What do you think the most overrated animated movie is?

Kobai

New member
I haven't seen many of these in a while. What are some films that everyone else seems to like but you can't quite stand at first or even just some time later.

For me it's every Shrek movie that isn't the first one. How can you go from being original by basically pouring salt into every last wound of every last fairytale to becoming a fairytale yourself 11 years later that could potentially be spoofed later on.
 
Any of the old Disney Princess stuff. Cinderella, Snow White, Beauty and the Beast. They're called 'best of the best', but they're all just so... boring. I'd rather watch Lion King or Mulan or Lilo & Stitch.
 
To me, Lion King takes it hands down. While not a bad movie (in fact, quite good), its long stint as the highest grossing animated movie gave it a stature that I don't think it deserved. It wasn't as groundbreaking as Snow White and the Seven Dwars or Fantasia were in the past, or The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, or Toy Story were in recent years. To me (and others), it loses points for its similarity to aspects of Tezuka's Jungle Emperor TV series (Kimba, the White Lion). The fact that Disney staff denied previous knowlege of the existence of the show after describing the film as an homage to Tezuka in pre-production didn't help it in my eyes, either
 
I know it's kinda new, but How To Train Your Dragon. I've seen it 3 times and while I really like it, the way people overblow it and act like it's the best movie of last year just makes me scratch my head. The only real characters in the whole movie were Hiccup and Toothless, everyone else was just there to fill in generic teen stereotypes and to sit on top of the other dragons during the impressive-looking-but-serves-nothing-to-the-story battle scene at the end. Astrid could have potentially been the 3rd character, but they had to shove in the embarrassingly shallow romance between her and Hiccup.

The character designs were fine, but all of the dragon designs that weren't Toothless looked like the designers skimmed through a bargain bin childrens coloring book to find the safest, kid friendly goofy designs so they wouldn't scare anybody. Outside of those complaints, it's just a really good version of a typical kid-gets-weird-pet scenario.

Again, I like the movie, but the idea that THIS is the movie that people are clinging onto for the annual "PEE-XAR WINS ALL TEH AWARDS DEY STOLE THIS MOVYS GLOREEEEEEEEEEE!!!!" whining just doesn't work for me.
 
Really? I think that for their time they were very very good. I mean Princess movies aren't my personal preference, but I think that the old Disney Princess movies were done very well.
 
For me, it's always been Shrek. Besides the second one, I never found any of them to be laugh-out-loud hilarious. Why Monsters Inc. lost to this at the Oscars I'll never know.
 
I would say Snow White. I know that it is innovated, but man, is it a bore-fest (other than the dwarfs).

Also Lilo & Stitch. I don't hate it, but I don't see why everybody loves it so much.
 
Toy Story 2. Sorry, it's just sort of a cash-in sequel that doesn't add a whole lot to the story, I don't know why everyone treats everything in the Toy Story line like a masterpiece.

Oh, and finding Nemo. I don't understand why it was such a huge hit, I found it very boring.
 
Hitting two birds with one stone here.

Considering Toy Story 3 came out around the same time and has been percieved as being the most perfect film ever produced, even being nominated for Best Picture, Pixar sort of does get far more glory than any other animation company, even to the point that now when they announce a sequel people jump for joy, but when others announce a sequel people sulk.

To me, Toy Story 3 was just a jailbreak movie featuring the Toy Story characters. It wasn't an accomplishment in anything, not even in visuals, so other than being a "good way to end the franchise" (Even though most thought the franchise was already over) and "one of the few trilogys to be good all the way through" (which even then, is highly subjective), I'm not sure why this film got so much praise.

I was sadder at Dumbo than I was at Toy Story 3, there wasn't really an emotion I could empathize or sympathize with in the film. I can't believe that every person's response was "I CRIED" and "I SAW IT AGAIN AND CRIED AGAIN" since there wasn't anything really sad in the film, just shocking.

I dunno, if so many people cried at Toy Story, I would have loved to see the nation back when Mufasa died. Cleanex must've sold like hotcakes.
 
