ANI-MOVIES, *In Your Dreams

For the next original production from Netflix Animation Studios, they got Alex Woo to direct and write the somewhat original title, In Your Dreams. Teaming up with Sony Pictures Imageworks, which by the way is not the same studio as Sony Pictures Animation that did K-Pop Demon Hunters, Alex Woo took his experience as a former Pixar animator in his first duty as director to come up with his own creation. However, sharp animation fans will notice a few similarities between this movie and Over The Moon plus Turning Red along with Orion And The Dark, as In Your Dreams is a comedic adventure involving a dysfunctional family trying their best to stay together through magical means. The movie did get a short stint in theaters although it gained more notice once it premier on Netflix. Kuku Studios assisted in the animation, but both their efforts and Imageworks' made for a seriously uncanny valley with most of the main character designs. It's like they were going for some of the earlier character models resembling The Incredibles with somewhat lifelike details can make watching the movie slightly uncomfortable.

Stevie is a tween with specific point of view which her younger brother Elliot is constantly disrupting with his obsessions in magic and lunchmeats. The two of them are from a mixed-race couple who used to have their own band which nowadays has the father longing to release his own album while the mother is more realistic trying to get a reliable source of income as she sees about a job in a separate town. This has Stevie worrying that her parents might be splitting up, but a magic book from a thrift store that Elliot stole leads them both into the world of their dreams which they can only enter together. They learn about the Sandman who controls dreams and could make them come true, so Stevie wants for her parents to not split up and talks Elliot into going along with him, even though they need to get through an onslaught of scares by the antagonistic Nightmara who prevents them from reaching the Sandman's castle. The siblings do manage to finally get to the Sandman who offers them a reality where their parents are together which is where the lines start showing about whether or not the Sandman or Nightmara are the actual villain of this picture, even though technically there really isn't one in this story as it explores people's intentions and perspective.

In Your Dreams is a story that children who lived through a divorce can reflect upon along with a generous number of innovative landscapes when the children are in the dream realm. The casting is largely acceptable despite the fact that they had voice actor veterans like Lizzie Freeman and Scott Menville playing minor roles as the Sandman's little helpers. Alex Woo along with co-writer Erik Benson does a fair job of demonstrating how a child's dreams is a perfect place for an animated feature, however they seem to neglect how most of the family's problems stem from the father's reluctancy to move on from his glory days. This is a decent reminder of classic children's stories like Little Nemo In Slumberland, especially with the flying bed that acts like a horse, nevertheless there are a few noticeable story flaws that could detract some from rewatching it.