Posts Tagged ‘animation’

Toy Story 3

Toy Story 3

Tuesday, July 27th, 2010

This is one of those reviews that’s kind of easy to write but at the same time kinda hard. Easy because I know exactly what I thought of it, hard because it’s all been said up to a month previously by other people, lol. As you probably have heard, this is pretty much one of the best movies of the year, it’s practically unanimous, and I’m glad to say that for once I agree with such a widespread view.

It’s kind of crazy to think that I’ve now seen every part of this trilogy in the cinema and even when I saw the first one, I wasn’t exactly a kid at 15. I remember taking my sister to see it, I remember loving the music (I was into all Disney music bigtime at the time) but probably more than anything revelling in the sheer hi-techery of the whole thing (“the whole movie was made on a computer!!”)

When Toy Story 2 was released, I forget what level of anticipation I really had for it. I was in the middle of college and pretty much high on Disney after Tarzan (I’d end up doing my final dissertation on Disney). What I remember is badly wanting my own Jessie doll after the movie, her story being the one that really resonated most with me.

I saw the first part again when it was re-released in 3D… part two never made it to our cinema in that form, or I just missed it, but these are movies that are always fresh in my mind. The 3D worked, I thought, pretty well in that re-release, but more than anything it was just awesome to see it on a huge screen again, and projected digitally. It felt strangely pure or something (as opposed to, say, a 70mm oldie being projected digitally).

I didn’t necessarily doubt this installment would be as great as people were saying (I’d seen the trailer and it really boded well on the emotional front). But having recently seen that first one and once again realise just how perfect it is, on top of the wonders that Pixar have given us even in the 11 years since part 2, I didn’t put my expectations too high.

Well I’ve seen Toy Story 3 twice now… first in a dodgy download version because I simply needed to see it before I read too much about it and spoiled it for myself. I trusted, as I always do, that if the movie was as good as people were saying, the quality of the presentation would not make a huge difference to the story, and I wasn’t wrong. Like many people, I bawled not just like a baby but like someone with serious mental problems LOL.

This movie has some serious emotional weight, like the most recent of Pixar’s productions Wall•E and Up. What’s different here, however, is how those emotions are spread throughout the picture. There are two intense emotional beats towards the end of the movie, but the melancholic undertones are there right from the moment (after a “fantasy” opening similar to the way the first two movies open) we re-enter Andy’s bedroom, through the POV of his mom holding a video camera.

I won’t talk about those two parts at the end, except to say that they worked just as well on my flat laptop screen as they did in enormous 3D. My opinion of 3D remains the same as I think I’ve said before, and it’s just exactly the same as my opinion of seeing movies on the big screen in general. It’s always nice to see movies larger than life, but it’s simply not always possible. Almost all of us have more favourite movies that we’ve never seen on the big screen than ones that we have, so I’m pretty sure we can all agree that if a movie is good enough it doesn’t necessarily need a big screen projection. It’s nice, it adds to the experience, it immerses you more, but it doesn’t change the quality of the film.

I’m still only giving the movie 4 hearts right now because I’m remembering the original and how absolutely perfect that was right down to the screenplay structure etc, and I feel like to a certain extent those massive emotional punches at the end throw this instalment off-balance in a similar way to those last two Pixar productions I mentioned (though by nowhere near as much… plus they made me cry a lot more). I’m in near total agreement however with those calling the trilogy as it stands one of the best trilogies of all time. The consistency over 15 years really is incredible, not to mention the sheer uniqueness of this world… and while I’ve really focussed like everyone else on the huge emotional impact of this one, it has just as much excitement, humour, thrills and invention as the others.

I wanted to say something about Jessie but I can’t find anywhere above to slip it in lol. Like I said I had a huge crush on Jessie after the second movie, and she had the big emotional moment of that movie that really made me love it most, in her backstory with Emily (cleverly echoed here in Lotso’s story; though Lotso of course reacts very differently to being left behind). I had actually almost forgotten how much I loved her so much that she wasn’t even a factor in my excitement about seeing part 3. Then she appeared and I just fell in love all over again. There’s more made of the funny relationship between her and Buzz that began in the second movie, and in the midst of this are some insanely stylised, romantically-lit shots of her that just wowed me. It’s her face that really carries the first of those aforementioned emotional punches at the end and all I need to do is recall that face and her hand reaching out to start crying all over again. This is a wonderful, wonderful addition to a practically perfect series of movies. But you know that already.