I must agree here. I too really enjoyed the movie. It was fun, cute, and I loved the interaction between Hiccup and Toothless. But...The designs of the other dragons (barring the gigantic monstrous one) felt generic and almost too cartoonish. I hated the "romance" between Astrid and Hiccup. It was incredibly shallow and a bit distracting. It felt tacked on. The other characters were alright in my eyes, though not very developed as characters or as friends of Hiccup.

I was expecting a bit more from it, considering all the raving I heard about it. In the end, I do like the movie, I just think it doesn't deserve all the praise it has received. I expect TS3 to beat HTTYD and, to be honest, I won't mind.
 
Snow White's certainly overrated; I mean it was the first animated feature film and does deserve a lot of praise for its artistic innovation, but too many people confuse first with best. Cinderella's pretty bland. I must disagree on Beauty and the Beast, though; as one of Disney's only movies to have three interesting, multi-dimensional lead characters, it gets a lot of props in my book (beyond the unfortunate abusive relationship/Stockholm Syndrome implications in the whole storyline).



It started as a cash-in, but it was done amazingly well. The "When She Loved Me" scene alone justifies it as adding new layers to the story. The movie's at least as funny as the original and several times more tear-jerking.



Oh, I'm pretty sure a lot of people were crying over Mufasa. I'd say Toy Story 3 hitting so hard emotionally is that it hits multiple targets at once. It's intense for kids fearing for their favorite characters, teenagers who are dealing with saying goodbye to childhood, parents trying to say goodbye to their kids, and religious/philosophical types connecting with the questions of if the universe cares and how to face a universe that treats people disposably.

As for movies I'd list as overrated, the whole Disney canon, though many of the films are good and a few are great, gets a bit overblown by people's nostalgia. Totoro's another film I'd count as great but overrated; it's fun and magical and observant like all of Miyazaki's other films, but Miyazaki's other films have more interesting stories so Totoro being considered one of his masterpieces eludes me. Wings of Honneamise is obscurer but by those who have seen it it's extremely overrated, moreso than those previous examples because I don't count it as good; I don't get how people can forgive the "rape is just a Big Lipped Alligator Moment" scenes and enjoy the movie.
 
(Overrated =\= popular things you don't like. It means something you like that gets too much praise.)

But if were going by the Internet definition of the word....

Happy Feet.

I honestly don't get the love that people give this movie. In fact, the most common reason I hear people say good things about HF is “OMG cuteee dancing singing penguins!!!”

OK, I won't deny that I think the animation is gorgeous, but I only ever hear people comment about the penguins.

I thought the story was kind of generic - “ A kid is outcasted from society because (s)he's a weirdo for x reason and WE CERTAINLY CANNOT HAVE THAT! Oh wait, they saved the town/Earth. WE NOW LOVE YOUR WEIRDNESS BECAUSE IT SAVED US ALL!”

Except that plot is also intertwined with “SAVE THE EARTH OR NO MORE CUTE PENGUINS!” and is drowned with gallons of WTF sauce. I'm sure the movie wanted to say, “These penguins will die if we keep over fishing!” it came across as “We gotta stop fishing if we want to see moar dancing penguins!”

The voice acting was pretty good, I'll give it that. I thought all the characters were well casted and no one felt out of place. (RIP Steve Irwin and Brittany Murphy)

Also, it's the only movie I can fall asleep watching it. It's pacing is really slow.
 
Sadly, this is why threads like this are always bad news. Some people can't seem to grasp that very important distinction, and instead use it as an excuse to unleash hate for a movie.

For instance, I like pretty much all Pixar movies to various extents (yes, even the oft-maligned Cars), but if anything's the definition of overrated, they are, due to all the attention they get, and the near-perfect ratings on Rotten Tomatoes. Doesn't mean the films suck or I dislike them, though; just that they get too much attention, sometimes at the expense of other animated films which come out at the same time.
 
