The best CG in 1080p

Features
By published

Seven animated flicks that make real life look boring

With today’s release of Ice Age on Blu-ray, we got to thinking about other CG films in the marketplace. It seemed like once Pixar made anthropomorphic animals with celebrity voices the hot shit, then every grad student with computer skills leaped at the chance to rush B-grade movies into theatres. We’ve taken a gander at the CG flicks currently in HD, and we gotta be honest - there isn’t much to choose from. Even guilty-pleasure fare like Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children still hasn’t been HD-ified.

Our list represents some of the better movies on HD and a few that are ahem…a little lacking in the “good” department, but make up for it with quality visuals. That’s the reason you spent your kid’s college fund on a home theater set up, isn’t it? Behold: the best in hi-def CG.

Beowulf (Director’s Cut) - HD-DVD
If you’ve graduated high school, chances are you read the epic 3000-line poem about Beowulf, slayer of beasts and coveter of naked animated Angelina Jolie. Director Robert Zemeckis (Back to the Future, Cast Away) filmed real actors, then had computer wizards transfer all their movements into a computer to digitally recreate them. So you’re not really seeing Jolie naked, but that’s the closest you’ll ever get, pervert. Oh and there’s tons of action, blood and sex. Even though it’s only on HD-DVD right now, you’ll still get a benchmark disc with amazing visuals and near-lossless Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound. It might be best to wait for the Blu-ray disc though, if you can hold out.