Pixar Animation Studios released their groundbreaking first feature film 20 years ago this November, and their 15th feature film, INSIDE OUT, opens in theaters everywhere this Friday! Pixar has more than earned their spot in cinematic history with an unparalleled streak of eleven consecutive critical and box office successes, nine of which are masterpieces, and some of them stand amongst the greatest movies ever made. Many of their characters have become as iconic as the classic characters of Disney and Warner Brothers animation, their storytelling has often transcended the expectations of family entertainment with its emotional potency and rich, complex themes, and from the moment they produced the world's first computer-animated feature film, they've remained at the forefront of pushing technology to new heights. Unfortunately, even the most improbably prolonged and potent winning streaks have to come to an end eventually, and after three movies that are mediocre at best, it's fair to say that Pixar's has. But they're hardly down and out. For the first time, Pixar has two movies opening in the same year, and while I have apprehensions about tumultuously-produced THE GOOD DINOSAUR (scheduled for release on November 25), INSIDE OUT is one of my most anticipated movies of the year. Bringing back longtime Pixar writer/director Pete Docter, whose previous film was 2009's UP (one of Pixar's best), INSIDE OUT examines the world and roles of emotions from within the mind of a preteen girl named Riley, personified as the characters Joy (voice of Amy Poehler), Sadness (voice of Phyllis Smith), Disgust (voice of Mindy Kaling), Anger (voice of Lewis Black) and Fear (voice of Bill Hader). In proper anticipation of the new movie, I'm looking back at Pixar's 14 feature films to date, both the ups and the downs, considering why the great ones are great, why the good ones are good,why the not so good ones are not so good, and the rise and fall of Pixar's first 20 years of feature films.
TOY STORY
Released 22 November 1995
Directed by John Lasseter
Featuring the Voices of: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Don Rickles, Jim Varney, Wallace Shawn, John Ratzenberger, Annie Potts, John Morris, Erik von Detten, R. Lee Ermey, Laurie Metcalf, Sarah Freeman, Joe Ranft, Jeff Pidgeon
Rated G
81 minutes
10 out of 10
TOY STORY is one of the few movies that was irrefutably a landmark from the moment it was released 20 years ago. Computer animation was a familiar concept already in 1995, used to produce commercials and short films including Pixar's own Academy Award-winning 1988 short
Tin Toy (which inspired the concept for TOY STORY), as well as for special effects like the stained-glass knight in YOUNG SHERLOCK HOLMES, the liquid metal T-1000 in TERMINATOR 2: JUDGEMENT DAY and the photo-realistic dinosaurs in JURASSIC PARK, but TOY STORY was the first fully computer animated feature film the world had ever seen. It is to Pixar what SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS is to Disney.
While some classic movies have notably dated special effects and should be viewed through a lens of understanding toward the film's strengths in its time, everything onscreen in TOY STORY is a special effect, and nearly all of it is dated by Pixar's own doing over two decades of rapid development and technological boundary pushing. It's impossible to look at TOY STORY in 2015 and not be aware of this, although there are moments that show surprising detail and complexity for the first feature of its kind. There's no doubting Pixar's technological ambition even back then, and in spite of its technological inferiority to films that came even five years later, let alone those of today, it remains a masterpiece fitting of its technical significance. Even though TOY STORY is visually limited, even ugly in spots, the strength of its iconic characters and simple but sophisticated storytelling shine through as brightly today as they did back then.
The story is a buddy comedy within a community of children's toys who come to life when humans aren't around (which I think we all pretty well knew already). Woody (voiced by Tom Hanks, who had just won back-to-back Academy Awards for Best Actor in 1994's FORREST GUMP and 1993's PHILADELPHIA) is an old pullstring cowboy doll and the favorite toy of little boy named Andy (voiced by John Morris), but that changes when Andy receives a new "Space Ranger" action figure- Buzz Lightyear (voiced by Tim Allen, at the height of his Disney-produced TV sitcom,
Home Improvement). Woody doesn't take the demotion very well, and is only more peeved by Buzz's delusion that he is an actual Space Ranger, sworn to protect the galaxy from the Evil Emperor Zurg. In his jealousy, Woody attempts to knock Buzz behind a desk and inadvertently sends him flying out the window, resulting in the other toys accusing him of murder (!), so Woody has to get Buzz back in order to save his reputation. This turns out to be easier said then done, however, as Buzz and Woody become trapped inside the house of the toy-mangling neighbor kid, Sid, and have to learn to work together to get back to Andy before his family moves in a couple of days.
Former Disney studio chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg has been made out to be something of an antagonist in the Pixar narrative for clashing with Pixar personnel (similarly to the way he did with Disney Animation leading up to THE LITTLE MERMAID, BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, ALADDIN and THE LION KING) and pressing them make the characters edgier and meaner until they were too nasty and mean-spirited, resulting in a disastrous story reel screening for Disney executives where production was shut down for the entire story to be reworked. Katzenberg's involvement did temporarily take the film down the wrong route, but the spirit of his concept of a sharp, sophisticated buddy comedy in the spirit of THE DEFIANT ONES and 48 HRS. remains. The movie has a cocktail of writers and creative minds at work, as varied from Joss Whedon (who later went on to direct MARVEL'S THE AVENGERS) to Joel Cohen and Alec Sokolow (who wrote the dreadful GARFIELD: THE MOVIE together), and the movie is an eclectic mix as a result, but one that congeals magnificently. It's hip and contemporary, and yet timeless and heartfelt.
It's a story befitting the first feature film of an all new medium, contrasting the old (a cowboy) with the new (an astronaut) and finding the common ground between them. The voice casting is perfect, placing the hopelessly likable Hanks in the jealous and frantic role of Woody, and Allen as the dim but authoritative Buzz, as well as an assortment of supporting characters among which Don Rickles as the acerbic Mr. Potato Head is a standout. The advantages of the tech in comparison to traditional animation are taken fully, such as giving Woody a plaid shirt and cow print vest, details that would have been too elaborate for the intensive process of a hand-drawn animated character, while the non-organic main characters are ideal for the limitations of the tech. Most important to the success of TOY STORY however is its emotional depth and power, accented by the musical stylings of Randy Newman, including three original songs, and interwoven with enduring comedy rooted in situation and character. There are the low lows of Buzz's tragic realization that he cannot actually fly, and the high highs of Buzz and Woody's climactic "falling with style" in through the sunroof of Andy's family's car. 20 years later, while the exterior of its imagery may be a bit rusty, under the hood she still runs like a dream and earns its position as a film classic.
A BUG'S LIFE
Released 25 November 1998
Directed by John Lasseter
Featuring the Voices of: Dave Foley, Kevin Spacey, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Hayden Panettierre, Phyllis Diller, Richard Kind, David Hyde Pierce, Joe Ranft, Denis Leary, Jonathan Harris, Madeline Kahn, Bonnie Hunt, Michael McShane, John Ratzenberger, Brad Garrett, Roddy McDowall
Rated G
95 minutes
6 out of 10
Pixar's second feature film isn't talked about much these days, but it's generally taken for granted that it's one of their masterpieces. Contrarily, it's definitely on the low end of the studio's unparalleled TOY STORY (1995)-TOY STORY 3 (2010) streak, about on par with CARS actually. At the time of its release, critics and audiences were heavily focused on A BUG'S LIFE through the lens of Disney and Pixar's new-found rivalry with DreamWorks and their newly established animation division, which produced and released ANTZ the same year. The feud between Pixar and DreamWorks was well-publicized, including allegations that DreamWorks' co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg, who was studio chairman at Disney before a bitter ousting in 1994, deliberately stole the idea for a computer-animated comedy set in an ant colony and focusing on a odd worker drone from Pixar. The films, beyond the basic concept of a computer-animated film about ants, turned out to be vastly different and both critically acclaimed, but A BUG'S LIFE connected with audiences more strongly.
