New Kids Movies

And where to stream them

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New Kids Movies

As the father of three young adults, I remember clearly those days when we’d watch just about any new kids movie that was released. And I also remember feeling like studios took advantage of that desperation for entertainment, filling the latest unoriginal script with enough silly gags that the little ones would giggle as the parents checked the time. I was always so thankful for those rare family films made with the same kind of care that went into the latest arthouse flick.

We’re keeping a running list of the latest movies for children for you to peruse and find something that the whole family might enjoy. We’ve included a synopsis of each.

Here are 14 of the biggest new kids movies from the last few months:

1. Aquaman and The Last Kingdom

Release Date: December 122, 2023
Director: James Wan
Stars: Jason Momoa, Patrick Wilson, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Amber Heard, Nicole Kidman, Randall Park
Genre: Superhero, adventure
Rating: PG-13
Paste Review Score: 7.1

In theaters

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, emboldened by the genuine success of its predecessor, clamors on its own terms, and collapses in its own heap. This feels true even when Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom displays evidence of a drawn-out production–which it does almost as soon as it begins, when Arthur Curry (Jason Momoa), also known as the Aquaman, launches into narration meant to catch us up on his life since the first film, which ended with him becoming king of the secret underwater society of Atlantis. Director James Wan splices together Arthur taking on a band of pirates on a boat, fighting creatures in an underwater arena and, principally, taking care of his infant son Arthur Junior in a way that suggests those first two things were perhaps once major setpieces that didn’t come together in this streamlined final cut. It’s one of those superhero movies where no one seems to fully inhabit a recognizably human body. That’s what the Aquaman sub-series is for, though: a chance for DC’s godlike characters to go full-on Clash of the Titans, replete with a full cast of gods and monsters before even mentioning the various other Justice League members, all absent here as before. Arthur, already struggling to balance the dull duties of governance with the ragged joys of child-rearing (and it is sweet to see big, goofy Jason Momoa show sincere investment in getting his son down to sleep), is further bedeviled by accelerated climate change, which can be traced back to his old nemesis Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II). Manta–a human, not an underwater-dwelling Atlantean–has discovered an ancient superfuel that further wrecks the environment, as well as a dark-magic trident. Put together, these MacGuffins should give him the power he needs to get revenge on Aquaman. Arthur must find him and stop him, insisting that his half-brother Orm (Patrick Wilson), the imprisoned villain of the previous film, is the only Atlantean who can help with this task. This is how the movie eventually settles into a kingdom-hopping buddy adventure with Arthur and Orm bickering over best practices for underwater heroics. Yet it’s hard to stay mad, or even flummoxed, at such a thoroughly daffy enterprise–at a movie that takes the DCEU’s reluctant-hero shtick to its most majestically cartoony extremes, until it comes back around to approximating the same universe’s best shot at superheroic joy. Those emotions are goosed by Momoa, who seems to genuinely love playing the character and seems sincerely enthusiastic about the movie’s environmental angle (no matter how abstracted it is from real-life threats). Is there much more to this version of the character, though? In a way, the lavish garishness of Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom helps explain why this expanded universe wasn’t especially sustainable, even when it was really cooking. Aquaman left it all on the ocean floor; its sequel can only work harder for slightly less fun, and the rest of its universe can hardly compete. —Jesse Hassenger


2. Migration

Release Date: December 22, 2023
Director: Paul King
Stars: Kumail Nanjiani, Elizabeth Banks, Keegan-Michael Key, Awkwafina, Danny DeVito
Genre: Comedy, animation
Rating: PG

In theaters

From Illumination, the animation studio that brought the world Despicable Me, too many Minions spin-offs and, more recently the $1 billion Super Mario Bros. Movie, comes a new adventure comedy starring a family of mallards who leave the comfort of New England to see more of the world as they join birds migrating south for the winter, all the way to Jamaica.


