Every DreamWorks Movie - Ranked

DreamWorks Animation is a studio with a mixed reputation. They might have a fair share of bad and forgettable movies, but they are also responsible for some of the best and most memorable animated films. Both as a challenge and for fun, I decided to rank every DreamWorks movie. In the spirit of my Pixar blog, I'll be doing it in JetPunk. This was a long project and ranking the movies was hard and fun, I hope you're at least a little interested about this subject.

I've made the decision to split this blog into two parts, the other one being unlisted. The reason is mostly because of how long this would've been otherwise, having two separate blogs should hopefully make reading a bit less overwhelming.

First, I was hesitant to rank Shark Tale as the worst DreamWorks movie, but honestly, no other deserves this place quite like it. It’s a fascinating failure in almost every aspect. This is an awful movie, but also interesting and a joy to watch at the same time.

The fish world is really poorly built. The animation is awful, most of the time it looks like the characters didn’t render in properly. Oscar is a terrible protagonist, and the movie tries so hard to make you root for him. Lenny, and essentially the entire shark mafia is infuriating and poorly written. Sykes is incredible, the fact that this movie has Martin Scorsese starring in it proves it’s something special.

The excessive pop culture references aren’t funny. The “jokes” suck, although at times, the voice casts’ delivery makes some lines actually work. The movie wants to be all serious and edgy but resolves its conflicts with a massive, childish cop-out. There’s so much more to talk about, which proves that Shark Tale truly is an intriguing film. It is the worst movie by this studio, and proud of it.

Boss Baby is a horrendous movie. Who would’ve known. The premise and execution are so baffling that it’s kinda impressive. Alec Baldwin baby is really an agent who tries to stop people loving puppies with the help of his temporary brother. It works about as well as you’d imagine.

The movie isn’t funny or cutesy. Some scenes broke me. The best parts are when the movie tries to be engaging, epic, and emotional while also starring a talking baby and featuring jokes for toddlers. It truly isn’t aware of its ridiculousness and the “serious” scenes end up being laughable. It’s an embarrassing, amazing movie.

Choosing between the Boss Baby movies is like choosing which type of disease you’d want to have. Anyway, there’s a sequel. It lacks the complete nonsense the predecessor had but makes up for its safe predictability. A bunch of stuff happened, and I have nothing to say. The plot kind of follows the first movies footsteps while adding some themes about family, a lame Jeff Goldblum villain and bad jokes.

I’m struggling of things to say. It’s obvious this movie wasn’t exactly made with people like me in mind (and by that, I mean: the target demographic is little kids who find anything loud and colorful intriguing). I’m tired of watching these bad films. Movie by movie, we’re hopefully and slowly getting to the good stuff.

Turbo truly is a nothing movie. It’s about Ryan Reynolds snail who goes fast and gets a chance to race. That’s it. The movie has nothing else going for it. The so-called story is laughable, none of the characters are interesting, it isn’t funny in the slightest. It’s aggressively boring and annoyingly loud at the same time. The so-called twist villain is so poorly written. The embarrassing big race at the end made me want to watch Cars instead, because at least that’s a decent racing movie with actual thought and heart put into it. This is literally just a waste of the surprisingly great voice casts’ talent. In the end, it’s so forgettable that I can’t really even get mad over it. Moving on.

Home sucks hard. The movie is about an alien played by the Bazinga man and Rihanna girl trying to stop a birthday invitation or something. It starts with the incredibly annoying alien race invading Earth, then it’s a journey in a flying car, then it’s about stopping a bigger alien from destroying everything. It makes about as much sense as you’d imagine. The movie isn’t cohesive, funny, or subversive in any way.

I’m tired of these dumb and goofy characters that you have to feel bad for ruining things and happy for saving the day in the end. It also has one of the worst third-act falling-out scenes out of any movie in this list. The Rihanna songs were annoying. What makes it better than Turbo is the fact that at least Home had some thought and fun ideas put into it and it wasn’t quite as infuriating. So that’s something.

There’s very little to say about Spirit Untamed. It’s a simplistic movie that isn’t trying to be something it is not. Still, watching it wasn’t fun at all.

