Movies like Strange World or Wish surely would've made the cut in this category in a normal year based on buzz alone, but given they were giant flops, the category is starting to look elsewhere. I'm curious headed into this upcoming year, with two sequels to major movies (Inside Out 2 and Moana 2) if they are able to recover, but as of now, they had a few nominees that were clearly intended to be cited here, but never made it.
But Disney managed to avoid catastrophe in 2023 by at least getting one nomination, here for the slow-burn Elemental (since the pandemic, somehow their highest-grossing animated film even if it was greeted with a yawn on opening weekend). It looks beautiful (though nowhere near as good as some of Pixar's best, but that's playing on a tough scale), and I loved the romance at the center feeling genuine to the story. But it also is so tired at this point. The metaphors are belabored, and literally every Pixar film since The Good Dinosaur has been some version of "parents don't understand" (Inside Out 2 looks likely to continue this trend)...does a studio that made unlikely children's classics out of a robot at the end of the world and an old man finding adventure in a floating house no longer have any other ideas?
The film of this bunch that actually made the most money was Across the Spider-Verse, a movie that when it came out was hailed as a potential Best Picture nominee, but ended up not even winning this category. The film, like Elemental, looks great (the effects are mesmerizing), but it's also an incomplete thought. How can you tell this is a good movie when there's no second half to it...I feel like I deserve a proper ending before I can grade it, and the increasingly manic nature of the movie, with unnecessary expositional dialogue and too many characters, feels like a "more is better" approach that doesn't bear out in reality. I'll be real here-I feel like the people who heaped praise on this were more dazzled than impressed, because there's not enough to this for it to get the plaudits it received.
Nimona, a film that almost got lost in a series of mergers (at one point this was a Disney movie, and unlike Wish, it actually got an Oscar nomination), but I'm glad it escaped the collapse of Blue Sky. The movie's queer plot lines are refreshing-you don't get to see this kind of representation in animated films often, though it doesn't break a lot of new ground with the plot. I also had a bit of a crush on Riz Ahmed's Ballister, the best vocal performance in the picture. It feels like it has more to say, which is a pity because at Netflix it won't get to do that, but this is a fun action-adventure.
Robot Dreams is not going to win any awards for being the most beautiful animation in this field (it'd come in fifth on that front), but this category isn't just about pretty pictures. The substance matters too, and Robot Dreams is weirdly profound. In a world where we have become increasingly isolated, and many of our friendships are conducted exclusively through text or social media, this movie captures that feeling, and the idea that what we all fear most in the world is dying alone. It's really poignant, and of the films here, despite the cutesy design, the most mature in its messaging.
Hayao Miyazaki came out of retirement to make this film, and like Robot Dreams, really isn't for children (or at least, children aren't going to understand all of this plot). The way that the film makes a metaphor come to life (how we'd rather leave the world behind than admit someone we love is gone) is fantastic, and I left enamored on that front. But I do think that this is lesser Miyazaki, and especially in the last thirty minutes it tries too hard to shove all of the ideas in, as if Miyazaki is making multiple movies at once. It's quite good, and it's Miyazaki so it's going to be moving & ethereal (the score is solid too), but I wish that it had had more structure.
Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes went with The Boy and the Heron as their winner, besting Elemental, Spider-Verse 2, Suzume, The Super Mario Bros. Movie, & Wish, while the BAFTA Awards also went with The Boy and the Heron atop Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget, Elemental, & Spider-Verse 2. At the time, the only one I missed in predictions was Robot Dreams, and while I predicted Suzume, my gut actually now says that something like Chicken Run 2 (which totally would've made it with a theatrical run) or the unusual approach of The Peasants (again, which would've had a better shot with a proper theatrical run) makes more sense.
Films I Would Have Nominated: This is maybe the weakest field of animated contenders I've seen since the 2000's...Oscar came up with a list that was middling, but it's not like the industry gave them much choice otherwise. The one name I would've liked to have seen here was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, a surprisingly choice and funny reimagining of the 1990's cartoon, but there's no film in 2023 that feels like a HUGE miss from Oscar.
Films I Would Have Nominated: This is maybe the weakest field of animated contenders I've seen since the 2000's...Oscar came up with a list that was middling, but it's not like the industry gave them much choice otherwise. The one name I would've liked to have seen here was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, a surprisingly choice and funny reimagining of the 1990's cartoon, but there's no film in 2023 that feels like a HUGE miss from Oscar.
Oscar’s Choice: At the time people thought it was a contest between Spider-Verse 2 and The Boy and the Heron, and I'm so glad that Oscar had the good sense in a weak year to think "Miyazaki should have two Oscars" and gave it to the latter.
My Choice: I'm going to go with Robot Dreams, which I think is the most poignant and ultimately the film I liked the best, over The Boy and the Heron, a movie that I might've voted for given it was the only film that had a shot other than Spider-Verse, but ultimately in a vacuum I have to admit Robot Dreams is better. Behind them are Nimona, Spider-Verse, and in last Elemental, which means in the most recent four years, I have put a Disney film in last place three times. Dark times underneath Cinderella's castle, indeed.
And that's our Animated Feature film race. Do you want to join me in making an animatronic friend, or do you want to fly away with Miyazaki? Do you think Disney will get its groove back in 2024? And was it The Peasants, Suzume, or Chicken Run 2 in sixth place? Share your thoughts below!
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