3. Wonka

Release Date: December 15, 2023
Director: Paul King
Stars: Timothée Chalamet, Calah Lane, Keegan-Michael Key, Paterson Joseph, Matt Lucas, Mathew Baynton, Sally Hawkins, Rowan Atkinson, Jim Carter, Olivia Colman, Hugh Grant, Natasha Rothwell, Rich Fulcher, Rakhee Thakrar, Tom Davis, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith
Genre: Comedy, fantasy
Rating: PG
Paste Review Score: 4.9

In theaters

A chocolate factory, especially one overseen by Willy Wonka, is a perfect metaphor for a certain kind of modern filmmaking. An industrial complex that focuses on its magical output and would rather stare at the sun than at the labor that produces it; a business environment whose ingredients include Wonka’s sleight-of-hand salesmanship, eccentric artistry and chocolate cartel villainy. If the chocolate factory represents the making of these movies, then drowning in this chocolate—like Willy Wonka (Timothée Chalamet) and his patronized ward Noodle (Calah Lane) almost do in Wonka’s climax—is watching them. It’s certainly the experience of watching Wonka. It’s all dessert all the time; self-congratulatory cutesy nonsense, its heavy and calculated sweetness weighted by the leaden requirements of IP filmmaking. We’re caught in a decadent mudslide which consumes everything in its path. The debris might be momentarily delicious, crafted by best-in-class artisans with only the most joyous intentions, but overwhelming and monotonous. When you’re up to your chin in thick brown sludge, its taste is irrelevant. Maybe the only remnant of Roald Dahl’s didactic mean-spiritedness is Wonka’s corrupt Chief of Police (Keegan-Michael Key), a man whose purpose is to don larger and larger fat suits as he is bribed by villains with confections. He—and the decision to make this the film’s main running joke—is at odds with the rest of the sunny, sanitized Wonka world. The author’s scions read the writing on the Dahl, and determined that the most lucrative long-term strategy for their brand was inoffensiveness. —Jacob Oller


4. The Family Plan

Release Date: December 15, 2023
Director: Simon Cellan Jones
Stars: Mark Wahlberg, Michelle Monaghan, Zoe Colletti, Van Crosby, Saïd Taghmaoui, Maggie Q, Ciarán Hinds
Genre: Adventure comedy
Rating: PG-13
Paste Review Score: 2.0

Watch on AppleTV+

Helmed by Simon Cellan Jones (Jessica Jones, Generation Kill), The Family Plan is just one of hundreds of the same movie, revived and repackaged but offering nothing new to justify its existence. We’ve seen it all before: A wholesome family man has a secret violent past and, suddenly, his former life collides with his new one in hilarious and/or terrifying ways. Just three years ago, we got that exact premise in the Bob Odenkirk-starring Nobody, not breaking new ground but succeeding as a likable romp with great action, starring an actor who’s deliriously hard to dislike. Conversely, The Family Plan is unlikeable, has poor action sequences and stars Mark Wahlberg, an actor who takes himself far too seriously to lead a comedy as anything but the straight man half of a double act. Wahlberg plays Dan Morgan, a former covert assassin who left his life of murdering evildoers with his hot assassin girlfriend for a suburban family with the sweet, down-to-earth Jessica (Michelle Monaghan). But Jessica, a former decathlete turned physical therapist, never necessarily wanted to settle down either—now she feels trapped in Buffalo with her family. The Family Plan is, at best, a skeleton of a real movie entirely reliant on clichés, stock characters (the “woke daughter” is one of my personal favorites) and allusions to better films, down to using that one baby giggling sound effect—you all know what I’m talking about. The comedy is comedically non-existent; a gag involving a suspicious man, whom Dan mistakes for one of the assassins because of his accent and who turns out to just be a regular German guy, is almost funny. But you get the strange feeling that the gag was already done somewhere better before, and you’re just riding the high of that memory. It’s such a derivative phone-in job that one wonders if The Family Plan is some sort of money-laundering scheme for everyone involved—the kind of cliché assumption one makes about a bad movie that, in this case, manages to fit the movie itself. —Brianna Zigler


