Top Ten Types of Talking Animal Movies Ranked from Least Unholy to Most Unholy

Ever since the birth of cinema, when that train came out of the tunnel and said 'choo choo', talking animals have been a common movie conceit. There have been many movies made about cows, many about bears. Most of all, there's dogs. When they speak, whatever they are, what fun it is!

Here are the 10 types of talking animal movies, ranked from least unholy to most unholy.

10. 2D ANIMATION

Aladdin. The Rescuers Down Under. Tweety Bird. Brave Little Toaster. Bambi. The Lion King 1 1/2. The Legend of the Titanic: An Animated Classic. Balto. Aloha, Scooby-Doo!. Lion of Oz. The Tale of Tillie's Dragon. Bambi II. All of our favorite movies are 2D animated talking animal movies.

2D animation gets the status of Least Unholy because the medium is a natural fit for such a morally reprehensible conceit as putting the words of man in the mouths of creature. As we will see moving down the list, there are many ways to make real animals speak on film, but there are always physiological obstacles to overcome. Cartoons circumvent these problems by creating character models that are both recognizably animal, and human enough to articulate human language without looking like a sleep paralysis ghoul.

9. ANIMATRONIC VOICEOVER

There is a long list of talking animal feature films created by blending footage of actual animals with close-ups of animatronic versions that can articulate their mouths in some semblance of human speech: Babe.

Seriously, I'm googling around and I can't dig up any other talking animal movies that use animatronics. All that comes up is the groundhog who does the Pennsylvania State Lottery? Anyone have other examples? Is Babe so unique? Shame, because the technique works beautifully in that movie. Through careful editing and incredible animatronic work by Jim Henson's Creature Shop, Babe is probably the best example I've seen of a holistic and convincing talking animal character in live action. Not only that, but machines are already infernal, so no harm done involving them in this unholy practice.

8. ACTUAL ANIMALS VOICED OVER

Speaking of 1995 live action films about talking pigs, Gordy is an example of how to do what Babe did but worse in every way. Gordy belongs with the likes of Homeward Bound, Hot to Trot, and Look Who's Talking Now: films that forego technical wizardry to just stick an animal in front of a camera. There are two subcategories here: films that don't even bother making it look like the animal is talking, and films that try to get the animal to flap its lips during the voiceover segments, a la Gordy. Mister Ed is the classic example of this latter technique, apparently achieved by holding tasty treats out of frame until the animal's lips smack. That all sounds pretty cruel to me. Better to treat the animals with kindness and dignity like they did in Milo and Otis.

7. MOTION CAPTURE

To talk about motion capture is to talk about Andy Serkis. Ever since he pioneered the technology that would make him thin and gross in The Lord of the Rings, motion capture has become standard practice for big budget blockbusters. In fact, it's become a sort of obligatory way to make actors feel like they actually participated in CGI-forward movies that are basically rendered like big budget video games. Come to think of it, there are big budget video games now that do a much better job of centering an actor's mo-cap performance than most movies.

Serkis's Gollum was iconic, but more of skinny man than a talking animal. Serkis's masterpiece, however, was a very talking animal: Caesar from the Planet of the Apes reboot trilogy. The creativity of design, depth of expression, and nuance of gesture are all unparalleled.

Serkis is also responsible for a lesson on how not to direct motion capture. His own film, Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle, is an unwatchable travesty. In his attempt to challenge Disney's megapicture The Jungle Book, Serkis directed himself and some of his disciples in a version of the story that leans heavily into the motion capture, to its great detriment. The issues here aren't with the tech itself, but with the staging, blocking, and framing of it. These animals stand stock still and chat with each other like NPCs in a PS2-era video game. The effect is uncanny and, dare I say it, unholy.

All that being said, the most important accomplishment of motion capture technology has been forcing old Harrison Ford to perform opposite a man pretending to be a dog.

6. DISNEY'S PHOTOREALISTIC REMAKE MACHINE

Basically Disney sniffed a cash cow and decided to render that cash cow in delectable, luxurious 3D. Realizing that you can remake your huge back catalog of classics for a quick buck is one thing. Resolving to remake them all in the least imaginative way possible is something else. Rather than taking any creative risks or deigning to ask the question, 'What can this story say to us now?', each remake has been more or less the same story, but constructed in the cold mind of a computer, under the supervision of countless exhausted underpaid computer animators.