A BUG'S LIFE focuses on an ant named Flik (voiced by Dave Foley), a worker ant with a knack for inventing, much to the chagrin of the rest of the colony who are often inconvenienced by Flik's malfunctioning machines. The ant colony, ruled by a wisecracking queen (voiced by Phyllis Diller) and her heir-in-training, Princess Atta (voiced by Julia Louis-Dreyfuss), spends most of each year harvesting enough food to feed themselves and the gang of brutal grasshoppers, led by Hopper (voiced by Kevin Spacey), who demand an offering in exchange for the ants' "protection". With barely enough food for themselves, Flik suggests that someone leave to find and bring back "warrior bugs" to fight the grasshoppers, and eager for something to distract Flik while the rest of the ants work, Atta lets Flik go on such a mission. Flik, a naive country bug in the big city, surprises the ant colony by actually bringing back nine bugs to defend the ants, but when Flik discovers that there's been a severe misunderstanding, and his so-called warriors are actually circus bugs, they desperately try to keep the secret while helping the ants to build a defense system.
The story, developed TOY STORY director John Lasseter and Pixar directors/writers Andrew Stanton and Joe Ranft, is inspired by the well-known Aesop's fable, "The Ant and the Grasshopper", while drawing heavily from Akira Kurosawa's SEVEN SAMURAI. It's surprisingly dark and quite violent in comparison to other Pixar films, with a strong villain in Hopper, with Spacey's vocal performance conveying a cold-blooded menace, but it's tonally bipolar; there's a lot of juvenile, light goofiness.
It's an ambitious follow-up to TOY STORY, for sure, taking the leap from plastic toys to organic ants in a miniature scale, but the characters and story are a lot less appealing or interesting. Flik is really annoying, too "aw shucks" earnest and ebullient for comfort, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus is shrill as the high-strung Atta. In addition to Hopper, supporting characters like the Queen, who is basically a queen ant version of Phyllis Diller, and Frances, an insecure, hyper-masculine ladybug voiced by Denis Leary, provide the movie with its strongest moments. Flik, though, is probably Pixar's least likable hero to date, next to CARS 2's Mater.
A BUG'S LIFE is a handsome enough movie, but emotionally thin and limited in its charms.
TOY STORY 2
Released 24 November 1999
Directed by John Lasseter
Featuring the Voices of: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack, Kelsey Grammer, Don Rickles, Jim Varney, Wallace Shawn, John Ratzenberger, Annie Potts, Wayne Knight, Estelle Harris, John Morris, Laurie Metcalf, R. Lee Ermey, Jodi Benson, Joe Ranft, Jonathan Harris
Rated G
95 minutes
10 out of 10
Released four years after the original and produced under a madly rushed schedule, TOY STORY 2 is leaps and bounds ahead of its predecessor visually, and even an arguable improvement on its already formidable storytelling technique. It's an ideal sequel, one that possesses the spirit of the original while expanding upon and deepening its world and characters, and it does so without invalidating the impact of the previous chapter and working both independently of and in cooperation with the series as a whole.
When Woody (voiced by Tom Hanks) is stolen by Al (voiced by Wayne Knight), an unscrupulous toy collector who recognizes him as a rare 1950s-era "Sheriff Woody" doll based on the TV show
Woody's Roundup, he discovers his origins and is introduced to the "Roundup Gang", all part of the
Woody's Roundup collection, the sale of which will make Al an enormous sum of money. Included in the Roundup Gang are Jessie the Yodeling Cowgirl (voiced by Joan Cusack), Woody's trusty horse Bullseye (a pantomime character with animal sounds provided by the prolific voice performer Frank Welker), and Stinky Pete the Old Prospector (voiced by Kelsey Grammer), all of whom have suffered rejections and are eager for preserved existence of a toy museum, but as Woody offers them the opportunity of returning to Andy's house, Stinky Pete is the one holdout, revealing his true colors as an embittered toy who'll drag the rest with him to the toy museum if need be. Meanwhile, Buzz (voiced by Tim Allen) and Andy's other toys lead a rescue mission to find Woody but become caught up in the delusional adventures of another Buzz Lightyear toy (also voiced by Allen).
TOY STORY 2 ventures into the mortality of toys, or rather, the impermanence of their existences as they know them, because toys wear out and children grow up. It's probably fair to say that they milk the poignancy a little heavily in the now-famous
"When She Loved Me" montage of Jessie being outgrown by her previous owner, but TOY STORY 2 comes by its emotions honestly and because of and in result of the constant enriching of the characters. Remarkably, TOY STORY 2 was originally planned by Disney (retaining sequel rights to the original, independent of Pixar) as a straight-to-video production, and when Pixar's John Lasseter requested to take over the sequel as a top-tier theatrical release, Pixar had to rework the whole story and animators had to work overtime to finish the film in time for the immovable Thanksgiving 1999 release date, resulting in wide spread carpal tunnel syndrome and repetitive strain injuries. It feels nothing like a rush job, an ideal example of the brilliance that is possible for creative minds working under pressure.
I don't know if I could choose a favorite Toy Story movie, as they're all exceptional entertainment, but TOY STORY 2 is probably the most flawless of the three. It has the lighthearted levity of the first while being more technically deft, and has the emotional gravitas of the third film, appropriately inhabiting the middle ground between the two.
MONSTERS, INC.
Released 2 November 2001
Directed by Pete Docter
Featuring the Voices of: John Goodman, Billy Crystal, Mary Gibbs, Steve Buscemi, James Coburn, Jennifer Tilly, Bob Peterson, John Ratzenberger, Frank Oz, Daniel Gerson, Steve Susskind, Sam Black
Rated G
92 minutes
8 out of 10
MONSTERS, INC. is one of Pixar's most imaginative films, executed with the warm and able touch expected from the studio, but so warm and affable that it's mostly absent the thematic heft and emotional strength of their other movies. It's an uncommonly well-made fluff piece.
Set in a world inhabited by a thriving community of monsters that come in all shapes, sizes and types, Monsters, Incoporated is the power plant in the city of Monstropolis, where skilled workers called scarers enter the human world through portal doors that look like the bedroom closet doors that they exit from as they scare human children to collect their screams, which are the monsters' primary fuel source. James P. "Sulley" Sullivan (voiced by John Goodman) is one such scarer, the greatest working at the factory, in fact, and works with his trainer/assistant, Mike Wazowski (voiced by Billy Crystal), and together they are going for the all-time scare record against their rival, the chameleonesque bully, Randall Boggs (voiced by Steve Buscemi). But human children are severely toxic, so the monsters have to be extremely careful, and one night when Sulley notices one of the portal doors left out, a human child (voiced by Mary Gibbs) gets loose in the monster world. While Sulley begins to question whether human children are actually toxic, he takes to calling the girl "Boo", but fearing banishment, he and Mike desperately try to find a way to return her to her bedroom without being caught by other monsters or the Child Detection Agency (C.D.A.).
