Animation 2009

With the news that Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs might just nick the number one spot at the American box office this weekend 2009 really has been the year for the animation movie.

Inspired by the children's book by Judi Barrett and Ron Barrett the movie follows a scientist tries to solve world hunger only to see things go awry as food falls from the sky in abundance.

In recent years the animation movie market had become saturated due to the success of Pixar and Dreamworks but 2009 has brought us a string of high quality movies in this genre.

Pixar's latest offering Up, coming just twelve months after the monster success of Wall-E, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival back in May and was the first animation picture to ever open the festival.

Once again Pixar have produced a movie with animation of the highest quality and is a coming of age story as Carl Fredricksen has spent his entire life dreaming of exploring the globe and experiencing life to its fullest.

When Carl was a child, he met and eventually married a girl named Ellie who grew up in a small midwestern town.

Ellie always dreamed of exploring the mountains but died before she got a chance. Now, when developers threaten to move him into an assisted living home, Carl decides to fulfil his promise to Ellie

But at age 78, life seems to have passed him by, until a twist of fate (and a persistent 8-year old Wilderness Explorer named Russell) gives him a new lease on life.

The movie has already topped the box office in both American and Australia and looks set to find success here in the UK when it's released next month.

Coraline has also been another animation picture that has been met with critical acclaim and was based on Neil Gaiman's international best-selling book. Coraline is the story of a young girl (voiced by Fanning) who unlocks a mysterious door in her new home, and enters into an adventure in a parallel reality.

On the surface, this other world eerily mimics her own life - though much more fantastical.

In it, Coraline encounters such off-kilter inhabitants as the morbidly funny Miss Forcible and Miss Spink (French and Ms. Saunders, respectively), and a counterfeit mother (Hatcher) - who attempts to keep her.

Also finding box office success this year was Monsters vs Aliens from Dreamworks, the team behind Shrek.

When Ice Age was released back in 2002 no one expected the level of success that these movies have enjoyed.

From the success of the original a franchise was born and Sid, Manny & Diego returned to the big screen with Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, the third movie in the series.

Scrat is still trying to nab the ever-elusive nut (while, maybe, finding true love); Manny and Ellie await the birth of their mini-mammoth, Sid the sloth gets into trouble when he creates his own makeshift family by hijacking some dinosaur eggs; and Diego the saber-toothed tiger wonders if he's growing too "soft" hanging with his pals.

On a mission to rescue the hapless Sid, the gang ventures into a mysterious underground world, where they have some close encounters with dinosaurs, battle flora and fauna run amuck and meet a relentless, one-eyed, dino-hunting weasel named Buck...

And once again Ice Age worked it's magic over cinema audiences as it topped both the U.S. and UK box office. Is there another film on the horizon?

Animation movies to keep an eye out for later this year include the Tim Burton produced 9, which has already topped the U.S. box office.

After a series of push back the new movie from Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki, Ponyo will finally make UK cinema screen in February next year, following on from Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle it will be well worth a look.

Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs is out now.

FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw