Director Shane Acker pieces together a puzzling story “9” that's full of intrigue and detail. Originally a 10-minute short by the same director, the visual stunner develops into a fascinating tale without losing its mysticism.

Disney is back doing what it knows best, classic 2-dimensional, hand-drawn animations, with “The Princess and the Frog,” proving that the original formula still works.

Inspired by Ron and Judi Barrett's children's novel of the same name, “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” is a hilarious comedy from Sony Pictures that turns a 30 page book into a 90min all you can eat meal.

Call it a post-Christmas miracle, albeit a minor one: “Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel” isn't entirely awful.

With a deflated global economy forcing people everywhere to pinch pennies, the mood seems right for the return of the cheapest of the cheap, Ebenezer Scrooge, in Disney's big-budget holiday extravaganza, “A Christmas Carol.”

There's a whole lotta whiz-bang in “Astro Boy,” a slick CGI interpretation of the 1950s manga classic, but even Astro's shiny red rocket boots can't lift this conventional superhero story into orbit.

As success follows success for animation powerhouse Pixar, the pressure to maintain the streak must be phenomenal. Will the next film be the one that stumbles, the one that breaks stride?

I like Scrat. You like Scrat. We all, apparently, like Scrat. But no one, I suspect, likes the saber-toothed cartoon squirrel – who, along with his beloved, ever-out-of-reach acorn, made only brief appearances in both of the first two "Ice Age" films – enough to want to watch a whole movie about him.

The super-duper 3-D big-screen Imaxed-out extravaganza that is "Monsters vs. Aliens" has bells and whistles, whiz and bang, sound and fury. It even has Reese Witherspoon.

"Waltz With Bashir" is one of Israel's first animated features, and it's going to be a hard act to follow. Provocative, hallucinatory, incendiary, this devastating animated documentary is unlike any Israeli film you've seen.