The big advancement in Pixar's tech for MONSTERS, INC. is the ability to animated fur convincingly, with the main character, Sulley, being covered in the stuff, but also snow, which comes into play later in the movie. Things aren't quite yet at the level of their next film, visually, but conceptually, MONSTERS, INC. is one of Pixar's most original. The idea of monsters scaring children as their jobs is a good start, but the door system established in the film is remarkable. The area where the monsters work, the Scare Floor, is lined with door frames, and on a system of rails, Monsters, Inc. has a replica of every child's closet door from around the world. The specific door is directed to the empty door frame, but once in place, the door doesn't just lead to the bedroom. It has to be turned on. It's such a unique and visual idea, one that is shown, rather than told, and sets up the incredible climactic scene in which Mike and Sulley, evading Randall, ride the doors on their rails into the massive vault filled with millions of doors, and run in out of them, never quite knowing where the next door will lead to.
Emotionally and in terms of characters, however, the movie is simple and not as impressive. It's easygoing, inoffensive, with a toe-tapping soundtrack by Randy Newman and an abundance of sight gags throughout.
FINDING NEMO
Released 30 May 2003
Directed by Andrew Stanton
Co-Directed by Lee Unkrich
Featuring the Voices of: Albert Brooks, Ellen DeGeneres, Alexander Gould, Willem Dafoe, Brad Garrett, Allison Janney, Austin Pendleton, Stephen Root, Vicki Lewis, Joe Ranft, Geoffrey Rush, Andrew Stanton, Elizabeth Perkins, Nicholas Bird, Bob Peterson, John Ratzenberger, Barry Humphries, Eric Bana, Bruce Spence
100 minutes
9 out of 10
FINDING NEMO is a soothing experience, appropriately like staring into an aquarium like the one Nemo finds himself dropped into at a dentist's office in Sydney. It's a beautiful and moving story, one that was imitated by a slew of foul imitators that had no idea what made it work so well this time, and it takes Pixar to a whole other level.
In the Great Barrier Reef, Marlin (voiced by Albert Brooks) is a severely neurotic clownfish raising his son Nemo (voiced by Alexander Gould) as a single parent following the death of his mate by a barracuda. Desperately protective of Nemo, who has a damaged fin as a result of the same barracuda attack when he was still in the egg, Marlin embarrasses his son on a class field trip, causing Nemo to swim out into open water in an act of rebellion when he is netted by scuba divers. With only a diver's mask to go on, Marlin begins to search for his son, meeting up with Dory (voiced by Ellen DeGeneres), a blue tang with a dreadful case of short-term memory loss, and she decides to help him, somewhat to his chagrin. Encountering sharks, jellyfish, turtles and whales, Marlin and Dory head for the address in Sydney, Australia, marked on the diver's mask, during which time Marlin learns a few things about letting his son experience new things. Meanwhile at a dentist's office in Sydney, Nemo gets to know life in a fish tank, learning a few lessons himself from a hard-edged moorish idol named Gill (voiced by Willem Dafoe), about overcoming his handicap and appreciating his father.
Other movies that followed and pushed a similar overbearing parent learning to trust their kid plot miss why it works so well in FINDING NEMO, boiling it down to a whiny, misunderstood kid struggling
against a well-meaning but ultimately antagonistic parent, culminating in the kid ultimately telling the parent off in a way that magically heals the strained relationship. Marlin's not an antagonist. In fact, Marlin is the
main protagonist. Marlin's journey teaches him how to be a better father, and when he's reunited with Nemo in the climactic scene and has to put what he's learned into action, although he is reluctant, Marlin is ready. It doesn't feel like a win-lose competition between a parent and child whose relationship we're supposed to care about as it is in many similar family films.
Visually, FINDING NEMO is a quantum leap for Pixar, who have rendered the ocean as their most lush, detailed and organic environment up until this point. The characters are primarily fish suspended in a liquid-filled environment and present a wholly new challenge compared to anything they've done before, and filled with the small details, like tiny floating specks throughout the water, swaying plant life and even the slightly translucent nature of certain fish. It's the first Pixar film with genuinely photorealistic environments, and all with the notoriously complicating factor of water besides.
The characters and humor aren't quite yet at the level of some of the greatest Pixar films to follow, but they're endearing and have plenty of inspired moments. Dory is a particularly interesting character because she comes so close to the border of being annoying, but never actually gets there (not until you run into the people who tell you to "just keep swimming" in their sing-songy voice and milk every Dory quote to death). Still, the fact that the upcoming sequel is titled FINDING DORY does not give me much hope for that film.
The sharks are an especially nice moment though. Although Marlin is from the Great Barrier Reef, the only fish with Australian voices are the three sharks; Bruce, a great white voiced by comedian Barry Humphries (who also voiced and motion-capture performed the Goblin King in THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY), Anchor, a hammerhead voiced by Eric Bana (known for his roles in Hollywood films like THE HULK, TROY and MUNICH), and Chum, a mako voiced by Bruce Spence (best known as the Gyro Captain from MAD MAX 2: THE ROAD WARRIOR). Bruce was featured prominently in the film's marketing in a way that seemed to suggest that he was a major antagonist, and when he first appears in the film, he seems suspiciously menacing as he invites Dory and Marlin to a "party", but then the movie calls us all on our shark racism, because Bruce is actually a member a "sharks anonymous" group. It's such a weird and fun little episode in Marlin and Dory's journey, with a suspicious but ultimately well-intended "bring a fish friend" step in the shark's "fish are friends, not food" program.
FINDING NEMO was a colossal hit, finally claiming the rank of highest-grossing animated film of all time from THE LION KING, which had held it for 9 years. It was Pixar's first winner of the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature since the category was introduced two years before. Pixar Animation had been no slouch, but FINDING NEMO took things to a new level and solidified the studio as the kings of animation and family entertainment for the 2000s.
THE INCREDIBLES
Released 5 November 2004
Directed by Brad Bird
Featuring the Voices of: Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter, Spencer Fox, Sarah Vowell, Jason Lee, Samuel L. Jackson, Elizabeth Pena, Brad Bird, Bud Luckey, Wallace Shawn, John Ratzenberger, Jean Sincere, Lou Romano, Bret Parker
Rated PG for action violence.
115 minutes
10 out of 10
Many of Pixar's films over the past 20 years have been "game changers", original, outside-of-the-box-thinking films, so it might seem superfluous, but THE INCREDIBLES deserves special recognition within Pixar's pantheon of masterpieces. Their sixth feature film, it does everything that their earlier films were so successful at, while bringing all to a new level and shaking up the Pixar image in a great way. It was the first Pixar movie to originate outside of the Pixar Braintrust, having been pitched to John Lasseter by writer/director Brad Bird (the two had been classmates at CalArts in their youth) as a ready-made story, so the resulting film is distinctly in Bird's artistic voice but rendered with a Pixar palette.
Bob Parr (voiced by Craig T. Nelson) used to be the super strong superhero (known as "supers") Mr. Incredible before a series of lawsuits from victims of collateral damage caused by their acts of heroism forced him and the other supers to retire to a more ordinary existence. Now in middle age and married to his super stretchy and flexible (nice) wife Helen (voiced by Holly Hunter), known in her crime-fighting days as Elastigirl, with their three kids, Bob is going through a mid-life crisis and finds a top-secret job that allows him to resume his life as a super. Unfortunately, his employer turns out to be an evil genius who goes by Syndrome (voiced by Jason Lee) and is using Mr. Incredible to try out the malicious robot that he plans to unleash on the city and stage a mock-fight so the public will recognize him as a super. With Bob held captive, Helen flies to Syndrome's island to rescue him and the Parrs' two older children, Violet (voiced by Sarah Vowell), who can make herself invisible and create force fields, and Dash (voiced by Spencer Fox), who has powers of super speed, stow away and by the time Helen discovers them, they've come to far too go back and it becomes a family mission.
