All told, "Madagascar," and its sequel, "Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa," took 400 people 8 1/2 years to make. But back to back, the two movies wouldn't even take three hours to watch.

Revered Japanese animation director Hayao Miyazaki has no intention of swapping his pencil for computer graphics and will keep hand-drawing his films for as long as he can, he said during the last Venice film festival.

Animated features intended for families come in two varieties: films with personality and a genuine sense of humor, and films in which characters stand around cracking jokes like they were doing stand-up.

French-made, computer-animated film "Dragon Hunters" follows the adventures of two hunters-for-hire, Lian-Chu and Gwizdo, and their trusty friend Hector, on their quest for fame and fortune in a world that has turned into a series of freestanding islands of varying sizes and shapes.

The world may not want or need another Anakin Skywalker movie, especially one that looks as if it’s not quite a cartoon, not quite a Christmas special and not quite something panoramically painted on the side of a van.

Ahhh, grasshopper. Consider the fat panda: half-cooked dumpling, doughy child of destiny. Assassin of doughnuts.

Toil in any industry for a while, and you develop a sixth sense about bad omens. If you’re a film critic, for instance, and a studio won’t return your calls about a movie, you assume that movie is a steaming heap of garbage.

An enchanting tale of friendship and evolving relationships, “The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep” engagingly grafts coming-of-age movie chestnuts onto Scottish folklore.

Those are the words I hastily scrawled in my reporter’s notebook during a recent screening of “The Spiderwick Chronicles.”

The good news about “Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who!” is that it actually looks Seussian, which is more than you can say for the nightmare-inducing, live-action adaptations of “The Cat in the Hat” and “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” that were sprung on a trusting public in 2003 and 2000, respectively.