Wow, I think Happy Feet actually falls into the popular things you don't like category rather than too much praise. As I've yet to meet a single person who praises that film and thinks it deserved the Oscar. It may have done well in critical circles, but even on the IMDb fan boards for that film it's like an uphill battle trying to argue why anyone loves it.

Though I often wonder which of the nominees people think should've won the Oscar that year. As all three films were pretty weak. It may as well have been a cooking contest for least objectionable food.

I'm going to throw Up into this ring. I actually like the film, but I don't love it. I not only didn't cry during Up, I didn't feel very moved at all. Not to mention the film had so many tonal shifts and pacing problems as well as rather large lapses in logic that I wondered how it could be called best Pixar film ever, let alone Best Animated Film of the entire year.

And to this day it seems like it's against the Geneva Convention to even say you didn't really like the film.

"I didn't feel very moved at all..."

"Oh yeah? Well, you're a Martian and a horrible excuse for a Martian at that"

I also think Giacchino got more praise for the wrong score for that year. I think he pulled off superior and more compelling work in his arguably underrated Star Trek score. But it actually is a very well done and solid score. So I can probably file this under popular thing that I don't love as much as opposed to actually being overrated. As I've seen Giacchino take a lot of heat for his entire catalogue in more than one arena.

I'd also like to challenge the notion that overrated means something that you like that gets too much praise. Overrated simply means anything that is overestimated in its merits or rated too highly. Meaning anything that receives much praise that a person dislikes would probably come across as something that is overrated. So you couldn't call Transformers or its sequels overrated, because even though they are popular they receive little to any praise. Popularity is only a small factor of the issue. Not the basis for the entire argument.

However, that doesn't mean attack a film with unfettered hatred. Rather it means to actually take aim at the very merits you feel are overpraised in a reasonable manner. The former being the very thing I believe you're railing against.

So In that case, I agree.
 
I have to agree with you; Finding Nemo is the most overrated Pixar movie ever made! I saw it in science class during my sophmore year and thought it was boring and unfunny, and I found that screaming little girl VERY annoying. I liked "Looney Tunes: Back in Action" better (which by contrast, is a very UNDERRATED movie!)

The Shrek movies are pretty overrated too, but the most overrated would've had to be "Shrek 2." Back in 2004 when it came out, for months on I was seeing Shrek promos and merchandising EVERYWHERE. It nearly drove me bonkers. By the time "Shrek Forever After" came out, I knew what was going to happen. In fact, when I was leaving the movie theater after seeing "Toy Story 3" with some friends, I heard a couple of teenage/college-age girls saying "That's the last Shrek film we're ever going to see!" I wasn't surprised to hear that, having heard how mediocre the movie was.

"Toy Story 3" may be a tad overrated, but to me it's the best Pixar film since "The Incredibles." It's a good reason for the wild success.

I'm also not sure how "The Lion King" is so overrated; maybe because it was the peak of the 1990s Disney Renaissance? To me while I liked it, it was basically "The Sword in the Stone" of the 1990s.
 
The Lion king deserves a mention from myself, and I thought I was the only one who thought it was overrated. I saw what was coming ahead, I knew what was going to happen and It was just predicable. It makes it sadder for me since I enjoy Kimba the white lion, and it doesn't help the fact that Tezuka's family is angry to this day at Disney because of Lion King.The only thing good about this movie was Elton John's take of "Can you feel the love tonight".

Snow white also deserves a mention, for being cited as the "First animated feature" its not at its best. But I do enjoy the animation that was done for the drawfs as well as the queen.

Also, ANYTHING from Dreamworks's animation is overrated in my book. It doesn't matter if they don't do well, I just cant get into whatever dreamworks makes because its like they are not taking the project seriously.
 
She was supposed to be annoying, that was the whole point. Hence the reason why the fish in the tank didn't like her(aside from her unintentionally killing other fish).

Well, they were right, since "Shrek Forever After" was supposed to be the last Shrek, as Dreamworks has no plans to make another one at this time.
 
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