Post-apocalyptic computer cartoon by Shane Acker, set in a rusty, dusty, color-deprived future. “But life,” intones the rumbling narrator at the outset, “must go on,” even if only in the form of Lilliputian cloth-doll automatons hounded by Brobdingnagian mechanized cutlery. The realistic graphic style displays an endless devotion to tactility — the gunnysack skin of the automatons, the grainy wood, the weathered metal — and since the line between live action and computer animation continues to narrow and to blur, it would be no problem to populate the very same terrain with flesh-and-blood people instead of their disembodied voices (Elijah Wood, John C. Reilly, Christopher Plummer, Jennifer Connelly, Martin Landau). The engulfing visual experience provides sufficient distraction from, or compensation for, the rudimentary conflict of rebels against machines. (2009) — Duncan Shepherd
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