First, the animation. This looks more like a children’s TV show than a DreamWorks feature film. The horses’ animation and backgrounds are the only things that look exceptionally great. Then, the boring story. A girl is sent to a rural village and develops a bond with a horse and two other girls. Then they stop a thief. Very interesting. Then there’s some stuff about distanced family and facing the trauma of losing a loved one. Sadly, the movie never really explores these themes. It also isn’t funny, engaging, and unsuccessfully tries to ride off the movie it’s based on (and just wait where I ranked that movie).

I can’t be too harsh on Spirit Untamed, since it obviously isn’t trying to be anything groundbreaking. It’s just a little kids movie. But that isn’t an excuse to be this boring, annoying, and forgettable.

Trolls World Tour. Wohoo. It is about trolls and a rock troll that tries to conquer the world. They sing songs and make bad jokes. It tries to tackle themes of racial issues but executes it about as well as you’d imagine. It’s not deep, subversive, funny or even remotely interesting to talk about.

The whole movie is about a villain who wants to collect six things in order to gain ultimate power. It also gives a glance into the interesting world of trolls. There are tribes of trolls based on types of music. Cool. The K-Pop trolls are intriguing, because a pop tribe already exists, and they’re treated as a completely separate genre. Does this mean Troll Korea exists? Why did James Corden have to be in this? Why are they making a third one? Justin Timberlake said he wishes they’d make “like seven Trolls movies.” I don’t. The music was okay at times, and it looks pretty. I’ll give it that.

When comparing the Shrek movies, Shrek the Third genuinely sticks out like a sore thumb. It’s worthless, unfunny, and uninteresting. It recycles things, right up to the poor villain. None of the characters are interesting. The jokes are bad, immature, and awfully timed. It meanders and adds nothing of value to the franchise. The story’s themes are “Shrek doesn’t want to be a king and runs away from responsibility” and “Shrek doesn’t want to be a father”. The movie throws a lot at you but none of it really sticks nor is cohesive. It has like two good scenes in total. I like the other Shrek movies a lot, and this one is nowhere near their quality. Easily forgettable and skippable.

Trolls wasn’t as bad as I expected. And by that, I mean I didn’t place it dead last. It’s still a bad movie and even worse musical. The whole story is about annoying trolls trying not to get eaten and helping two Bergens hook up. They also sing bad pop songs every 10 minutes. I like the Justin Timberlake troll who is the edgy, pessimistic dude that has this very sad backstory of how singing killed his grandma. It’s real sad and I definitely took it seriously.

The animation and environments are cutesy, and it had some fun songs and sequences. I would let my children watch this. That’s literally it. Trolls isn’t as bad as DreamWorks’s worst output, still sucks. And no, I don’t have kids, it’s hypothetical.

Monsters Vs. Aliens is about monsters, and… an alien. To be completely straight, this movie is nothing special. I don’t really care about the giant girl and the struggles of the monsters. The action is shockingly unengaging. The villain gets defeated before he even really executes his plan. I’m struggling of things to say. To give it some credit, it has a couple of funny jokes and isn’t as terrible as it could’ve been. That’s literally it. Sorry if you like this movie, but it’s nothing memorable, and doesn’t do anything subversive with the monster movie trope.

It’s Bee Movie. The movie with the funny talking Jerry Seinfeld bee. They make a lot of bee jokes, and the bees sue humanity. So funny.

Look, the premise is literally a short film stretched out to a feature movie. The constant jokes get annoying quickly. Most of them are really forced and lack the punchline. And humor is supposed to be the movies strong point. I have to acknowledge the voice casts’ performance though, it’s fun and you can tell they had a good time voicing the characters. But the story is lackluster, and it tries to become emotional and serious in the third act after pretending to be anything but. Movies can be over-the-top, ridiculous, and still work, for example, Penguins of Madagascar did it. But this is really a loose collage of memes that doesn’t work in any way for me. I'll have to give props to the fact that this movie even exists, though, considering its wonderfully weird production.

This movie literally has “bad” in its name. Anyway, Sinbad, not a very good film. It’s easily the worst hand-drawn DreamWorks movie and doesn’t stand on its own. The animation and action are really well done and some of the CG monsters look great, although it’s evident that some were way too grand and ambitious.

