Blue Sky Studios has been a mainstay in the mainstream animation realm for years. Starting off as a visual effects company, having done third-party work for Alien Resurrection, Star Trek: Insurrection, and Fight Club (for the penguins), the studio soon branched off to do its own animated efforts. And with the release of Ice Age last 2002, Blue Sky Studios gained traction and eventually become a mainstay of the business.
Now under the Disney banner, Blue Sky might take time to stand out again. Here are the ten best-rated movies released by the studio, according to their Rotten Tomatoes scores.
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (46%)
While The Meltdown is a competent albeit juvenile effort in the franchise, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs is where the animated saga jumped the shark. The concept of dinosaurs still existing below the world of the Ice Age flora and fauna may be ludicrous, but it could have been delivered well in an animated level.
Granted, Ice Age 3 has funny moments and neat cartoony slapstick, and Simon Pegg as Buck the Weasel is a joy to watch (until his appearance in the fifth movie). However, the movie's out-of-place pop culture references hurt it. It is mediocre.
Ice Age: The Meltdown (57%)
Thanks to the success of Ice Age, Blue Sky expanded their filmography with Robots and an Ice Age sequel. For this adventure, Manny, Sid, and Diego must evacuate from an incoming glacial flood and encounter two possums named Crash and Eddie and a fellow mammoth named Ellie (Queen Latifah). Cue wacky antics meshed with emotional moments.
Reflecting upon the franchise, Ice Age: The Meltdown is the best sequel among the four, though by a margin. The mammals get their opportunity to strengthen their bond, and Latifah brings some needed levity to the gang.
Epic (64%)
Based on the William Joyce book The Leaf Men and the Brave Good Bugs, Epic is a star-studded animated flick about a teenage girl being transported to a fantasy world in Mother Nature. With a pedigree like that and the assurance of Ice Age’s Chris Wedge, Epic could have lived up to its title. Unfortunately, it settles for the safest family-fantasy adventure.
The world-building animation is so immersive that every location and every battle sequence felt grand. That said, the characters range from subpar to annoying. Even then, Epic is a harmless adventure that fails to justify its namesake.
Robots (64%)
Robots is another friendly family fare with a familiar message of achieving personal dreams after being inspired by the words of a personal hero. But even with the limitations of the clichéd plot, the animation is topnotch. From the design of the characters and the production design of Robot City, Blue Sky raised the standards of their animation.
The characters are notable as well, with standouts like Ewan McGregor’s older voiced Rodney Copperbottom, Robin Williams’ comic relief Fender and Mel Brooks’ larger-than-life Bigweld. Yet, they had to succumb to juvenile humor and references. Regardless, Robots is a passable family adventure.
Ferdinand (72%)
Though Disney created an animated short based on the Munro Leaf classic The Story of Ferdinand, Blue Sky did its own version in 2017 with Rio director Carlos Saldanha.
John Cena does well as the titular bull since he is also a bulking presence with a heart of gold. More importantly, the adaptation maintained the original story's pacifist message. However, a too-large cast, the out-of-nowhere subplots, and the childish humor hampered the experience. Nevertheless, Blue Sky earned its second Oscar nomination for Best Animated Film.
Rio (72%)
Blue Sky veteran Carlos Saldanha earned the opportunity to bring his homegrown story to life with 2011’s Rio. This story is about a rare blue Spix’s macaw named Blu (Jesse Eisenberg) being brought to Rio de Janeiro to meet another Spix’s macaw named Jewel (Anne Hathaway), only to get in a misadventure with an array of colorful characters.
It is refreshing to see an idyllic version of Rio. The vocal cast is top-notch as well. Overall, Rio settles on being safe, but in terms of family-friendly fare, the movie is wonderfully vibrant.
Spies in Disguise (75%)
The first animated effort to be distributed by Walt Disney Motion Pictures, Spies in Disguise is sadly maligned by the oversaturated market and the rocky transition of Disney’s acquisition of Fox. Setting that aside, this is an extremely underrated flick that deserved more recognition.
While the premise is silly, Spies in Disguise's story brings a fresh angle to the spy fare. The vocal cast is also fantastic, particularly Will Smith as a suave super-agent-turned-pigeon and Tom Holland as his Q counterpart with a moral compass. The action is crisp and the animation is terrific.
Ice Age (77%)
Ice Age is the movie that put Blue Sky Animation Studios on the map. As early as 2002, the studio's computer animation was so top-notch that it got nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, only to get beaten by Spirited Away. Ice Age's cartoon antics have expert comedic timing, be it Sid’s comic relief bits or Manny’s straight man quips. But Scrat, the saber-toothed squirrel, is the MVP of cartoon antics.
Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, and Denis Leary are so seamless as the central trio that it makes the best use of their Three Men and a Baby timing.
Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who! (79%)
Arguably, Blue Sky created the best (full) movie adaptation of a Dr. Seuss book, and that is by a long shot. Yet, for a long time before the next and final pick, the studio had Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who! as their best effort.
This is, in part, due to the studio remaining faithful to Horton Hears a Who's message and lore. The Seussian design and antics are all over the adaptation's animation, while the humor is mostly consistent. The voice performances are excellent, with Jim Carrey as an excitable Horton and Steve Carell as the fatherly Mayor of Whoville being standouts.
The Peanuts Movie (87%)
Finally, the best effort of Blue Sky Studios is The Peanuts Movie. As the fifth feature-length Peanuts film, it was great to see the beloved characters created by Charles Schulz onscreen once again. Like many others, but better, The Peanuts Movie stayed faithful to the source material's style, and the 3D animation complimented the hand-drawn illustrations from the iconic comic strip.
Glazed with fun references to the panels and TV specials, The Peanuts Movie settles on a simple story of Charlie Brown wanting to impress the Little Red-haired Girl and Snoopy dueling against the Red Baron. Fun, nostalgic, and uplifting, The Peanuts Movie represents Blue Sky Studios at its peak.