5. The Boy and the Heron

kids moviesRelease Date: December 8, 2023
Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Stars: Soma Santoki, Masaki Suda, Ko Shibasaki, Aimyon, Yoshino Kimura, Takuya Kimura, Karou Kobayashi, Shinobu Otake
Genre: Animated fantasy
Rating: NR
Paste Review Score: 10.0

In theaters

Genzaburo Yoshino’s 1937 novel How Do You Live? is a time capsule, preserving the virtues of the society it was made and circulated in. It’s about how to live as a good person in this world, about the childhood experience of discovering difference, disparity, and loss—and, thus, turning to philosophy. The influence of the text is apparent in Miyazaki’s work at Ghibli. While the protagonist of his latest film, Mahito (Soma Santoki), is styled around Miyazaki’s childhood, Miyazaki himself appears as he is today more directly in the figure of Mahito’s granduncle (Shōhei Hino), a man who built a mysterious library on the family estate decades ago before disappearing into his stories forever. The Boy and the Heron, released in Japan with the same name as Yoshino’s novel, becomes a firm reminder of the need to grow up, but one that recognizes the importance of the ephemeral experiences of childhood. Unlike Miyazaki’s semi-biographical 2013 swan song The Wind Rises, the quasi-autobiographical The Boy and the Heron is styled as the fantasy Bildungsroman that he became famous for—with a mature, edgier bent. The opening sequence depicts a 1943 firebombing, rendered with striking animation that entirely breaks with the art style of the rest of the film, veering into the abstract. Mahito’s ill mother dies in the flames. Afterwards, the 12-year-old moves to the countryside as his father Shoichi (Takuya Kimura), an industrialist contributing to the war effort, remarries his late mother’s younger sister, Natsuko (Yoshino Kimura). Unlike the bucolic farmland of My Neighbor Totoro that imagines a space closer to nature or the remnants of a nostalgic past in Spirited Away that facilitates its fantastical traversal, the impetus for Mahito’s journey is an act of self-harm. The spirits find Mahito, feverish and delirious, on the family’s rural estate. A particularly nettlesome gray heron (Masaki Suda) harasses the boy, drawing him towards the site of his coming-of-age journey. His guide hereafter is apprehensive, the fantasies tainted with death and decay. From here, the script (trans. Don Brown) is perhaps Miyazaki’s best. Sharing its outline with all these past films, The Boy and the Heron utilizes a different narrative mode: The mythic. This is a fantasy world that deals in archetypes instead of history orientated by the polemics of fascists and philosophers. Everything is handled with delicate ambivalence, all implicit, the intentions left ambiguous. It is an open text begging to be read. To see The Boy and the Heron is to see Miyazaki. The film is as complicated as the man it is about, and this is what makes The Boy and the Heron a masterwork. I can see him still writing his stories, still drawing his airplanes.–Autumn Wright


6. Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget

kids moviesRelease Date: December 8, 2023
Director: Sam Fell
Stars: Thandiwe Newton, Zachary Levi, Bella Ramsey, Imelda Staunton, Lynn Ferguson, David Bradley, Jane Horrocks, Romesh Ranganathan, Daniel Mays, Josie Sedgwick-Davies, Peter Serafinowicz, Nick Mohammed, Miranda Richardson
Genre: Animated comedy
Rating: PG
Paste Review Score: 6.4

Watch on Netflix

It’s nearly impossible for a piece of stop-motion animation to completely squander the goodwill gained from making the hours of meticulous effort invested in an underloved art form gorgeously tangible. But Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget is an inoffensive drive-thru meal served at the same table as some of our most decadent animated feasts. Like so many long-coming sequels that’ve been shuffled out the door recently, Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget (arriving 23 years after the original) catches up with the escapees from Aardman Animations’ charming poultry farm prison break as their new life slowly gives way to the old plot tempting them back. Ginger (Thandiwe Newton, replacing Julia Sawalha) and Rocky (Zachary Levi, replacing Mel Gibson) have built a life with their flock on an idyllic island. It’s safe and dull. Where the chickens once shared a drive to flee, they now purposelessly amble through life. Where Chicken Run once played off of the specific aesthetics of WWII POW films with dark humor, Dawn of the Nugget loses its identity in favor of a harmless playfulness interchangeable with a Madagascar or Ice Age sequel. It’s babyproofed filmmaking, which completes the movie’s natural suburban analogue: A safe space in which Ginger and Rocky can welcome their child, Molly (Bella Ramsey). Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget is a rare dish: A mediocre stop-motion sequel. Aardman’s least enjoyable effort is still a warm movie, but noticeably reheated. It looks mostly the same, but has lost much of its original flavor. Filled with admirable, handsome craft in service of very little (though there’s a punny joke about an iPad that I’m still chuckling about), Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget has the misfortune of joining company where mediocrity is enough to bury it at the greasy bottom of the fast-food bag. —Jacob Oller