The story is a basic adventure quest where the heroes try to find a random magical book in order to save someone’s life, nothing special. The characters are fine, I think. Eris, even if well-animated, is a really boring villain. If she really wanted to stop Sinbad from getting the book, she could’ve just straight up killed him, not spawn in random monsters. This movie bombed and allegedly is one of the reasons DreamWorks nearly went bankrupt. I suppose that’s Sinbad’s legacy. It clearly had thought and talent put into it, but ended up being nothing more than a basic adventure film.

The first ever DreamWorks Animation movie. Antz was released around the same time as Pixar’s A Bug’s Life and the studios had some beef over it. Part of computer animation history. The movie is also not that good.

I’ll admit, it’s not that bad either. I like how the plot basically is Woody Allen ant being horny for the princess leads to him stopping the bad guy from committing genocide. The Sylvester Stallone and Christopher Walken ants are pretty good. What else? Right, the animation. This sure looks like it’s from 1998. While impressive, the movie feels really stiff and awkward thanks to it. The jokes are very hit-or-miss; the comedic timing is weirdly off, and the mature humor doesn’t really work that well. The pacing and flow of the story is odd.

It’s not bad, and an adequate first film of a studio. You might like it, and good for you. I didn’t.

The incredible Madagascar trilogy’s third installment is just about the worst one. None of these movies are bad, they’re just sometimes fun, more often annoying, and unengaging comedic stories.

The strengths of Madagascar 3 are its jokes, even if it's easily the least funny Madagascar movie. The penguins, weirdly one of the most memorable and epic characters this studio has ever created, are obviously funny. King Julien and the apes are as well. The action is really good, that casino scene, car chase and climax are fun to watch. Captain DuBois is a surprisingly good villain. Everything else is not memorable. The circus stuff and waiting for the inevitable liar reveal scene are tedious. I don’t know what else to say. It’s a movie that doesn’t work for me from a trilogy I don’t care about. Sure, a fun watch, but I struggle to remember almost anything from the story.

I honestly don’t care that much about Madagascar. Odd to think that such a large franchise started from this movie. The most credit I can give is the four main characters. They’re fun, have a good chemistry, and do serve their purpose. Of course, I don’t find them to be more than that, they’re not deep or intriguing.

The movie is great when the penguins or apes are on screen and sometimes there are great jokes. It’s a good thing, since the story is nothing interesting. It takes forever to start properly before relying on weirdly executed and predictable tropes. The major conflict could’ve been better, and the pop culture references aren’t funny. I know people love this movie, and that’s great. It’s just my opinion, don’t let it change yours.

I don’t know what to say about The Croods. It’s an adequate animated movie that is also nothing noteworthy. I like the sense of tension and wonder, but also don’t like the family bickering clichés and constant unfunny jokes. Fine, there are some fun moments and I also like the animation and how the caveman world looks.

Nicolas Cage’s Grug has a predictable, but serviceable arc as a father that has to learn to let his child grow up and go see the world. The constant jokes of Guy creating something unheard of is tiresome, but sometimes fun. The characters are not anything special but do serve their purpose. I don’t have any strong feelings for this movie. I’ll place it here and move on.

Madagascar 2 is slightly better than the other Madagascar films. It is also just fine and nothing that special. I like how the story feels natural and more of an actual story than the other films from the trilogy. As tiresome as the found family trope is, it’s done decently here. Of course, it gets convoluted and almost everything that doesn’t feature the penguins is kinda forgettable. The main characters are fun but still not interesting. The villain lion is pathetic. The Nana stuff is dumb. Moto Moto is great. The penguins and plane stuff are as well. Not sure what else there is to say, I don’t find these movies good or interesting, as you can probably tell. I can respect them for being what they are and the people who like these, but it’s easily the weakest trilogy DreamWorks has put out.

I bet you didn’t even know this movie existed. Abominable is about a yeti and some kids that try to get him back home to the Himalayas. The beginning was good, but as the story takes off, it just becomes a basic adventure film. The Yeti has unexplainable magical powers, they just seem to be very random things he can do in order to save the characters from whatever the situation is. The said characters are decent. The villains are basic and kinda boring. There is also a twist villain, who isn’t good, but not the worst of its kind in this list.

