MOVIES: Month of the Animated Movie Trailer.

It seems that June is the month when all of the animation studios--both good and bad, known and unknown, new and older-than-the-hills--decide it's time to release a trailer for an upcoming film of theirs. One even decided to release ANOTHER trailer, just months after their previous first trailer. The list includes upcoming films such as Tangled, Rio, Alpha & Omega, Smurfs, and a second trailer for Legend of the Guardians. Here's a quick, quick synopsis of my response to each trailer.

Tangled: Interesting, to say the least, but the finished product could swing either way. I'm betting critic average response will be a few notches below Bolt (which sits at 88%), and viewer response may be about the same, give or take. As for me... no idea. Not that interested, but not repulsed either. Speaking of which, I still need to watch Bolt...

Alpha & Omega: This movie will fail. I could smell the fail from the moment I laid eyes on the first picture (didn't know it was possible to give an animated wolf such a bad hairdo that it could look like a creepy, dull flower). Critical panning and tepid viewer response are practically guaranteed, not to mention crude humor will abound. I certainly won't be watching it.

Rio: The good new is it seems it may be a bit above the quality of the last two Shrek movies. The bad news is it shows signs of containing similar crude humor, so don't expect this to vie for a How To Train Your Dragon or Kung Fu Panda level of quality. Still, it'll become a success among the viewers I'm sure.

Smurfs: Not much of a trailer here (technically a teaser), so too early to tell. Still... the animation style that was shown has me doubting how this will turn out...

Legend of the Guardians: The new trailer shows more balance between character personality/development and an epic storyline, so this trailer has me a bit more hopeful than usual. Still, I can't believe it's being headed by the people behind Happy Feet. *shudder*

Rango: Uh... what the... I think this film is stuck in some sort of flux. In fact, I don't know what to think of the trailer (the recent one, released June 29th). The art direction's actually surprisingly good for the style of film it is, but in that same breath leaves me unable to know whether it will turn out well or become a weird outlier. Unique for sure, yet surprisingly hard to tell where this will go.

Megamind: Think of this as Shrek rebooted... but with blue alien styles, a more antagonistic main character, and, well, lower expectations from me. Along with that, I'm expecting mediocre response from critics, but passable response from audiences. Doesn't appeal to me, though.

That's it for my impressions. I'm intentionally leaving Despicable Me out of the list due to its imminent release, and the bucket load of trailers out already.