This season’s race for best animated feature is one of the most stylistically varied in recent memory, a category where the technique on screen matters as much as the story. At one end are the studio behemoths — the glossy, four-quadrant CGI machines that have long dominated the field. Yet even the majors are wobbling. Pixar’s Elio stalled at the box office despite the studio’s trademark polish, and even Disney Animation ’s undeniable Zootopia 2 — the sequel to the 2016 Oscar-winning billion-dollar hit which opened to a record $556 million worldwide this past weekend — has its detractors ( THR ’s Frank Scheck was among the film’s boosters ).

This season’s race for best animated feature is one of the most stylistically varied in recent memory, a category where the techniq

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