7. The Family Switch

kids moviesRelease Date: November 30, 2023
Director: McG
Stars: Jennifer Garner, Ed Helms, Emma Myers, Brady Noon, Rita Moreno
Genre: Family comedy
Rating: PG

Watch on Netflix

Netflix goes Big into Freaky Friday in this new body-swapping Christmas comedy from director McG, starring Ms. 13 Going on 30 herself, Jennifer Garner, alongside Ed Helms. —Brent Simon


8. Wish

kids moviesRelease Date: November 22, 2023
Directors: Chris Buck, Fawn Veerasunthorn
Stars: Ariana DeBose, Chris Pine, Alan Tudyk
Genre: Animated adventure
Rating: PG
Paste Review Score: 7.0

In theaters

Oh, how the mighty have fallen. It’s easy to be weary of Wish, the newest animated parable from Disney, meant to commemorate the company’s 100th anniversary through a barrage of Easter eggs and self-congratulatory platitudes about the importance of following our dreams. Despite adopting an original story, the film from co-directors Chris Buck and Fawn Veerasunthorn falls prey to a multitude of clichés that have become synonymous with the studio in recent years. For every attempt at newness (the art style, the studio’s first Afro-Latina heroine), there is a recycling of old trademarks (the goofy sidekick, the patterned musical vignettes). Therein lies the dilemma of Wish’s ironic charms: To what extent is something a cliché when judged on its own merits? And can a movie like Wish even be evaluated without endless comparisons to its forebears? Set in the kingdom of Rosas, a magical land ruled by the charismatic King Magnifico (Chris Pine), Wish centers on earnest 17-year-old Asha (Ariana DeBose). Upon almost landing an apprenticeship at his majesty’s palace, her idealism is crushed as she realizes that the ruler whom she exalted isn’t all he seems. Magnifico’s claim to fame is granting his constituents’ wishes, and entrusting him with your wish means being freed from the burden of feeling that absence—in other words, you forget. However, it soon becomes apparent that the king does not plan on granting most of the wishes he’s been given, hoarding them in his palace where they will never see the light of day. When Asha’s own wish is answered by a cosmic force, she and her friends set out to save their community from Magnifico’s control. On its own terms, Wish isn’t half bad. The fairytale at its center is adorable and, combined with the opaque watercolor effect of its 2D and 3D animation, creates the illusion of a children’s book come to life—something made even more evident by the film’s storybook introduction. To that point, it’s easy to wave away any questions that arise such as, “Why did no one else see through the king’s veneer, when his whole thing is stealing people’s dreams?” The moral lesson matters more than any in-universe logic: There’s value in teaching children about the strength that comes from being part of a collective, and that individualism will only get you so far. Pine’s totalitarian ruler is the kind of classic Disney villain the company has been phasing out in recent years and, if nothing else, the concept of a young person becoming disillusioned with the leadership in her country after getting a look behind the curtain feels prescient. Better teach these kids now, before it’s too late! Still, the irony of praising a film about nonconformity from a media conglomerate with such an iron grip on our culture is not lost, and Wish certainly relies on tired formulas. Harboring inventive visuals and a heartrending message, Wish has enough heart going for it. What a shame, then, that it wasn’t confident enough in itself to try for success without these clichés. —Ursula Muñoz S.