Superhero movies are the order of the day in the action genre at the moment, but they were just coming into their own when THE INCREDIBLES was released in 2004. SPIDER-MAN 2 was a big hit the same year, but they were the only two superhero movies in the top 20 movies of 2004, and the beginning of the "Marvel Cinematic Universe" as we know it was still four years away. While THE INCREDIBLES is unique among most superhero movies by having all original characters not previously a comic book property, the family superhero team is comparable to the Fantastic Four (who actually had their own not very good movie released the following summer in 2005), being a group of superheroes who not only fight villainy on behalf of the common folk, but also who have to work within the family dynamic, which provides almost as many challenges. They even have similar powers to the Fantastic Four; Mrs. Incredible/Elastigirl's rubbery physicality matches Mr. Fantastic's powers, Violet can turn invisible and create energy fields like the Invisible Woman, and Mr. Incredible is immensely strong and nearly indestructible like the Thing. The exception is Dash, but he's kind of a cocky rapscallion like the Human Torch on a personality level. For the Incredibles though, their powers cleverly address family archetypes of the strong, stalwart father, the flexible mother pulled in a dozen different directions, the shy and defensive teenager and the hyperactive, energetic little boy. As Bird aptly puts it regarding the baby Jack-Jack, initially and erroneously believed to have no super powers, "Babies are unrealized potential."
One of the big things worth noting about THE INCREDIBLES, setting it
apart from the rest of the Pixar pack, is its PG rating, Pixar's first
out of only 4 in 15 films to date (including INSIDE OUT) at a
time when G-rated family films are the exception. Like Pixar's other
films, THE INCREDIBLES is a mixing pot of genres, part comedy, part
adventure and part family film among others, but it's unique to Pixar in
that it's also very much an action movie. While it's definitely a great film for the family, THE INCREDIBLES doesn't pull its punches, even taking a bold moment for Helen to explain to the kids the mortal peril that they are in:
"Remember the bad guys in those shows you used to watch on Saturday mornings? Well, these guys aren't like those guys. They won't exercise restraint because you are children. They will kill you if they get the chance. Do not give them that chance." It's a chilling moment in an animated superhero comedy, and not the only one; the scene in which an imprisoned Mr. Incredible is forced to listen as Syndrome launches a missile at the jet carrying his wife and kids, and unaware that they survive the blast, always wrecks me. It's a movie that runs the emotional gamut from heartbreak to soaring triumph, but it has no pretensions, playing things as cool and stylish.
There are some very thought-provoking themes in THE INCREDIBLES, ones that I can turn over in my mind again and again, but I never feel like I have them nailed down. The issue of "everyone is special" is another way of saying no one is, and "when everyone's super, no one will be" smack of Randian philosophy at first glance, but it doesn't quite fit with closer consideration. This is Syndrome's perspective, but the movie doesn't agree with its villain, and in the end, the characters' compromise on some level. If THE INCREDIBLES were in fact rooted in conservative ideology, Dash would zip past the other runners at the track meet in the prologue. The satire is evident but never too forthcoming, so it always leaves me with things to think about. It's a very deep and layered movie with things to say about the myth of superheroes, concepts of masculinity and gender roles, social expectations and compromise, even existential angst, all wrapped up neatly in a retro-styled pulp adventure. Even within the stable of Pixar's ready-made classics, THE INCREDIBLES is a landmark and one of the best movies of 21st century thus far.
CARS
Released 9 June 2006
Directed by John Lasseter
Co-Directed by Joe Ranft
Featuring the Voices of: Owen Wilson, Paul Newman, Bonnie Hunt, Larry the Cable Guy, Cheech Marin, Tony Shaloub, Jenifer Lewis, Paul Dooley, Michael Wallis, George Carlin, Katherine Helmond, John Ratzenberger, Michael Keaton, Richard Petty
Rated G
117 minutes
6 out of 10
CARS is a regression for Pixar. Not a sudden fall into the garbage dump like its sequel would be, but surrounded on both sides by far, far superior movies that took Pixar's storytelling to new levels. It's fine, but it's definitely one for the kiddies. The first movie directed by John Lasseter since TOY STORY 2, CARS is essentially his baby, maybe not as much for the story as for the concept, but full of affection for the feeling of an old-fashioned roadtrip along the highway and enjoying the drive as more than just a way to get to a destination.
In a world completely inhabited by anthropomorphous cars (?!), plus some planes, helicopters, a train and probably boats, Lightning McQueen (voiced by Owen Wilson) is a hotshot rookie race car with lots of speed and skill, but which easily outdone by his self-aggrandizing. In the race to win the prestigious Piston Cup, McQueen is in the lead against the retiring veteran Strip "The King" Weathers (voiced by Richard Petty) and perpetual runner-up Chick Hicks (voiced by Michael Keaton), but his showboating nearly costs him the race, which ends in a three-way tie. The tiebreaker race is scheduled to take place a week later in Los Angeles, so McQueen takes to the freeway in his trailer pulled by Mack (voiced by John Ratzenberger), a semi truck, but thanks to a prank by a few souped-up street racers, a dosing McQueen rolls out of his trailer and wakes up to find himself lost on the back roads. Attempting to find his way back to the main highway, a frantic McQueen tears through the sleepy town of Radiator Springs, accidentally ripping apart their main street. Detained by local law enforcement, the town's prosecutor Sally Carrera (voiced by Bonnie Hunt), a sexy Porsche, persuades the town's race car-hating judge/doctor, Doc Hudson (voiced by Paul Newman), to begrudgingly order McQueen to stay in town and repave the road. Guarded nightly at the impound by the rusty old tow truck Mater (voiced by Dan Whitney, aka Larry the Cable Guy), McQueen gradually comes to appreciate the town, which was once a popular rest stop on U.S. Route 66 before the Interstate was built.
Pixar's story-building process is famously laborious, involving steps of construction, deconstruction, reconstruction and so on, so it's a wonder how they ever got to a fairly specific ripoff of the 1991 romantic comedy-drama DOC HOLLYWOOD. In that film, Michael J. Fox played young hotshot surgeon Dr. Ben Stone, who leaves his East Coast job when he gets a cushy, glamorous new job as a plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills. On his way to the West Coast, Stone drives recklessly through the sleepy town of Grady, causing property destruction, for which the stern old town judge sentences him to community service. DOC HOLLYWOOD plays many of the same beats as CARS, despite being released 15 years earlier, including the love interest who used to be a big city gal before she fell in love with the slow, small town atmosphere, the crotchety doctor who just wants him to get out of town and leave the townsfolk to carry on their lives, the main character ultimately getting what they want, only to realize that the small podunk town has had what he really wanted the whole time. What CARS is lacking, however, is Julie Warner's buxom bare breasts.
Although the character designs are quaint and cartoony (but rendered with a sense of tactility), the scenery and small details throughout are beautiful, including photorealistic renderings of scenic rock formations subtly resembling car parts and hood ornaments. In fact, there are many sight gags like that scattered throughout, like jet exhaust in the sky resembling tire marks or bugs that are actually tiny Volkswagen Beetles (get it?).
The story and humor sputters a lot though, much of it juvenile and crass (not necessarily in terms of crudity, but in attitude), schmaltzy and formulaic. It's all painted in pretty broad strokes, and the comedy is generally childish. The character of Mater is an interesting case in this first film, being strictly a supporting role (as opposed to in the sequel), and a lot of him goes a long way, being mostly rooted in Larry the Cable Guy's redneck comedy schtick. Mater's a lot more endearing in small doses.