I’ll give props to the score, animation, environments, and the setting. Other than that, this is a movie which doesn’t have a lot to talk about and does things that other movies have done better. It’s kinda infuriating to hear people say how DreamWorks are on a “golden era” because they’ve released one great movie in the last four years, out of seven attempts, and probably don’t even remember their lukewarm films like Abominable. Still, watch it if you want, you might enjoy it a bit more.

I swear that watching these movies has ruined my standards for what is a good film. Everyone says that the Croods sequel is a major upgrade in quality and actually good, but I can’t see it.

I genuenily enjoyed the movie for a good while. The animation is even better than in the first film. The concept of a more-evolved family taking advantage of the Croods and scheming to make Guy leave them is a great idea and is executed well. Unfortunately, the movie loses me with the Punch Monkeys. It becomes a convoluted story through random, constantly changing set-pieces and a waiting game for the inevitable moment where the Bettermans and Croods learn to accept one another. The humor is extremely hit-ot-miss, it is way too aggressive and random. That Thunder Sister plot-point made me question my sanity.

As I said, I enjoyed some things. Mostly the beginning, some jokes, the voice cast, climax, and conclusion. It doesn’t make up for the dumb shift in the story and its clunkiness. Still, I can respect the thought and effort that went into making a sequel to The Croods out of all things.

Flushed Away got worse upon rewatch. It is a decent run of the mil -DreamWorks film, but there were a lot of things that stopped me from actually enjoying it. The story and premise weren’t that engaging. It uses usual clichés, like the main characters misunderstanding each other, and they’re pretty poorly done. It gets clunky and tries to throw a lot of random things and jokes at you. Those slugs were not funny. The Aardman direction honestly doesn’t work in this CGI movie, leading the animation to look kinda off.

Then again, I like the main character rats. The villain frog, his henchmen, and the French frog are genuinely very funny. The worldbuilding is neat. I also found the action to be pretty good. Even if the story isn’t the most interesting, it’s still serviceable. I have nothing else to say about Flushed Away. I suppose it left a positive impact on me.

They are the best characters in the Madagascar franchise, so this movie only makes sense. While it is better than any main trilogy movie, it’s still not exceptionally great and honestly had potential to be more. Still, a good watch. The story might not be the best and some jokes don’t land, but it makes up for those with its good humor overall, ridiculousness and stellar action. I like the octopus villain. Those North Wind members, not so much. The villain’s plan and the climax were also a bit weak, and it tries too hard to be emotional and serious. The plot flows well and is a decent spy film spoof. Overall, an enjoyable movie. I had a good time watching it, that’s always nice.

For what it’s worth, Puss in Boots is not a bad movie. There’s a lot holding it back, though. Puss’s and Humpty Dumpty’s backstory is great, but it takes a lot of the movies time, leading to the main story being pretty short. The said story is played completely straight and is oddly paced, especially during the part when they make it to their destination. The liar reveal twist near the end is poorly done.

I like Puss's character. Kitty is also great. The action is well done and despite its problems, I had a good time watching the story unfold. The ending, notably the twist at the end, were also wonderful. It has major issues, and the third act twist was very badly executed, which prevented Puss in Boots from being actually good.

I’m surprised The Bad Guys made it this high. I suppose it is good, but not nearly as great as everyone seems to believe. It is a decent take on a villain protagonist story, has very good and smooth animation, fascinating action, fun characters, and honestly, at times, great dialogue.

Sadly, the story isn’t that great. After the engaging beginning, it meanders around the “can the bad guys turn good” premise and most of it feels predictable. The Professor Marmalade and Snake twists were good, too bad I instantly saw them coming. It is weirdly paced, and things just seem to happen. It is a decent film and I’d definitely watch it over most of the other recent DreamWorks movies. Still not that great, and dare I say, a bit overrated.

And so, we have reached the end of the first part. The remaining movies will be ranked in part II. For now, thanks for your time and see you in the second part!