9. Blue Giant

kids moviesRelease Date: October 8, 2023
Director: Yuzuru Tachikawa
Stars: Amane Okayama, Yuki Yamada, Shotaro Mamiya
Rating: NR
Paste Review Score: 7.0

In theaters

In his first feature since wrapping the critically acclaimed third season of Mob Psycho 100, director Yuzuru Tachikawa takes on the hallowed musical anime. Adapted from Shinichi Ishizuka’s ongoing manga series, Blue Giant is a film about a boy who wants to become the greatest jazz musician in the world, as he takes the most consequential step of his journey: Moving to Tokyo to break into the dying scene. Dai (Yuki Yamada), having left his hometown with a backpack and tenor sax, imposes on an old friend who moved to the city for college. He’s quickly met with the fact that there’s not enough venues left to make playing for money a possibility and begins working to pay his now-roommate Shunji (Amane Okayama) rent while scouring the city for musicians. He quickly meets pianist Yukinori (Shotaro Mamiya), who, unlike Dai, was surrounded by music at a young age. The two’s contrasting backgrounds and proximity to the world of professional music leads them to butt heads and build each other up the way rivalries-turned-bromances do in sports anime. Yukinori is more jaded, but also more technically proficient; Dai’s spirit undeniably comes through his sax’s sound. In anime, at least, that’s enough. Blue Giant is a somewhat tropey story that captures its characters’ big feelings, and its incorporation of live combo recordings contributes something unique to the steadily growing canon of musical anime. While not quite the feature I would’ve expected from Tachikawa after Mob Psycho 100, it’s a strong next step in the director’s career. —Autumn Wright


10. Spy Kids: Armageddon

kids moviesRelease Date: September 22, 2023
Director: Robert Rodriguez
Stars: Everly Carganilla, Connor Esterson, Gina Rodriguez, Zachary Levi, Billy Magnussen
Rating: PG
Paste Review Score: 6.2

Watch on Netflix

It’s tempting to say that Spy Kids: Armageddon is to Robert Rodriguez’s kid-targeted movies as Hypnotic is to his grown-up stuff: A modest, entertaining, halfway-return to not-quite-form; something silly that will benefit from low expectations. And that’s largely true. It is most of those things. But while Hypnotic derived some novelty from what it didn’t much resemble in Rodriguez’s filmography–a 1940s B-movie noir in color, featuring a contemporary movie star with a complicated public image–this Armageddon has clearly been brought about by Spy Kids past. We once again meet a pair of boy-girl siblings: Tony (Connor Esterson) and Patty Tango-Torrez (Everly Carganilla), whose parents Nora (Gina Rodriguez) and Terrence (Zachary Levi) secretly make their living as ill-defined spies. Once again, the kids have to step up when their parents are incapacitated by a world-threatening supervillain. Beyond this durable premise, Armageddon includes a mom-and-dad fairytale-mission flashback, like in the first Spy Kids; fighting skeletons, like in Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams; and scenes that take place inside a videogame landscape, like in Spy Kids 3 (and, metaphorically, like most of Rodriguez’s movies from the past two decades). These seem like conscious nods to the original trilogy, and most of them have their own little twists on the formula. What the movie fails to pick up is the finer points of its predecessors’ style and, especially, their eye for casting. Not just in the literal absence of the original kids (and the woeful substitution of Zachary Levi for Antonio Banderas), which is to be expected, but in the spirit of packing the cast with delightful supporting players like Danny Trejo, Steve Buscemi, Alan Cumming and Bill Paxton, who all enliven the original trilogy. (Even Sylvester Stallone gave it his best shot in the third one.) That’s not a knock on Billy Magnussen, who plays a game developer who wrests control of the world’s technology–a funny, parent-friendly echo of Terrence’s desire to control his son’s obsessive tech use. He just doesn’t have anyone to play off of; the whole movie feels weirdly underpopulated, with some neat-looking CG figures getting more screentime than the flesh-and-blood actors who typically inhabit Rodriguez’s Austin-shot virtual worlds. —Jesse Hassenger


