I caught a midnight screening of WALL-E last Thursday night. The movie is simply amazing. I think it currently tops my list as best movie so far this year.
The movie does a few interesting things. It mixes in some live-action video clips, for one, bringing actor Fred Willard into the film. The most daring thing the movie does is that it goes for long stretches without any dialogue aside for the very small vocabulary the robots have, limited basically to their names and a couple other words. Both of these are risky moves for Pixar, but I think they were a rousing success, particularly the lack of dialogue. It makes for one of the most heartfelt, funniest movies of the year.
Something else to note with WALL-E is the short that runs with the film, Doug Sweetland’s Presto. Presto had me laughing harder than I have in a long time. In the short, Sweetland channels Chuck Jones at the top of his form… it’s very trippy to see a Disney short done in the Warner Bros. style. The short alone is worth the price of admission.
Pixar’s latest, Ratatouille, directed by Brad Bird, does not disappoint. It doesn’t quite reach the bar of excellence set by Bird’s previous film, The Incredibles, but it’s still great. Pixar again proves that one can make fantastic animated films that break generational audience barriers without pop culture references and fart jokes. Needless to say, the animation is first rate.
Shrek the Third could be summarized as “more of them same.” Poop jokes can only take you so far, and a second sequel is evidently past that point.
Beyond the poop jokes, the movie has several funny moments, at least, but not enough to carry the film. Just like its predecessors, Shrek the Third feels like insubstantial fluff when compared with Pixar’s masterworks. I look forward to the day Dreamworks produces a CG animated feature it can be truly proud of.
In the meantime, I plan to get my animation fix by watching Death Note, Paprika, and Ratatoille.
Pixar’s animation is as beautiful as ever in Cars, but the film leaves much to be desired. When compared to a movie like The Incredibles, Cars is mediocre at best, and a huge disappointment for me in terms of my increased expectations from Pixar.
I was bored through the first half of Cars. The second half was better, but not good enough to save the movie. It just felt like a poor rehash of Pixar’s now typical fish-out-of-water fare, which is beginning to grow stale.
Now I’m just looking forward to Pixar’s next movie, Ratatouille, which seems much more promising, particularly because it’s being directed by Brad Bird (The Incredibles, The Iron Giant).
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