Excuse me for a moment as I play the part of the old lady. Kids these days have it so good! Back in 1988 when I was 10 years old, after I walked to school, uphill both ways in the snow, my choices for animated cinematic entertainment were limited. They were good, but very limited. If I remember correctly, 1988 would be the year of Oliver and Company and Land Before Time. That was it!

In 2012, there were more than 10 large studio animated movies. That does not include the Disney 3D remakes, smaller movies, or ones that went straight to DVD. Ten! That is amazing. Not to mention, that quite a few of those would have had an animated short included before the movie. I think it’s safe to say we are in the age of (digitally) animated movies. The bonus of this boom is advances in computer animation combined with the competition to be better, some incredible animated films are being made.

There is a movie coming out next year that exhibits just that.

Epic comes out of Blue Sky Studios, same people who brought us the wildly successful Ice Age movies and last year’s Rio. Those are great movies, but not something I myself would really seek out. However, once I saw the trailer for Epic, I was singing a different tune.

Seriously, that is beautiful. The part when the “decay” comes to life on the tree in a wave motion? I got chills. That looks so cool.

The story is based on William Joyce’s 2001 children’s book, The Leaf Men. If you haven’t read it, I would encourage you to do so, even if you are an adult and think reading children’s books is reserved for only children. It is a great story, no matter what your age. It’s a story that lends itself to being translated to film.

The film version has some big names in the voice department. Amanda Seyfreid (Mamma Mia), Josh Hutcherson (Hunger Games), Colin Ferrell, Christoph Waltz, Jason Sudekis, and Aziz Ansari- those are some rather big names. Then you have the musicians who lent their voices- Beyonce, Steven Tyler, and Pitbull. I’ll admit when I ask myself, “Hmmm, who should be a voice in an animated film about little “leaf men” who fly on hummingbirds,” I don’t automatically think of Pitbull but we’ll have to see how that works out. I’m intrigued.

I wish the trailer had either chosen to focus on the humor of the movie, or the pretty of the movie. If nothing else, they could have worked on the balance between the two. I’m sure there will be more footage released that might do just this and I think it will be to their benefit.

Also? The title is awful. I get that it is supposed to be this “epic” battle between the forces of good and evil but that word is a bit overused nowadays. Not to mention if you are going to call your movie “epic”, you are setting yourself up for potential failure. It is hard to achieve the level of epic and while I admire their “reach for the stars” attitude, perhaps it would have been best to settle for “Not EPIC but still pretty damn good”.

All that said, I’ll still go see it. I like pretty movies, and I like seeing pretty movies in the theatre. I don’t know that I’ll shell out the extra money to see it in 3D but that’s only because personally I am not a huge fan of 3D.

Epic is set to be released at the end of May, 2013.