It's visually stimulating, more than a little dumb, and director John Lasseter at his most indulgent.
RATATOUILLE
Released 29 June 2007
Directed by Brad Bird
Co-Directed by Jan Pinkava
Featuring the Voices of: Patton Oswalt, Lou Romano, Ian Holm, Janeane Garofalo, Brian Dennehy, Peter Sohn, Peter O'Toole, Brad Garrett, Will Arnett, Julius Callahan, John Ratzenberger, Teddy Newton, James Remar, Tony Fucile
Rated G
111 minutes
10 out of 10
RATATOUILLE is the great forgotten film of the Pixar canon; undoubtedly one of their best films, but possibly their least marketable. It doesn't lend itself to the selling of toys, lunchboxes or most items sold at Wal-Mart, because it's risky and sophisticated in a way that most of Pixar's other films are not (not to their detriment). RATATOUILLE, like most of Pixar's films, is accessible to audiences of all ages, but it's a more adult and delicate offering.
Remy, the protagonist voiced by comedian Patton Oswalt, is a rat, one of the lowest of the low creatures, but while his huge rat family is content to sit around eating garbage and avoiding humans, Remy develops a taste for fine dining and a natural talent for creating it. Idolizing the recently deceased Chef Gusteau (voiced by Brad Garrett), when an incident separates Remy from his family and washes him into the sewers of Paris, he heads for Gusteau's restaurant, now helmed by Gusteau's old sous-chef, Skinner (voiced by Ian Holm), who is secretly aiming to use the Gusteau brand to sell a line of cheap frozen foods. Accompanied by his own mental manifestation of Gusteau, Remy watches on as the recently hired garbage boy, Alfredo Linguini (voiced by Pixar artist Lou Romano), attempts to make his own soup. In order to stave off imminent disaster in the busy kitchen, Remy uses his know-how to fix Linguini's nasty soup, and the customers love it, but now Linguini is expected to know how to recreate it. So Linguini teams up with Remy the rat, hiding him under his toque as the rat guides him in around the kitchen in creating the most successful dishes served at Gusteau's since the passing of its namesake. Skinner knows something is up however, and is obsessed with exposing Linguini as a fraud, while Anton Ego (voiced by Peter O'Toole), the ominous food critic who disgraced Gusteau with a scathing review years ago, sets his sights on doing the same to the young, apparent prodigy.
RATATOUILLE is a very lush and appropriately flavorful film, and though the dishes are all rendered in the computer, they appear as deliriously appetizing as anything in the many live-action foodie movies that came before and followed. The animation, light and characters are all
gorgeously rendered, and THE INCREDIBLES score composer Michael Giacchino returns with another stellar piece of work that favors the film tremendously, including film's beautiful theme song,
"Le Festin", sung in French by the French artist Camille (it's worth looking up the English lyrics sometime, telling of a lowly individual's desire to better themselves through the experience of sharing food).
RATAOUILLE is one of Pixar's most sensual and human films, directed by Brad Bird, director of THE INCREDIBLES, who was called in to rescue the troubled production late in the game and made a surprisingly powerful but sweet meditation on the nature of artistic creation and the relationship between artist and critic, all in the story of a rat who dreams of nothing less than working in a gourmet kitchen.
WALL-E
Released 27 June 2008
Directed by Andrew Stanton
Featuring the Voices of: Jeff Garlin, John Ratzenberger, Kathy Najimy, Sigourney Weaver, Ben Burtt, Elissa Knight
Featuring an Appearance by Fred Willard
Rated G
98 minutes
9 out of 10
As the most lyrical of Pixar's films to date, WALL-E is pure science fiction, pure romantic comedy and an ambitious experimental film all at once, and while it may not be as accessible as some of Pixar's other great films, the appeal of its lovable characters and its power to inspire and instill are undeniable.
For the first half hour of the film, there are no more than a couple instances of dialogue as the screen is shared by two robots, with sounds designed by the legendary foley artist Ben Burtt, noted for creating the sound design for George Lucas' Star Wars films, including the beeps and whistles of R2-D2. Filtering his own voice, Burtt provides the vocals for WALL-E, a name which stands for Waste Allocation Load Lifter - Earth-class. Several hundred years into the future, Earth becomes so overwhelmed with garbage and pollution that the worldwide corporation/international governing body of Buy n Large (BNL) launches an evacuation of the planet into the interstellar ark, the
Axiom, while WALL-E and other robots make Earth suitable for human habitation once again. After about 700 years though, WALL-E is the only one left and developed a lot of personality, collecting interesting items he finds among the trash heaps and becoming a hopeless romantic after multiple viewings of an old HELLO, DOLLY! VHS cassette. One day he meets a girl robot, EVE (Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator; voiced by Elissa Knight), and it's love at first sight, for WALL-E, at least. EVE is a probe sent to determine if life is once again viable on Earth by locating plant life, and it just so happens that WALL-E has a plant, discovered one day while out amongst his garbage-cubing and stacking duties. WALL-E tags along as EVE returns to the
Axiom with her report, and upon arriving inadvertently wreaks havoc interacting with humans who have devolved into hoverchair-bound, obese beings by centuries of overly automated lives in a microgravity environment. But when the
Axiom's captain (Jeff Garlin) receives the plant and tries to initiate Operation Recolonize, the
Axiom's autopilot program, Auto (electronically voiced via the synthetic speech program, MacInTalk), overrides plans to return to Earth based on a top secret protocol believing that the Earth is too far damaged to be saved.
WALL-E is Pixar's most visual film, making sparse use of dialogue throughout, with only a few lines at all for the first third of the film, so WALL-E the character is fittingly in the spirit of one the great comic characters of silent films: Charlie Chaplin's "The Little Tramp". He's a dreamer with romantic ambitions, more than a little clumsy and even a bit of a scamp at times, but always a good guy and a gentleman at heart despite his dumpy exterior, similar to Chaplin's signature character in movies like CITY LIGHTS and MODERN TIMES. The movie borrows a lot of its comedy and romance from Chaplin, but the Pixar Braintrust's adoration of classic science fiction is on abundant display as well. The obvious comparison for Auto is the rogue artificially intelligent computer HAL 9000 from Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (both computers have a distinct circular red eye), and
in a humorous moment, Strauss'
"Also sprach Zarathustra", famously used as the theme in Kubrick's film, appears as the Captain stands on his feet for the first time. There are also similar themes to SILENT RUNNING, where scientists cultivate plant life in space in hopes of eventually returning to the ecologically-devastated Earth, and Sigourney Weaver, who famously conversed with the ship computer called "Mother" in ALIEN, voices the ship computer of the
Axiom.
The main characters may be machines, but like Pixar had also done with toys, rats, fish and others, WALL-E is still a story about humanity, about the importance to humanity of remaining "human" by creating, experiencing and in living, rather than the automated existences of the bloat humans aboard the
Axiom; and rediscovering and cultivating the world around us. It's also a twist on the age-old story of Noah and the Ark in the biblical Book of Genesis, a story so integral to the human experience that it dates back thousands of years and is still told today. WALL-E starts near the end of that narrative however, when the cataclysm of mankind's folly has already come and the ark has sailed, and EVE is the dove sent forth to find conditions to return people back to Earth, except when she returns with the olive branch, or in this case, a sprout in a boot, it's unclear if humans are ready to leave the comforting womb of the ark and return to their stewardship of the Earth.