11. The Inventor

kids moviesRelease Date: September 22, 2023
Director: Jim Capobianco
Stars: Stephen Fry, Daisy Ridley, Marion Cotillard, Gauthier Battoue, Matt Berry
Rating: PG
Paste Review Score: 8.2

On Demand

What a delight it is to be reminded that the creative endeavors of artists living today can reconnect us so exquisitely to both the vitality and frustrations of an artist who lived 500 years ago. Director Jim Capobianco and co-director Pierre-Luc Granjon do just that with The Inventor, their gorgeously rendered hand-drawn and stop-motion animated interpretation of the last years of Leonardo da Vinci. One of the smartest things that The Inventor does in its presentation of da Vinci’s life, which makes it accessible for both young and older viewers, is constraining its storytelling scope. The tight 90-minute runtime doesn’t attempt to compress the depth and breadth of da Vinci’s prolific life of creation and invention into a typical biopic. Instead, Capobianco’s script wisely focuses on the last four years of his life. As for the animation itself, the film mainly uses the same materials available to da Vinci’s for his own creative expression: Paper, wood, ink, paints and brushes. The Inventor employs them to create a handmade aesthetic which reflects the tactile creativity of one of humanity’s greatest minds. Capobianco and Granjon’s choice to eschew CGI animation in favor of 2D and stop-motion is spot-on, as they best convey the authentic diligence of da Vinci’s own creations. That’s an inspired framework to not only tell da Vinci’s story in a clever way, but to showcase the two kinds of animation in a way that allows them both to shine. —Tara Bennett


12. Ernest and Celestine: A Trip to Gibberitia

kids moviesRelease Date: September 1, 2023
Director: Jean-Christophe Roger, Julien Chheng
Stars: Lambert Wilson, Pauline Brunner, Michel Lerousseau, Céline Ronté, Lévanah Solomon
Rating: PG
Paste Review Score: 7.5

On demand

A crowd of bears gathers around a piano. A lone musician sits on its bench, earnestly cracking his fingers in preparation for what’s to come. The concert begins; it’s a lackluster musical performance executed on a single piano key. When the noise ceases, the onlookers erupt into applause. In Ernest & Celestine: A Trip to Gibberitia, the curious scene described above (which, admittedly, sounds like the setup of a mind-numbing riddle) is actually a startling portrait of life under authoritarian rule. At the start of this sequel to Ernest & Celestine—the lauded 2012 animated feature by directors Benjamin Renner, Vincent Patar and Stéphane Aubier—Celestine (Pauline Brunner) has accidentally broken Ernest’s (Lambert Wilson) beloved “Stradibearius” violin. This mishap prompts the adorable mouse and bear duo to embark on an action-packed expedition to Ernest’s country of Gibbertia, which is home to the only luthier who can repair the instrument. The pair arrive at the mysterious territory searching for the craftsman, but are instead shocked to learn that all forms of music have been criminalized in Gibbertia. A land once recognized across the globe for its phenomenal musical talent has now become intolerant to even the sweet melodies of birds chirping in the morning light. Up against henchmen-like “music police,” familial dysfunction and a government which refuses to let go of its old ways, Ernest and Celestine must harness the powers of nonconformity and friendship to challenge the status quo. With all its rebellious encouragement and unique visual flair, Ernest & Celestine: A Trip to Gibberitia crafts a moral tale undoubtedly worth the watch—so that the next time we encounter a group of politically oppressed bears listening to single-note music, we’re better prepared to take a stand. —Kathy Michelle Chacón


13. The Monkey King

kids moviesRelease Date: August 18, 2023
Director: Anthony Stacchi
Stars: Jimmy O. Yang, Bowen Yang, Jo Koy, Stephanie Hsu, BD Wong
Rating: PG
Paste Review Score: 9.0

