Animation Domination

A phrase in Monday's New York Times weekend box-office summary caught my eye - "Inception" was described as "one of the biggest nonanimated hits of the year." Over at Den of Geek last week, Ron Hogan joked that the impressive numbers pulled in by the summer's animated releases made him "wonder why people even bother to make non-animated movies anymore." A glance at the Box Office Mojo charts is telling. There have been four major animated releases this year - "How to Train Your Dragon," "Shrek Forever After," "Toy Story 3," and "Despicable Me." All four of them are among the top ten earners at 2010. "Despicable Me" is lowest ranked at #8, but it's been in theaters for less than a month, and could push its way higher in the coming weeks.

What's really remarkable is that these films are attracting a larger number of adults than they did in the past, which means that animated movies are playing beyond the usual family demographic. "Toy Story 3" and "Shrek Forever After," the final installments of their respective franchises, attracted young adults in droves. As a result, the animated film industry has never been in better shape financially. 2010's animated hits come from three different American studios: PIXAR, Dreamworks, and the new kid on the block, Universal Pictures. There are several more that are thriving, including Sony, Blue Sky, Disney, and a few smaller studios. Nobody has a monopoly on theatrical animation anymore, the way Disney did with traditionally animated features twenty years ago.

Artistically, though, I can't help worrying. Looking at recent animated blockbusters, it's apparent that they all have a similar visual style and rely on similar tropes and formulas. Though more grown-ups may be willing to come see them unaccompanied by children, animated films are still by and large aimed at children. Last year saw a few mainstream hits that pushed the boundaries. "Coraline" was a horror film with some genuine chills, and "Up" starred a senior citizen, but they were both still targeted at the younger set. More ambitious projects like the darker, post-apocalyptic fantasy, "9," billed as a feature aimed at young adults, failed to attract much attention. There's no question that the quality of animated features has improved across the board, or perhaps the quality of live action films has dropped. Audiences can rely on even mediocre animated offerings like "Horton Hears a Who" and "Monsters v. Aliens" to be pleasantly diverting entertainment, free of raunch and extreme violence and the other excesses of the current fanboy movie culture.

But to see any really interesting work in animated features, you have to either look to the independent animation scene or overseas to Australia, France, and Japan, where the biggest animated films are not categorized by studio but by director. Hayao Miyazaki of Studio Ghibli just released his latest feature, based on the "Borrowers" books in Japan. France's Sylvain Chomet will be rolling out "The Illusionist" later in the year. In the US, Bill Plympton is still struggling to get "Idiots and Angels" on to more screens, and the annual "Spike & Mike's Sick and Twisted Animation" show is making the rounds again with a new program of shorts. Recently, foreign titles like "Persepolis," "Waltz With Bashir" and "Through a Scanner Darkly" shook up arthouses and carved out a niche for animation for discerning adults, but it remains on the fringes. The most notable independent American animated film to emerge in the past few years that I can think of is Nina Paley's "Sita Sings the Blues," better known for its copyright woes than its actual content.

The stage seems set for more ambitious American animation to emerge, but all of the bigger studio players seem reluctant to take any chances these days. Even PIXAR, which regularly produced features like "WALL-E" and "Ratatouille," has been signaling a retreat to the safety of sequels and franchises. The last mainstream animated hit that could seriously be called "adult" in any sense was "The Simpsons Movie" back in 2007, that teased audiences with full-frontal nudity and hinged on Homer Simpson's relationship with his long-suffering Marge. On the other hand, the success of all these CGI animated films indicates that culturally, animation has not only been wholly accepted by the mainstream, but it may be now what defines the mainstream - kid friendly but not saccharine, inventive but not too challenging, full of immature grown-ups (mostly male), big explosions, silly jokes, and a happy ending.

Whether this is a good or a bad thing, I leave for you to decide.
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