The Incredibles
The Incredibles takes a different look at the super hero genre by making the titular heroes retire, forcing them to take mundane jobs and grow fat, and out of shape. Oh yeah, also having kids with super powers they need to constantly monitor. It is a light, family friendly flick, but a good chunk of its running time is spent dealing with serious issues adults can relate to. The characters are a bit cliche and the animation style is not for everyone but the payoff in the end is worth it. Screw the rules, do what you love and you are best at.
Despicable Me
A super villain has to become a foster father to three cute girls and as you might have guessed things didn't start off well. The whole development is pretty cool and interchanged with some very amusing scenes thanks to The Minions. The basic humor kids love seamlessly intertwines with the more serious themes of getting attached and taking care of children, which you eventually come to love and protect at all costs. It works without cutting the connection with its target demographic, a true animation for all ages.
Up!
Up! really upped the ante when it introduced an old geezer as its main character. He is what you can expect from the stereotypical old loner - grumpy and territorial until a young boy comes into his world and reminds him of his younger self. This unlikely duo gets to adventure and even fight a villain, which was a bit too much but their relationship is thankfully the central part of the whole thing. It is never too late to try to fulfill your old dreams, or feel like a kid again by watching this animation.
Finding Nemo
Oh no, my kid disappeared! I have to swim through the whole ocean to find him! Yet another animation, which introduces an older than normal character(fish), which has to do all the cool stuff like exploring and interacting with weird characters. But that is ok because building an animation on top of a very real adult fear never felt that great. The characters do seem a bit out of the water when it comes to their real age, the two main leads act like kids most of the time, but this of course comes with the territory.
Toy Story 3
All Toy Story offerings are great, no doubt about that. There is also no doubt that Toy Story 3 was the darkest(if you can call it that) of them all. Things like growing up, leaving behind things you enjoyed when little, revenge and sacrifice, imprisonment, fakeness, lies are central. Also it brings the point home that even if you help your worst enemy there is no guarantee they'll help you back. Surprisingly mature, it was a fitting end to this glorious franchise and brought about many sad memories of the times we used to love our toys.
Shrek
You have to look at Shrek as a parody of the good old fairy tales we grew up reading and as one it can make every age group in the household laugh. Yeah it was a bit crude, but at least we had the hilarious talking donkey to smoothen things up a bit. From the start(Shrek uses a page from a book for kids to wipe his ass) to the end(The Princess becomes The Beast, willingly) it is silly, provocative and filled with non-standard humor. A bit old and dated now, it still holds its ground. The sequels really don't feel nearly as innovative.
Brave
Women can be powerful heroes too and can fight the system just as well as men can. Put a strong woman with archery skills in the lead, spice up heavily with Scottish mythology and as a final ingredient add a family problem as the motivation. Yes, her mother turns into a bear(ops) and Merida is the princess, who has to fix everything without help from Mario. Things cannot get more interesting, I assure you. Fun note: Hunger Games came the same year and the female lead there is also an archer. A trend!
Wall-E
It takes real skill to keep someone interested for so long without a single spoken word and yet Wall-E achieves just that. Follow the character around the fascinating landscape and quickly realize what happened. The end of Earth as we know it, too much trash, no space to live! Yes, it is silly when presented like this, heaps of trash reaching the sky, but the prospect of humanity polluting our planet so much it becomes uninhabitable is very real. And living in space doesn't seem that good in comparison. Another, smaller theme explored in Wall-E, is how overreliance on technology will make our lives very dull. Correct on both accounts.
Ice Age
It has been done before, sure, a human boy is being taken care of by wild animals, who have no business playing mommy and daddy. Unlike its jungle brother though Ice Age concentrates on the animals themselves and their dealings with the very human problem in their paws. Disaster brings different people together, anyone? Obviously we can all related to that and enjoy watching the various animal representations of human personalities argue along until they finally realize they are stronger together. Being cute is a bonus, I am sure.
The Adventures of Tintin
Or in other words Indiana Jones: The Animation. Tintin is an old fellow in a sense that his comics have been going for a long time. Basically it is one crazy adventure after the other, all you really need to know. And this animated film offers exactly that - an adventure, crafted by the director of Indiana Jones himself, Steven Spielberg. It is pretty, fast, has an alcoholic as Tintin's helper and deals with more grown up-ish stuff. Don't expect Mr. Jones' brutality here but don't expect to fall asleep either.
