The year 2009 has been a great year for feature length animation and in the following article I want to look back at the animated movies I saw last year and give you my opinion on them.

The past year has seen a healthy stream of animated titles. And also a healthy dose of variety in animation styles and story types. Overall it has been a good year in which most animated films I've seen have been absolutely entertaining experiences. For the few movies that dissappointed me I'll reserve a section at the bottom of this article. Let's get into it shall we?

Coraline
I think Coraline is the best animated movie I've seen this year. It's the most original, has the greatest style and some very advanced stop motion animation. And one thing I think is particularly good: it doesn't dumb things down for the kids. The original book was a creepy book and so is this movie. On top of that it adds to the story of Neil Gaiman's book in all the right ways, without losing the overall feel of it. If you haven't seen this movie yet, seek it out!

Up
My second favorite animated movie of the year was Disney/Pixar's Up. I hold the Pixar movies to extremely high standards. And while it wasn't such a perfect combination of visuals, story and music as Ratatouille or WALL-E were, it's still one of Pixar's all-time best flicks. Pixar knows how to create great characters and timeless jokes. The 3D was also very good and not as "in your face" as most movies. Pixar has done it again!

Ponyo
Ponyo is a movie with a heart as pure as that of a young child. Miyazaki hadn't made a true kids movie since Totoro, and shows in a wonderful way how he still knows how to appeal to the youngest kids. And most importantly: this film shows that you don't need comic relief characters or singing animals to make a great kids movie. This movie takes its audience seriously and shows the wonders that the medium can bring. A triumph of 2D animation and a film that both oozes quality and charm.

Honorable mentions
Two movies that deserve special mention are Shane Acker's 9 and Sony's Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. I liked the mood in 9, even though the story is not the best ever. I absolutely love the fact that this all started with a short film and grew into this nice piece of work. Like it or not, this is a movie with a clear vision behind it. And I believe we can expect more great things from Mr. Shane Acker in the future.

The biggest surprise of the year for me was definitely Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, which I foolishly scoffed at before I had even seen one frame of animation. Word of mouth brought it to my attention again, and after seeing it I can safely say that it's a very refreshing and original piece of animation. I especially liked the wacky art style and the 'jello' scene. Go see this if you like crazy humor and soms nice snappy animation.

Disappointments
Overall 2009 has been a very good year for animation. But I think a film like Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs is proof that it's not always wise to never change a winning formula. Blue Sky is a competent studio, but should have pulled the plug on the Ice Age franchise after the great second film. There are no new interesting facets to the characters here. The only scenes that are worth mentioning are the tango scene between Scrat and Scratte and the "Alone Again, Naturally" scene where the heart of an acorn is broken. Not a terrible movie, but just more of the same.

Two films that really shouldn't have been made at all are Monsters vs. Aliens and the Belgian movie Suske en Wiske: de Texas rakkers. I'm starting with Suske en Wiske, or Luke and Lucy (English title). I'm a huge fan of the comics, but this movie just doesn't cut it. The humor is totally hit or miss (mostly miss), the animation is absolutely terrible and the characters are just plain silly. I don't want to waste another word on this trainwreck of a movie.

Monsters vs. Aliens had some nice ideas, but unfortunately it did what too many of Dreamworks' movies do and that is to just simply throw as many jokes at the audience as they can and hope that the movie sticks. Alas, all the funny bits were shown in the trailer and I just didn't care much for what happened to any of the main characters. Plus the movie didn't have a distinct style or vision. The character and environment designs were all over the place.

2009 in retrospect
I'd like to end on a positive note. Coraline, Ponyo and Up have shown this year that storytelling in animation can be just as complex and engaging as the best live-action films and are prime examples of what can be achieved by this medium. Secondly I love the fact that the animated films of 2009 were very diverse, both in style and in subject matter. It's great that the art of animation is ridding itself more and more of its "kiddy" stigma and can be just as diverse as live action films can be. The western animation world is not quite there yet when compared to countries like Japan, but we're getting there.