This category ranks as decently unholy because, although the results are polished enough not to be disturbing like some of the more unholy categories below, the entire enterprise is a hollow one. Watch any footage of the original Lion King side to side with the remake and you'll see how much dingier everything is when shackled to 'realism.' Realistic looking animals beholden to realistic earth physics aren't built to sing and dance the way stylized cartoons do. This looks even dumber than Gordy, like you've got a really itchy lion hooked up to a bunch of marionette strings. I will never understand this fixation on realism for movies that involve jungle creatures performing show-stopping numbers.

5. 3D ANIMATION

Antz. Bee Movie. Barnyard. Ice Age. The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature. What do these movies all have in common? They all look like ass.

Of course, it's not fair for me to single out the worst examples of the visual medium. There are plenty of flat-out gorgeous gems out there like Rango, the underrated epic Western starring Johnny Depp as a talking lizard. Here's a fun fact. Even though there was no motion capture involved, director Gore Verbinski had his actors physically block and perform the scenes in a specially equipped VO soundstage to help activate the performances. Probably also the best way to get Depp to shake off his wine-and-cocaine haze.

Unfortunately, most examples of the medium (not made by Pixar) don't come anywhere close to the level of care and inspiration found in Rango, or even something like Zootopia. Mostly it's just globs of computer clay shaped into approximations of animals just accurate enough to trigger some pleasure center in a three-year-old's brain. Something about 3D animation lends itself to easy cash-ins like the millionth Madagascar movie, or trite propaganda like The Star.

4. REGULAR HUMANS PRETENDING TO BE ANIMALS

One underrated solution to the problem of making animals talk on film is to just make a human pretend to be one. My favorite example of this is a character named Animala from The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra. This black catsuit wearing woman was created by an alien matter combination ray gun. She is described as "Part human, part four different forest animals." She slinks around doing sensual animal dances, and although her language is mostly limited to yowling her name, she begins to learn the rudiments of human culture and speech over the course of a dinner party in which she must pose as the villain's wife.

I can't think of any other good examples of this. Those Ninja Turtles movies were pretty good I guess. Movies should do this more. Instead we're left trying our best not to remember The Cat in the Hat.

3. REAL / CGI HYBRID

Here we get to the most unholy dregs of talking animal movies. Abominations from hell walking on god's green earth side by side with real human beings. For a gimmick that was essentially perfected with Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, leave it to CGI to bust down the door and say, "Let's do the same thing, but shittier, and constantly." You'd think that something as conceptually bizarre as combining live action actors with CGI creations would lead to some experimentation and exciting variation, wouldn't you?

Yes, those bottom two scenes both feature James Marsden.

Too many such atrocities exist. There's G-Force, a movie apparently about talking superhero hamsters. There's Alvin and the Chipmunks, manifestation of a decades old pop culture grotesquerie that everybody wishes we could forget. Woody Woodpecker, a movie that can give you an aneurysm simply by watching select clips. 2020's Dolittle, a big budget disaster the likes of which shouldn't be possible in our era of polished mediocrity above all else. Or Garfield, a movie so dire that Bill Murray went out of his way to disavow it in Zombieland.

Of course, there are Paddingtons out there, rare examples of the medium put to good and creative use. But for every Paddington there's a Joe's Apartment, which... well...

2. CGI MOUTH

One would think that it does not get any worse, but I submit to you that most unholy of talking animal movie tactics, live action animals with CGI mouths. Here you will keep splendid company with films like Cats and Dogs, The Karate Dog, and Beverly Hills Chihuahua.

At this point these movies just feel disrespectful to humans, animals, and computers. Human spoken language uses incredibly complex physical mechanisms to relay meaning, both verbal and gestural. Every bit of programming in our bodies knows that speech is a holistic act, not just something the mouth does by itself. We cannot help but feel dread when we gaze upon one of these chihuahuas, or perhaps a karate dog, who is moving its horrid mouth independently of the rest of its face. Additionally, animal mouths do not naturally take the shapes needed to produce our languages. Imagine if you saw another human open their mouth to talk but instead their jaw unhinged so as to unleash a hippopotamus bellow. You wouldn't like to experience that very much.

For the love of god people, consider what you are about to bring into the world before you commit it to film. Which brings us to our final category...

1. CATS

Cats.