I've never disliked WALL-E, but admittedly, I've warmed up to it over time and initially felt the enthusiastic critical response when it was released in 2008 was overblown. It's not as breezy as other Pixar films, and paces itself through its layered and very visual storytelling in a way that might not be as accessible as, say, the Toy Story series. But as far as such dystopic visions of the future go, WALL-E is unusually spirited and vibrant. In the midst of the hazy landscape of garbage cube skyscrapers, WALL-E, the robot, just goes about his business, humming the tunes of
Hello, Dolly!, and keeping an eye out for interesting knick-knacks, because dystopia doesn't have to be an end game.
UP
Released 29 May 2009
Directed by Pete Docter
Co-Directed by Bob Peterson
Featuring the Voices of: Ed Asner, Christopher Plummer, Jordan Nagai, Bob Peterson, Delroy Lindo, Jerome Ranft, John Ratzenberger, Elie Docter, Danny Mann
Rated PG for some peril and action.
96 minutes
10 out of 10
UP is another particularly mature offering from Pixar, but one more colorful than the studio's previous two films. It's no less powerful and and ambitious for it, and while like all of Pixar's features it mixes and bends genres, UP is primarily a thrilling adventure film with a beautiful love story at its heart.
Early in the film is it's most famous sequence, "Married Life", depicting the years of marriage between Carl and Ellie Fredricksen without a word spoken, simply accompanied by a piano-based melody composed by Michael Giacchino, and it's one of Pixar's most unparalleled feats. Over the course of a few minutes, the film makes your heart soar, then breaks it, then consoles it, then breaks it again, and throws in a few good laughs on the side. These few minutes alone are enough to fully satisfy any viewer, and it's awfully bold to use such a strong scene as the jumping off point to the film, because how could what follows ever live up to such expectations? You'd be surprised.
Carl Fredricksen (voiced by Ed Asner), a recent widower who used to run a balloon cart, is given a court order to move to a retirement home after he hurts a man in an emotional outburst, but instead rigs his house with thousands of helium-filled balloons that lift it off the ground and sets sail for his and his late wife's long-held dream of visiting the remote Paradise Falls in South America. Unbeknownst to him however, there was a very eager Wilderness Scout named Russell (voiced by Jordan Nagai), hoping to earn his "Assisting the Elderly" badge, on Carl's porch when the house took off. Carl initially plans to drop Russell off, but the house becomes caught in a fierce thunderstorm, emerging on the cliffs just across from Paradise Falls, so Carl and Russell begin walking the still low-floating house over to the Falls. Eventually they discover Carl's childhood hero, Charles Muntz (voiced by Christopher Plummer), an explorer who claimed to have discovered a giant bird at Paradise Falls but was dubbed a fraud by the scientific community and disgraced, returned to the Falls obsessed with claiming a living specimen and has been there ever since. Isolated for decades with only his dogs, fitted with English translation collars, a paranoid Muntz accuses Carl of trying to claim the bird for himself and tries to kill Carl and Russell, but one of Muntz's friendlier dogs, Dug (voiced by Bob Peterson), opts to help them.
UP is another one of Pixar's greatest films, a perfect cinematic work that is a masterpiece of masterpieces. I would not consider that to be hyperbolic to say at all. It's consistently funny and consistently exciting, with some of Pixar's best action scenes and most awe-inspiring visuals, not least of which is the central balloon-lifted house, a physical impossibility so creatively realized and so wondrous that the movie sells its suspension of disbelief hook, line and sinker.
It earned the first of two Best Picture Academy Award nominations for Pixar to date (apparently what it took for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences to at least nod to films that, while animated, were obviously the best of the year was the momentary expansion of the category from five slots to ten), making it the second animated movie ever nominated in the category after Disney's BEAUTY AND THE BEAST in 1991. Best Picture went to the pretty good (but not as good) THE HURT LOCKER that year, while UP won two extremely well-deserved Oscars in the categories of Best Animated Feature and Best Original Score. The musical score is the third of Michael Giacchino's for Pixar, and while it's awfully close between THE INCREDIBLES, RATATOUILLE and UP, UP probably edges out the competition, if just barely. It's genuinely one of the finest original soundtracks of recent years, anchored by a now highly recognizable piano melody that works as the main theme.
UP is an improbable movie in every sense, one that can entertain viewers of all ages and all walks of life, and hits on a deeply resonating gut level within all the laughs and wonderment, and does it all seamlessly. It may just be Pixar's greatest achievement in storytelling. It's one of the best films ever made.
TOY STORY 3
Released 18 June 2010
Directed by Lee Unkrich
Featuring the Voices of: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack, Ned Beatty, Don Rickles, Michael Keaton, Wallace Shawn, John Ratzenberger, Estelle Harris, John Morris, Jodi Benson, Emily Hahn, Laurie Metcalf, Blake Clark, Teddy Newton, Bud Luckey, Jeff Garlin, Bonnie Hunt, Timothy Dalton, Kristen Schaal
Rated G
103 minutes
10 out of 10
TOY STORY 3 comes more than a decade after TOY STORY 2, and fifteen years after the original. Perhaps they should have left well enough alone. TOY STORY, while dated by the years of rapid technological advancement, quickly earned its well deserved reputation as a classic thanks to its masterful storytelling and iconic characters that set the standard for Pixar Animation. TOY STORY 2 remains one of the best sequels ever made, bringing more of what was so successful about the original, then expanding upon it and digging deeper into its beloved characters. Following those two movies up was possibly the a fool's errand. Even with as much good faith Pixar had earned, as the marketing campaign seemed to focus heavily on the prospect of selling toys by cramming as many of them into the poster as possible, I admit that I had my doubts. But at least once more, Pixar proved to have more up their sleeve than anyone had a right to expect.
Years have passed since the events of TOY STORY 2, and now TOY STORY 3 dares to answer the questions its predecessor raised. The toys, including Woody (voiced by Tom Hanks), Buzz Lightyear (voiced by Tim Allen), Jessie (voiced by Joan Cusack), Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head (voiced by Don Rickles and Estelle Harris, respectively), Rex (voiced by Wallace Shawn), Hamm (voiced by John Ratzenberger), Slinky Dog (voiced by Blake Clark, replacing Jim Varney, who passed in 2000), the Aliens (voiced by Jeff Pidgeon) and Bullseye, have all been left to the toy box for years as a now teenage Andy (voiced by John Morris) is preparing to leave for college. Although Andy intends to pack away a few of his most special toys in the attic, his mom (voiced by Laurie Metcalf) mistakenly takes the box with donations of toys, including Andy's sister's Barbie (voiced by Jodi Benson) to Sunnyside Daycare. Although most of the toys believe Andy doesn't want them anymore and are thrilled at the prospect of being played with by children again, Woody insists that they were mistakenly donated and escapes, but before he gets far, the daycare manager's young daughter, Bonnie (Emily Hahn), finds him and takes him home. At the Sunnyside, the toys are given the grand tour by Lots-O'-Huggin' Bear (voiced by Ned Beatty), aka Lotso, who welcomes them and Barbie falls madly in love with a Ken doll (voiced by Michael Keaton), but it soon becomes clear that Sunnyside is not as pleasant as it seems. Beneath his grandfatherly facade, Lotso controls the toys of Sunnyside in a pyramid scheme with cold ferocity, forcing the new toys to bear the brunt of the rough-playing toddlers, while those in Lotso's favor get the gentler older kids all to themselves. When Woody learns about the true nature of Sunnyside from Bonnie's toys, he returns to help his friends escape, which turns out to be a more difficult challenge than expected.
