David (2025)

Let's see: a biblical animation with the same distributor as The King of Kings, released in the same year, with the same IMDb rating. But this one's a musical set in the Old Testament without narration. Would it feel more like a spiritual successor to The Prince of Egypt?

The story begins shortly before Bethlehem shepherd David (Brandon Engman, later Phil Wickham) gets anointed by prophet Samuel (Brian Stivale) as a future king and ends when the Israelites formally recognize his kingship. When not contending with the powerful Philistines and creepy Amalekites who hope to enslave his people, his antagonist is King Saul (Adam Michael Gold), who now cares more about holding onto power than following the Lord's guidance.

100 Meters (2025)

I continue my incidental pattern since April 2025 of watching at least one animated movie per month. This one's my first anime since October, and it continues another incidental pattern: animes that are neither fantasy nor sci-fi. Considering how I used to think that all anime was too weird, I can't complain.

The most focal character herein is Togashi, at three points in his life: sixth grade, high school, and ten years after. In each chapter, he's an excellent sprinter, but his attitude toward the sport isn't stable. Sometimes he thinks it'll solve all his problems, sometimes he loses interest, and sometimes he falls to pieces over an inability to stay on top.

The Secret Life of Pets (2016)

Yeah, it's been less than a month since my last talking animal cartoon review. This one, despite numerous award nominations and a few minor wins, gets a mostly middling reception. So why did I bother to see it, especially after a decade? Because I was in the mood for something short (86 minutes) and cute.

Max (Louis C.K.), a Jack Russell, basically enjoys life in Manhattan until owner Katie (Ellie Kemper) brings home a large rescue Newfie, Duke (Eric Stonestreet), prompting covetous competition. An outdoor kerfuffle results in both of them losing their collars and getting caught by dogcatchers. Before they can reach the pound, a gang of sewer-dwelling, human-hating abandoned pets busts a member out of the van, and Max and Duke persuade lead rabbit Snowball (Kevin Hart) to take them too. When their overture of rebellion proves false and they accidentally cause the demise of the biggest and nastiest ex-pet while escaping, Snowball becomes determined to hunt them down. As the two dogs seek a way home, Gidget (Jenny Slate as yet another small fluffy white critter), a neighboring Pom with a crush on Max, organizes a search squad of various pets.

Perhaps most useful to the search is antiheroic hawk Tiberius (Albert Brooks), tho he's not as acquainted with Max as most of the others. Chloe the cat (Lake Bell) stands out for pretending not to care as much as she does. Pops the basset (Dana Carvey) may be old and paraplegic, but he knows a few key points. Frequently present if less important are Buddy the dachshund (Hannibal Buress), Mel the pug (Bobby Moynihan), Sweetpea the budgie (Tara Strong), and Norman the lost guinea pig (Illumination Entertainment mainstay Chris Renaud). The gang members are too numerous to list, but I'll mention Tattoo (Michael Beattie), a highly inked pig.

Not exactly an epic tale; most events take place before Katie comes home for the day. It sure doesn't take long for a shared crisis to get Max and Duke to soften toward each other, with only a slight echo of their prior hostility around the start of Act 3. After all, the story tries to be heartwarming when it's not going pure comedy or adventure. Even Snowball is more redeemable than Lulu.

The comedy aspect gets priority. It usually takes the form of pets fulfilling stereotypes, pets defying stereotypes, slapstick, or vulgarity. On the last part, eh, it could be worse. Dont expect much of interest from the humans.

TSLoP is almost exactly what the ads led me to expect. Indeed, it borders on predictable, never trying for innovation. That's not altogether a bad thing when you choose a movie. I probably won't bother with the sequel, but I got what I came for.

The Bad Guys 2 (2025)

Huh, once again, I watch an entry in the series when it's newly streaming on Netflix. The two are almost tied in general reception, with possibly a slight advantage to the sequel. And I was in the mood for a cartoon.

Even if you didn't watch the first movie, you shouldn't have trouble catching up to speed or be surprised that the titular five friends -- Mr. Wolf (Sam Rockwell), Mr. Snake (Marc Maron), Miss Tarantula (Awkwafina), Mr. Shark (Craig Robinson), and Mr. Piranha (Anthony Ramos) -- are trying to be good, but their criminal history hurts their job searches. Things get worse when someone frames them for a set of high-profile thefts. The so-called "Phantom Bandit" turns out to be three Bad Girls, who want the quintet's help to steal a rocket. Their leverage: a video that reveals the dark past of Governor Diane Foxington (Zazie Beetz). The Bad Guys reluctantly agree to "one last heist," but will they be tempted back to a life of crime?

Little Amélie or the Character of Rain (2025)

No, nothing to do with the 2001 Amélie. I hadn't heard of this hand-drawn adaptation from a book until its nomination for Best Animated Feature. For once, I went to a theater at a time I'd normally be having lunch, figuring I wouldn't be too hungry after 78 minutes.