Watch on Netflix

The Monkey King journeys to the Western streaming services once more with Netflix’s animated adventure from director Anthony Stacchi (The Boxtrolls, Open Season). As a notorious trickster figure of Chinese mythology, The Monkey King’s story is told time and again. His appearance in the 16th century epic Journey to the West, in which he atones for his misdeeds by aiding a Buddhist monk traveling to India in search of scriptures, makes him a mischievous yet reforming character who models and satirizes ancient Chinese values. Netflix’s delightful retelling of The Monkey King’s story takes place before the events of Journey to the West. Hatched from a rock as a baby monkey with laser vision, our hero quickly learns he doesn’t fit in with the other monkeys. But tricksters are all outsiders, and The Monkey King (Jimmy O. Yang) embraces his liminal status, striking out on his own to meet his destiny. (Re)united with his staff, named Stick for this retelling (with sentient throat-singing by Nan Li), he foils the Dragon King (Bowen Yang) and sets off on a quest to join The Immortal Ones. But The Monkey King never ventures alone. This time he’s accompanied by Lin (Jolie Hoang-Rappaport), a headstrong young villager who is a bit of an outcast herself. Together they’ll journey to hell, heaven and back again, with a bit of havoc along the way. The Monkey King becomes a work of cosmic color that changes form almost as often as its main character. The animation styles whiz by in kaleidoscopic fashion. The few songs written by composers Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss are just as eclectic as the animation styles. Jimmy O. Yang voices our trickster hero with a fitting power and mischievousness. Bowen Yang’s wry and riotous performance as the Dragon King is nothing short of robe-dropping. Those who have grown up steeped in Chinese mythology and iterations of The Monkey King’s story will catch the continual references to other chapters in his saga and Chinese mythology in general. Still, The Monkey King feels like a proper place for experiments in cross-cultural entertainment because Journey to the West is a story of cultures mixing and learning. The film is an enjoyably swinging adventure across time, worlds, and cultures. It’s an enchanting reminder that mythology can be diplomatic and a wonderful way to venture into new worldviews. —B. Panther


14. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem

kids moviesRelease Date: August 2, 2023
Director: Jeff Rowe, Kyler Spears (co-director)
Stars: Micah Abbey, Shamon Brown Jr., Brady Noon, Nicolas Cantu, Jackie Chan, Ice Cube
Rating: PG
Paste Review Score: 9.0

Watch on Paramount+

A visual tour de force of hybrid 2D and 3D animation, Mutant Mayhem is not only the most authentically New York version of the Turtles yet, it’s arguably the most inventive. Rowe, Spears and production designer Yashar Kassai have rendered the brothers as if they’re hand-drawn, complete with messy sketch lines, doodle flairs and a graffiti aesthetic. This is the ultimate paint-outside-the-lines take on the Turtles and it works on every level. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is swinging for the fences with its story and voice performances to ambitiously, quantifiably shake up the artistic rut that theatrical computer animation has been stuck in for the last two decades. Another plus is that the brothers are voiced by non-adult voice actors Nicolas Cantu (Leo), Brady Noon (Raph), Shamon Brown Jr. (Mikey) and Micah Abbey (Donnie), who recorded together, and were encouraged to excitedly talk over one another like a gaggle of real, tight-knit brothers would do. It translates into rapid-fire, organic quips and seemingly effortless timing that conveys a rapport that is singular to this iteration. It also elevates the script so that it doesn’t sound like it was written by a bunch of 40-year-olds trying to be hip and young. Rowe and Spears have a firm hold on their pacing, especially in how they use comedy to enhance their action beats. They also chart a progression to the brother’s battle prowess that is satisfying and pays off in satisfying full-circle moments. There’s also much to be admired in their choice to frame a lot of sequences with hand-held camera blocking, which leans into the unpredictable youth of the heroes that works so well in the gritty New York environs they’re sparring in. The filmmakers are also delightfully experimental throughout the Mutant Mayhem, using inspired live-action inserts, segueing into different artistic styles (including a homage to Eastman and Laird’s comic art) and embracing the asymmetrical character design that gives the film a fresh and energetic looseness.  Rowe and company prove that there’s no strength to the myth of IP fatigue when you have the vision and passion to reinvent with such bold and fun intention. —Tara Bennett

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