TOY STORY 3 is Pixar's riskiest film, one that is forced to stand alongside two universally beloved films in the crown jewel of the Pixar canon. What's more, TOY STORY 2 set up some distressing implications for its characters, and now it falls on TOY STORY 3 to address those head on. It's not as joyous as its predecessors; it's a lot heavier and a lot more emotional. The movie opens brilliantly with a "child's eye" view of the playtime scenarios we've seen Andy play out with his toys in the earlier films, rendered with all the details and weirdness of a child's imagination rendered in a full-blooded cinematic environment, the following into a home video-style montage of Andy with his toys, accompanied by
"You've Got a Friend in Me". Then, in a very disconcerting fashion, the music stops. It's a very funny, energetic movie, but there's a melancholy uncertainty to much of it, culminating in one of the most devastating sequences ever put in a G-rated movie, as Andy's toys, characters that we've known and loved for years, quietly accept their fate as they're carried toward a garbage incinerator at a landfill. It's incredibly intense and distressing, probably more for the grown ups in the audience than their children, and while it's obvious that the filmmakers wouldn't have let them die (right?), watching it the first time, I felt no certainty. It comes so close, and you begin to wonder what way there could possibly be out of this. How could the move resolve on such a note? I remember, in the moment, contemplating whether they could actually be incinerated, and then perhaps followed in a montage as the plastic is recycled and made into new toys, sold off a toy store shelf and back into the hands of a child. Of course they would never do that! Or would they?
Instead, the film finds the perfect resolution, one that continues the characters, while explicitly putting a period at the end of the Toy Story story. It's bittersweet, but mostly sweet, and resonates deeply.
TOY STORY 3 blends the emotional sophistication of Pixar's later work with the buoyancy and comedy of the earlier Toy Story films in one of, if not the best third movie of a trilogy ever. It seems wrong to rank one of the trilogy above the other, as they're all such brilliant movies in their own right, and while each one of them can fully stand as a masterpiece on their own, they all compliment each other so wonderfully.
CARS 2
Released 24 June 2011
Directed by John Lasseter
Co-Directed by Brad Lewis
Featuring the Voices of: Larry the Cable Guy, Owen Wilson, Michael Caine, Emily Mortimer, Eddie Izzard, John Tuturro, Thomas Kretschmann, Joe Mategna, Bruce Campbell, Tony Shaloub, Bonnie Hunt, John Ratzenberger
Rated G
106 minutes
3 out of 10
Perhaps it's fitting that TOY STORY 3, the completion of the story that started it in 1995, saw the last of the Golden Age of Pixar, ended by a film directed by the big man himself, John Lasseter. The film that killed it is CARS 2. CARS 2 is the Pixar sequel that no one wanted (well, no one older than 5), a follow up to what had been one of Pixar's weaker efforts, and what's more, on that put that previous film's most annoying character in the spotlight.
The story takes place some time after the first movie, as Lightning McQueen (voiced by Owen Wilson) has since won four Piston Cups, but he still calls Radiator Springs home. When fuel tycoon Miles Axelrod (voiced by Eddie Izzard) announces a World Grand Prix to promote his new biofuel Allinol, McQueen is invited to compete and brings his rusty best friend Mater (voiced by Daniel Whitney, aka "Larry the Cable Guy"). At the first event of the World Grand Prix in Tokyo, Mater is mistaken by two British spies, Finn McMissile (voiced by Michael Caine) and Holley Shiftwell (voiced by Emily Mortimer), for their American contact. An organization of "lemon" cars, led by the sinister Professor Z (voiced by Thomas Kretschmann), is using the race to discredit alternative fuel by detonating the fuel remotely, killing (yes,
killing) cars using it. So, believing him to be an American agent, McMissile and Shiftwell (wait a second...is that a car innuendo?) enlist Mater in the mission to foil the lemons' plot.
Mater is the Jar Jar Binks of Pixar. He just sucks. In CARS, he tried my patience; in CARS 2, he gave me a headache. He's not actually as dreadful as Jar Jar, but I'm speaking relatively. In small doses, the character has his moments, but he grows tiresome quickly and should absolutely not be the main character of any movie ever. None of the characters in CARS 2 are especially endearing, but Mater is the worst, and I get the feeling that Lasseter thinks he's one of the all-time greats.
The problems with CARS 2 go beyond its annoying main character though; the film is overstuffed, cold and even a bit mean-spirited, adding unexpected levels of violence to the very cartoony world of Cars. Cars
die in this movie! Some people were very bothered by the nature of the world in CARS, where all the inhabitants were some mode of mechanical transportation. It was a very cartoonish film, so it didn't bother me much, but CARS 2 aims to expand so far beyond the first movie's simplicity and in emulating the spy genre, introduces a sense of brutality that is very off-putting. Plus, now that it's clear that cars can die, a further exploration of the cars circle of life feels obligated. The animation is technologically stellar as is to be expected from Pixar, but the storytelling is not.
The original CARS was a good movie, but a bit of a letdown simply in comparison to the increasing brilliance of Pixar's other output, but CARS 2 is a genuinely bad movie. So far, it's Pixar's only outright
bad movie.
BRAVE
Released 22 June 2012
Directed by Mark Andrews & Brenda Chapman
Co-Directed by Steve Purcell
Featuring the Voices of: Kelly Macdonald, Emma Thompson, Billy Connolly, Julie Walters, Robbie Coltrane, Kevin McKidd, Craig Ferguson, Peigi Barker, Steven Cree
Rated PG for some scary action and rude humor.
93 minutes
5 out of 10
When CARS 2 came out, it was the first Pixar production to receive mostly negative reviews from critics, but it was unclear if it represented an actual end to the Golden Age, or if it was only a hiccup in a still continuing series of masterpieces from the studio. BRAVE confirmed that the Golden Age had ended. BRAVE is such an immensely frustrating film. It's unclear where things went wrong, but the film that promised so much potential missed the target by more than a little.
Set in medieval Scotland, Princess Merida (voiced by Kelly Macdonald) of the clan of Dunbroch is a headstrong and unruly young woman with a penchant for archery. Raised by her boisterous, bear-hating father King Fergus (voiced by Billy Connolly) and her prim and proper mother Queen Elinor (voiced by Emma Thompson), Merida loves nothing more than to go out riding and target shooting, but when she learns she is to marry one of the sons of Dunbroch's allies, she is dismayed. Clashing with her mother over her disdain for the traditions, Merida shows up her suitors in an archery tournament for her hand and, in the process, sewing discord between the clans, infuriating Elinor. Following an emotionally-charged argument between mother and daughter that culminates in Merida damaging a treasured tapestry, Merida storms out of the castle and discovers a witch's cottage in the woods. The witch (voiced by Julie Walters) reluctantly sells Merida a spell to "change her fate" in the form of a tart to give to her mother. Merida returns to the castle and Elinor eats the tart, but to her surprise, the spell turns Elinor into a bear. Returning the witch's cottage to find it abandoned, Merida and her bear mother find a note that to reverse the spell they must "mend the bond that has been broken", which Merida takes to mean the tapestry she damaged before, and a warning that if the spell is not reveresed before the second sunrise, Elinor will remain a bear forever.
Of course, even if Merida doesn't, everyone in the audience knows that the witch means the bond between mother and daughter that must be mended and not the tapestry (duh, Merida), and in the course of trying to reverse the spell, mother and daughter naturally come to an understanding. So it's basically like FREAKY FRIDAY, but with bears and arrows, and not quite as awesome as that sounds.