In 1969, Amélie is born the third child to Belgian parents staying in Japan. For her first two years, she is outwardly unresponsive. Then she spends six months raging at her limitations, until her grandmother and a new nanny, Nishio, daughter of landlady Kashima, show her understanding and teach her to enjoy life. Alas, Grandma isn't long for this world, and Kashima's wartime grudge against Belgium leads her to discourage Nishio from spending much time around Amélie. What's more, Dad's job means they may have to move back to Belgium any week, despite Amélie self-identifying as Japanese. (I won't list voice actors, because none of the names for English or French mean anything to me.)

Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993)

I know it hasn't been long since my last superhero movie, but this one promised to be rather different. Besides, people have long told me it's one of the best Batman animated features, if not the best ever, and I never saw it offered on Netflix when I looked. When YouTube suggested it, I couldn't resist for long.

A creepy new vigilante (masked voice by Stacy Keach) has been hunting down and killing unthemed Gotham mob bosses. Unlike Holiday in The Long Halloween, Phantasm keeps getting mistaken the superficially similar Batman (Kevin Conroy). Commissioner Jim Gordon (Bob Hastings) doesn't believe it, but City Councilman Arthur Reeves (Hart Bochner) sends the police after Batman with authorization of deadly force.

Zootopia 2 (2025)

I had been looking forward to this sequel at least as much as I had to Inside Out 2. When I learned that it would feature a good-aligned snake, I grew even eagerer. So I talked my parents into joining me at a theater. (If you go to a family movie in December, expect an obscene number of ads. I finished my candy before the first preview.)

Within a week after the last scene of Zootopia, lapine Officer Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin) and her new ZPD partner, reformed vulpine hustler Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman), are losing their heroic public image and the support of Chief Bogo (Idris Elba), thanks to Judy's highly irregular, reckless approach to crime fighting and Nick's complementary unserious attitude. It gets worse when they start aiding and abetting Gary De'Snake (Ke Huy Quan), a pit viper who steals a city treasure that he believes holds a secret that will vastly improve life for the marginalized reptiles in Zootopia. Crime boss Milton Lynxley (David Strathairn) wants to keep that secret at any price, and he pressures new mayor Brian Winddancer (Patrick Warburton) into authorizing a deadly hunt for the rogue cops.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (2023)

I hadn't seen any big-screen TMNT outing since the abortive Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III more than 30 years ago. The latest entry got my attention mainly when the first trailer met with very mixed reactions, presumably because it emphasized the teenage aspect at the expense of coolness. Nonetheless, reviews of the actual movie have been positive overall, and I was willing to take a chance on an alternate version for a new generation.

After rogue scientist Baxter Stockman (Giancarlo Esposito) accidentally spills mutagenic ooze into a New York sewer, four anthro-reptilian brothers spend their first 15 years enjoying human culture in secret, albeit not as stealthily as adoptive anthro-rat Splinter (Jackie Chan) would like. When they unwittingly cause aspiring high school journalist April O'Neil (Ayo Edebiri) to lose her moped to a thief, they finally use their ninja training for good and gain a human ally. She and they both want to gain popularity by foiling serial robber Superfly (Ice Cube), but that gets complicated when they discover that he and his closest minions are fellow mutants out to create more mutants. Can the turtles hope to take them on? Do they even want to fight their likeliest comrades to protect humans, some of whom, under a shady project leader (Maya Rudolph), have nasty plans for the turtles?

Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker (2000)

I ignore most direct-to-video movies, but this one caught my attention via YouTube ads, and it turns out to be pretty popular. Having watched just a little of the Batman Beyond TV series, I had some idea of what to expect. And this wouldn't be the first time I counted a Batman animation among my Halloween season viewings.

In an unspecified future, when a cane-needing Bruce Wayne (Kevin Conroy) publicly resumes his leadership at Wayne Enterprises, he could swear he helped bury a dead Joker (Mark Hamill) about 40 years ago. Yet the party crasher before him looks and sounds exactly the same -- not even any older. Unable to explain this, Bruce wants to dissuade his successor, Terry McGinnis (Will Friedle), from continuing to be Batman. But somehow the Clown Prince of Crime must know both secret identities, because he heads for Bruce while his minions (including one with a Halloween theme, incidentally) go after an uncostumed Terry....

The Black Cauldron (1985)

When I read Lloyd Alexander's The Book of Three, it didn't make me want to read the immediate sequel by this title. And by all accounts, the adaptation from both novels was one of the worst Disney animations. Nevertheless, I got curious to judge for myself. Besides, I wanted to break up my October viewings with something gothic yet ostensibly family-friendly.

