The INSIDER Summary:
- The '00s gave us some great animated films, though some were pretty forgettable.
- Not all of these forgettable animated films were bad, but some of them are best left forgotten.
- Some of the best forgotten films include "Flushed Away,""Over the Hedge," and "Bolt."
The aughts were an age of excellence for animated movies. Pixar continued the momentum they built up on the ’90s, releasing instant classics like "Finding Nemo,""Up,""Ratatouille,""Monsters, Inc.," and "WALL-E." Although Disney had always worked with Pixar, they formally bought the studio in 2006, and two giants became one supergiant.
Pixar was bulletproof in the ’00s, but Disney was not. Although Disney made a lot of great non-Pixar films like "The Princess and the Frog,""The Emperor’s New Groove,""Atlantis: The Lost Empire," and "Lilo & Stitch," they also made a lot of less memorable ones. They may have been a hit with kids, but they were received modestly at best by critics and stayed in our cultural consciousness for roughly one second.
Disney wasn’t the only one with some regrettable ’00s titles, though: DreamWorks and other studios made some forgettable films too. Are you ready to examine these faded films?
Not all of the movies on this list are bad. But, deservedly or not, they have faded from the memories of millennials.
Previously, we’ve looked at 15 forgotten animated shows of the aughts. We’ve also delved into second-tier teen fare of that decade, looking at both movies and TV. Now let’s take a take a refresher course in the movies of the aughts with 15 ’00s Animated Kids’ Movies You Completely Forgot About.
SEE ALSO: John Oliver is the new Zazu in Disney's live-action "The Lion King"
15. Dinosaur (2000)
Disney’s "Dinosaur" was a prestige animation project. The film used an innovative style: the dinosaurs were animated with CGI while the backgrounds were live-action, filmed on location. The idea was to make the dinos look as realistic as possible, and it was definitely a success.
However, "Dinosaur" is a pretty serious and somber affair. After all, it’s about meteors striking the Earth and putting the dinosaurs in peril. Much of the movie is about the dinosaurs dolefully trekking through the world to try to find a place where they’ll be safe from meteors.
"Dinosaur" received generally positive reviews from critics, although many took issue with the decision to create incredibly realistic dinosaurs and then break the illusion by having them talk. But excellent craftsmanship alone isn’t enough to make an animated movie memorable to audiences. You also need some heart, which "Dinosaur" lacked.
14. Robots (2005)
This intricately-animated film takes place in a world of robots and stars Ewan McGregor as an idealistic inventor named Rodney Copperbottom. Actually, all of the characters in this movie have imaginative names, and the voice cast is chock full of famous actors. There’s Fender Pinwheeler (Robin Williams), Piper Pinwheeler (Amanda Bynes), Phineas T. Ratchet (Greg Kinnear), Bigweld (Mel Brooks), and Madame Gasket (Jim Broadbent). And that doesn’t even scratch the surface of this goldmine of a cast.
The film, which is billed as being “from the creators of Ice Age,” has a 64% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Critics praised the movie for its animation but characterized the story as lackluster. Strangely enough, one of the movie’s three screenwriters is David Lindsay-Abaire, the critically-acclaimed playwright who authored "Rabbit Hole."
13. Chicken Little (2005)
This film is a retelling of the folk tale “Chicken Little,” in which a chicken sees an acorn fall from the sky and thinks the world is ending (that’s where the line “The sky is falling!” comes in). There are many different versions of this story, and thus different morals. One is to not be a chicken but instead to be courageous. Another is not to believe everything you’re told.
The 2005 Disney film had something much bigger than an acorn fall from the sky: an alien artifact. Chicken Little tries to tell the world about the weird object that fell on him from the sky, but they dismiss him as crazy, thinking that it was just an acorn that hit him. But aliens are actually invading, and eventually, everyone sees that Chicken Little was right.
"Chicken Little" was significant because it was a non-Pixar Disney movie animated with CGI. The film was met with a generally positive reception from critics.
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