BRAVE was such an exciting prospect. It was originally titled
The Bear & the Bow, with a story by Brenda Chapman, who was also set to direct. Brenda Chapman was one of the talented artist at Disney during the period known as the Disney Renaissance, covering 1989-1999, beginning with THE LITTLE MERMAID and concluding with TARZAN. Chapman was primarily a story artist, helping to mold individual scenes through storyboards, including the scene in BEAUTY AND THE BEAST when, following the Beast's rescue of Belle from the wolves, they begin to bond as she treats his wounded arm. This scene was featured at the Academy Awards ceremony that took place in 1992, where BEAUTY AND THE BEAST was nominated for Best Picture. Chapman was also head of story on THE LION KING, the most emotionally powerful film of the Disney Renaissance and the highest-grossing animated Disney film until FROZEN almost 20 years later. Chapman first directorial credit was on DreamWork's Animation's first film to enter production (although ANTZ was released about two months before), a largely forgotten but fantastic animated epic called THE PRINCE OF EGYPT, based on the story of Moses and the Pharoah in the Old Testament. BRAVE was a particularly personal project for Chapman, and already being familiar with her previous work and a big fan, I was hugely excited for BRAVE. But then Pixar pulled the rug out. Chapman was fired as director over "creative differences" (the common and extremely broad reasoning given over such fallings out in the industry) and replaced by Mark Andrews, part of the "Pizar braintrust" since THE INCREDIBLES, for which he had been head of story.
Nothing against Andrews, but the guiding hand behind the vision for THE INCREDIBLES was Brad Bird, and the a few months before BRAVE, another film for which Andrews had been heavily involved, JOHN CARTER, proved that while Andrews is good at visuals and concepts, he comes up short at compelling storytelling.
BRAVE is visually sumptuous and often quite intense, but it lacks a beating heart and feels unfulfilled with emotional investment. The storytelling is clumsy, using will-o'-the-wisps (somewhat reminiscent of the
kodama in PRINCESS MONONOKE) as a contrived device for Merida to follow to wherever the story requires her to be, not unlike the trail of coins in a video game. Large parts of the story are underrepresented or convenient and the pacing is uneven. It's impossible to know is Chapman's vision would have carried through had she remained on production, but one early choice that was thankfully changed was the voice casting for Merida. Initially, Merida was to speak through the shrill vocals of Reese Witherspoon (presumably adopting a Scottish accent), but due to a scheduling conflict, Witherspoon dropped out and was replaced by the charming Kelly Mcdonald, known for TRAINSPOTTING and HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS - PART 2, on the other hand, is ideal and endearing as Merida and comes with her own hearty Scottish accent.
There are definitely great moments, though few and far in between. For instance, the archery sequence, the near entirety of which Disney used as a theatrical trailer advertising the film, and the prologue in which Merida receives her first bow from her father followed by a brief and startling encounter with the vicious bear Mor'du. The action doesn't pull punches in terms of possibly scaring the hell out of little Pixar fans. The strongest factor in BRAVE, however, is the musical score by Patrick Doyle (who is, appropriately, Scottish), including the beautiful duet
"A Mhaighdean Bhan Uasal (Noble Maiden Fair". Other songs used in the film over montages in a manner similar to the Toy Story series,
"Learn Me Right," "Touch the Sky," and
"Into the Open Air", while decent, feel out of place in this type of film.
Regardless of its copious and overwhelming flaws, BRAVE won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature of 2012 (over two markedly better nominees; Laika's PARANORMAN and Disney's WRECK-IT RALPH), making Brenda Chapman the first woman to win that category, having been given a secondary directing credit by Pixar, despite booting her from the production more than a year and a half before the film was completed. Don't get me wrong, Chapman
deserves recognition, but BRAVE doesn't seem to be her film, and it's definitely the poorer for it.
MONSTERS UNIVERSITY
Released 21 June 2013
Directed by Dan Scanlon
Featuring the Voices of: Billy Crystal, John Goodman, Steve Buscemi, Helen Mirren, Peter Sohn, Joel Murray, Sean P. Hayes, Dave Foley, Charlie Day, Alfred Molina, Tyler Labine, Nathan Fillion, Aubrey Plaza, Noah Johnston
5 out of 10
MONSTERS UNIVERSITY, a prequel to their 2001 hit, MONSTERS, INC., is another marvelously animated but ho-hum effort from Pixar. This one didn't exactly have the weight of expectation on its shoulders. Following the very unfortunate CARS 2 and the greatly disappointing BRAVE, it became clear that Pixar wasn't on their best game, and the idea of a prequel to MONSTERS, INC. wasn't very enticing anyway. So MONSTERS UNIVERSITY isn't actually a disappointment. It just isn't anything special, beyond its beautiful animation, that is.
Before famed scare team James P. "Sulley" Sullivan and Michael "Mike" Wazowski met, Mike (voiced by Billy Crystal) had big dreams of one day being a scarer for Monsters, Inc. and enlisted at the prestigious Monsters University, aka M.U. As a scare major, Mike is studious and hits the books regularly as he aims to excel, so when he meets Sulley (voiced by John Goodman), a privileged and charismatic monster with a family legacy of scarers and plenty of his own natural ability, but an utter disregard for his studies, the two are initially rivals. When their rivalry inadvertently ruins school property, the two are promptly kicked out of the scare program by the no-nonsense Dean Hardscrabble (voiced by Helen Mirren). In hopes of getting back in, Mike joins the least respected fraternity on campus, Oozma Kappa, and makes a wager with Hardscrabble that if they win the school's upcoming "Scare Games" she has to readmit him and the other rejects of the fraternity back into the scare program, but if they lose, Mike has to leave M.U. Finding themselves short a team member, Mike reluctantly allows Sulley to join them, but the competition is fierce, and Mike and Sulley learn they have to work together if they're going to win.
Basically, it's a hybrid MONSTERS, INC. with REVENGE OF THE NERDS and ANIMAL HOUSE, with all the college movie tropes fit for a G rating. The animation is gorgeous and Pixar's animators make the most of their newly overhauled technology, including advanced realistic lighting simulation, but as is the case with their previous two features, their storytelling technique isn't up to par with the tech.
MONSTERS UNIVERSITY does present an interesting moral for the family audience however, that wanting something badly enough and working as hard as possible for it won't always get you what you want, and sometimes you just have to accept what you're naturally good at. I mean, it's not a particularly nice lesson, but in the real world, it's technically true. However, the way the movie presents this is frustratingly convenient, because while it's clear that Mike can't be physically frightening and Sulley can, it's assumed that other members of Oozma Kappa, such as Squishy (voiced by Pixar animator/director/storyman Peter Sohn), essentially a flabby pink guy, and the two-headed Terry and Terri Perry (voiced by Dave Foley and Sean Hayes, respectively), utterly benign in all appearance, are in fact scary and do not learn the same lesson.
Much of the movie is too cute, and of course there are many of the contrivances one expects from a prequel, such as ironic or knowing character introductions and unnecessary explanations. The movie does have a nicely unexpected conclusion though, even if the credits are then filled with more of those 'cute' nods to the original. Another inspired element is the character of Art, voiced by Charlie Day, a monsters who fills the a position comparable to REVENGE OF THE NERD's "Booger" in Oozma Kappa. He's weird for the sake of being weird, but in the right way, and he looks kind of like a
Sesame Street Muppet.
It's not like MONSTERS UNIVERSITY is bad; it's just unremarkable and possibly the most vanilla story from Pixar to date. It's become a bit more interesting, however, ever since Sarah Silverman tweeted about the Monsters University musical theme sounding like Monty Python's infamous song,
"Every Sperm is Sacred", and it is so, so true.
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| All Images via Disney/Pixar |
Coming soon!: INSIDE OUT
INSIDE OUT (ANIMATION/FAMILY)