Adolescent Taran (Grant Bardsley) longs to be a warrior but must settle for assisting old Dallben (Freddie Jones) in the care of spoiled pig Hen Wen. The job gets less boring when Hen Wen panics over a prophetic vision, readable by means of water and magic. The ancient undead Horned King (John Hurt) has learned of Hen Wen and sent minions to coerce her to reveal the location of a legendary cauldron that can reanimate his skeletal army, enabling world domination. Taran tries to take the pig where she won't be found, but it wouldn't be much of a story if he succeeded.

Perfect Blue (1997)

This was one of the last items on my Netflix queue before the disc service discontinued. Once I saw that it was replaying at a local theater, I leapt at the opportunity. In truth, I'd been putting it off before, because people warned me it was grittier than the cover made it look. But anime fans deem it a classic, and I had enjoyed director Satoshi Kon's Tokyo Godfathers, Millennium Actress, and to a lesser extent Paprika.

In her early 20s, Mima (Junk Iwao) gets tired of being in a pop trio and takes up acting instead. Her agent, Tadokoro (Shinpachi Tsuji), nabs her a role on a mystery TV series, with increasing airtime. Some fans are displeased with her career shift, and hostile messages are followed by substantial violence against people involved. The prime suspect is a freaky stalker known as "Mr. Me-Mania" (Masaaki Ōkura), but he's not the only cause of trouble in Mima's life. Under stress, she starts to imagine her pop persona as a separate, impish being out to supplant if not kill her....

Elio (2025)

As has become all too common for Pixar, this gets mixed reviews. From what I gathered, the strongest complaints pertained to earlier plans to gay-code the 11-year-old protagonist; people either resented the change or thought it wasn't complete enough. I decided that the best approach was to forget all about the reported rough draft while watching.

We don't know how Elio Solís (Yonas Kibreab) lost his parents, but he doesn't cope well, and caretaker Aunt Olga (Zoe Saldaña) expresses so much frustration that he assumes nobody on Earth wants him. He repeatedly tries to signal for aliens to take him away -- and finally makes contact, via Olga's Air Force equipment, with the Communiverse, akin to a galactic UN. Believing that Elio leads Earth, the ETs beam him up and send a shapeshifting doppelganger back. But under the circumstances, they will not let him stay on as an ambassador unless he can talk envious warlord Grigon (Brad Garrett) into not taking over the Communiverse. Elio's best hope lies in Grigon's friendly young son, Glordon (Remy Edgerly).

Ne Zha (2019)

I had heard of this year's sequel only when looking up box office records, and then I saw that the original broke some too. I'm sure the vast majority of ticket sales for each were in their native land. Still, their ratings are strong, so I got curious how well they might appeal to an American animation fan. NZ1 is less popular, but I like to start at the beginning.

In old China, Taoist god Yuanshi Tianzun sees fit to split the Chaos Pearl, a powerful monster, into the Spirit Pearl and the Demon Orb, the latter of which he curses to celestial destruction in three years. He tells apprentice Taiyi Zhenren to infuse Ne Zha, the soon-to-be-born royal son of Li Jing and Lady Yin, with the Spirit Pearl. Jealous co-apprentice Shen Gongbao swipes that pearl for new dragon prince Ao Bing, leaving the Demon Orb for the other baby. Although Ne Zha is widely feared and apparently doomed to early death, his parents insist on raising him with Taiyi's training, albeit in isolation. They hope that shielding their son from the whole truth will make him better and happier, but lies rarely form an effective long-term solution, especially in the face of Shen's unorthodox approach to pursuing godhood....

Flushed Away (2006)

The very starting premise of a rat going down a toilet turned me off, but an acquaintance assured me the excremental gags are very few and relatively tasteful. He also found the movie moderately funny, especially for the running(?) gag of a cappella slugs. I still didn't get the gumption to watch until Netflix said it would stop streaming at the end of the month.

In modern Kensington, ratty Roddy (Hugh Jackman, playing at least two Brits that year) seems to enjoy life as a pet who gets the ritzy apartment to himself for most of the day. Then a slovenly sewer rat (Shane Richie) moves in, and Roddy's attempt to return him to the sewer backfires. Roddy ends up in a bustling underground town with a mostly rodent population. He takes advice to seek the assistance of sailor Rita (Kate Winslet) in getting home, but first they must contend with having run afoul of The Toad (Ian McKellen), a mob boss with a chronic hate-on for rats despite some of them (Andy Serkis, Bill Nighy, and Christopher Fairbank) being his underlings.

KPop Demon Hunters (2025)

This may be the most on-the-nose movie title since Snakes on a Plane. I wondered if it would be similarly stupid in a self-aware way. When I saw that it was partly comedic and had a warm reception, I took a chance on it.

