A REVIEW OF THE 2013 ACADEMY AWARD NOMINEES FOR BEST ANIMATED PICTURE

We finished watching all the movies up for the Oscar for best animated picture.
It sadly isn’t 2009 when four of the five films could’ve/should’ve won (in addition to winner Up, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Coraline and The Secret of Kells)

Nor is it like so many years when no really good animated movies were made.

The nominees for 2013 are OK. None are classics like Wall-e, Up, or the Incredibles.
None are embarrassing “we gotta nominate something” juvenile, toilet-humor filled trash (Shrek, Kung-Fu Panda, Lil & Stitch). But as if it matters, here’s what I think:

PARANORMAN
It almost lost me during the extended zombie-chase scene, but ParaNorman has an interesting plot with some good twists and exciting graphics, three ingredients for a good movie/Oscar winner.

WRECK-IT RALPH
By far the most original premise of the lot, Wreck-it Ralph could take prize too (again, interesting plot, good twists, exciting graphics). I personally dislike Sarah Silverman, which why it isn’t at the top of the list for me. But I’m not in the Academy so it doesn’t matter.

FRANKENWEENIE
Eerily similar in plot to ParaNorman (a boy and dead things), Frankenweenie is -I thought- overly macabre (a boy and his dead dog).  It just didn’t do it for me.

PIRATES! BAND OF MISFITS
I thought this would be good, and it just wasn’t. The whole premise -pirates!- started off promising, then they decided to go to England. Want to make a boring movie? Have it take place in England. Claymation is cool, but it lacked good twists.

BRAVE
Really didn’t like Brave. Neither original nor fun nor exciting, it’s a paint-by-the-numbers children’s movie with an overly obvious ‘message’ at the end. Snore.