Korean pop girl group HUNTR/X, consisting of never-relaxing lead singer Rumi (Arden Cho for speech/Ejae for singing), dour dancer Mira (May Hong/Audrey Nuna), and eager-to-please rapper Zoey (Ji-young Yoo/Rei Ami), has a rare secret reason for performing: Their music and extreme popularity reinforce a mostly invisible barrier to keep soul-sucking demons out of the land. They also use mystical melee weapons to kill demons they meet on the wrong side of the barrier. They are on the verge of fully sealing away Demon Lord Gwi-Ma (Lee Byung-hun) when things start to go wrong. First Rumi's voice keeps cracking in rehearsals. Then a faux-friendly, disguised demon band, the Saja Boys, debuts to steal their fans, and the heroines don't dare fight in public. Then Saja Boys leader Jinu (Ahn Hyo-seop/Andrew Choi) discovers compelling evidence that Rumi had a demon parent, which she hasn't told even Mira and Zoey -- but Jinu doesn't either, because he now feels kinship with Rumi. Their interactions become...complicated....

Lost in Starlight (2025)

I don't think I ever saw a South Korean animation of any length before. This new one is presently the most popular on IMDb. I did not know it was Korean when I tuned in; I just thought it looked interesting.

In 2051, Nan-young (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan) has been training for a mission to Mars, but since her mother died there 25 years ago and she keeps getting lost in flashbacks, she is not the space agency's top choice. In the meantime, she literally bumps into Jay (Justin H. Min), an amateur singer-guitarist whose music she digs. Gradually, they fall in love, despite her determination not to form an earthly attachment. He's none too keen on her following her dream either, tho she does inspire him to return to his rock band.

Blue Giant (2023)

This title is better known for a manga series. Indeed, the film adaptation doesn't get its own Wikipedia page; it rates merely a few paragraphs on the manga's page. Nonetheless, it enjoys high ratings on IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes, so I got curious.

At 18, Dai (Yuki Yamada) moves in with long-time friend Shunji (Amane Okayama) in modern Tokyo, hoping to succeed as a largely self-taught saxophonist. He discovers Yukinori (Shotaro Mamiya), a same-age yet mature jazz pianist who started taking lessons at age four. They take to practicing together, and Shunji joins in as a complete tyro of a drummer. Despite Yukinori's misgivings, they perform publicly as a trio called JASS. (Hey, it's Japan, where many adults have never heard jazz.)

The King of Kings (2025)

Modern movies with a biblical focus tend to be either reputedly dippy or heretical if not blasphemous. From what I read, this would be neither. It gets high audience scores and mixed critic scores; Metacritic currently puts it below A Minecraft Movie. I figured I should watch it during Easter season, not knowing where it might stream later.

Charles Dickens himself (Kenneth Branagh) is reciting A Christmas Carol when his backstage family, especially King Arthur-obsessed son Walter (Roman Griffin Davis), accidentally causes disruptions. Wife Catherine (Uma Thurman) later talks Charles into telling Walter the story in a book in progress, The Life of Our Lord -- basically the Gospel packaged for children -- in lieu of punishment. The telling starts shortly before the birth of Jesus (voice in adulthood by Oscar Isaac) and ends right after the Resurrection, with brief interludes to explain the Fall and Passover.

Entergalactic (2022)

I found this non-sci-fi's seemingly irrelevant title confusing, until I learned that it shares the name of the Kid Cudi album that provides the soundtrack. Clearly, this is not my usual scene. I chose to watch for the sake of something different.

New York graffiti artist Jabari (Cudi) is about to get a comic book line for his signature character, Mr. Rager (Keith David), tho his excitement is tempered by the publisher's desire to tone down the darkness. Taking more of his attention is his new partying apartment neighbor, Meadow (Jessica Williams). Neither acknowledges their level of mutual attraction until friends egg them on. Alas, Jabari's ex, Carmen (Laura Harrier), is discontent to be just a friend....

Moana 2 (2024)

I would have seen this in a theater if only it had a better reception. Nearly everyone deems it not on the same tier as its predecessor, and some make it out to be borderline rotten. But since I enjoyed Frozen II for all its flaws, M2 looked like a fair bet for me.

Moana (Auliʻi Cravalho), now 19, retains popularity on Motunui as a successful wayfinder, but she won't rest on her laurels. A mystical message tells her to search for Motufutu, an ancestral island that storm god Nalo (Tofiga Fepulea'i) sank out of sheer spite. As soon as a human touches it, the curse will be broken and many Polynesians can unite there. Since divine hero Maui (Dwayne Johnson) isn't exactly on call, Moana sets out without him at first, albeit with a lot more company than before: Moni (Hualalai Chung), a Maui-idolizing young historian; Loto (Rose Matafeo), an enthused engineer who seems to have been born in the wrong century; and Kele (David Fane), a reluctant elderly curmudgeon who doesn't trust anyone else to keep the edible plants for the crew. Eventually, they'll go where the sentient ocean can't protect them.