Oh yes: another extra thing to mention as I won’t write it anywhere else… moreso for me than the 3D among reasons to see this movie on the big screen is the short that precedes it. I always forget that Pixar put these shorts before all their features and this one like so many of them is so great it threatens to supplant the memory of the movie. It’s called “Day & Night” and combines 2D and 3D animation in an ingenious way that really can’t be described well to anyone who hasn’t seen it. It’s about conflicting ideas and perspectives from the broadest scale to the most specific (you could argue it’s simply about the co-existence of 2D and 3D cinema). It has insane technique and a great message in the perfect balance that the best of Pixar has to offer. I’ll be very disappointed if it isn’t at least nominated for an Oscar next year (likewise, of course, the feature it precedes!)



The Princess and the Frog

The Princess and the Frog

Tuesday, January 19th, 2010

This is not a movie I expected to wind up liking anywhere near as much as I did as the end credits rolled… those who know me will know I have been a pretty huge fan of Disney in my time and even in those times when I mightn’t have liked the product, I always found them to be a fascinating company, in the way they’re perceived both positive/negatively, in the way they change (or try to change) with the times, and yet the way they seem to (most of the time) retain the spirit of Uncle Walt all the way.

I was one of those who never quite understood the decision to quit 2D animation. Yes: Home on the Range was a disappointment that seemed to confirm whatever reasoning lay behind it, but I was never one of those who considered the likes of Atlantis, Treasure Planet, and most of all Lilo & Stitch (which gets better every year, I swear), to be so much worse than the most average of their earlier output (Robin Hood, *The Great Mouse Detective*… they haven’t always been classics, is what I’m saying); and while it’s true they weren’t living up to the heights of Pixar’s CGI work, or constantly doing their best, they were for the most part easily still better than the output of Dreamworks etc.

That long intro is a way of saying, I was never going to be saying in this review, as so many have, “at last, Disney return to form!” because I honestly don’t think they ever lost it. Mis-steps, yes; total betrayal of their roots? No. The only time I feared they had lost it, as a matter of fact, was much more recently than their closing of the 2D department. If you’ve read my reviews before, you might have seen my semi-rant about Enchanted… another movie which people embraced with strangely deluded arms which seemed to think Disney hadn’t been doing 2D Princess stories for half a century let alone half a decade. I thought the animated sequences in that movie were honestly just embarrassing – and I thought its message, its way of taking the whole “love at first sight and happily ever after” thing of old and treating it “responsibly”, was plain depressing and couldn’t be further removed from what I (and I’m sure many others) turn to Disney for.

I mention that because (finally we can get to the movie!) this was what I really worried for a while would be repeated here. I’ve been following this movie (and the next big 2D from Disney, Rapunzel, about which I at least had the same reservations) since it was announced and especially after Enchanted I really thought my time for loving Disney was coming to an end with the changes I kept hearing. I won’t get started on the other embracing comments about this being Disney “finally” having a black Princess (wow, it only took ‘em 80 years, amazing), despite that princess turning into a bright green amphibian 30 minutes in…

There’s a moment very early here when the heroine’s father informs her, “you can wish on a star but the star can only take you part o’ the way…” The heroine in this scene is still a very young girl. It brought me right back to that scene in Enchanted when the little girl’s father says something similar to her, to which she replies astutely, “I’m only six!” to which he retaliates, “You won’t always be.”

Luckily, The Princess and the Frog has this moment for a better reason.

What this movie does for much of its first hour is similar to what Disney tried to do with Enchanted, this new “responsible” approach, telling kids you can’t just dream your life away or rely on daddy’s credit card to get you out of trouble or, indeed, just wish upon a star which (among many things) are all things Disney have been criticised for doing for decades now. I understand these criticisms and the well-meaning behind them, but I can’t agree with them. Disney is dreaming. In any case: here it isn’t, as was the case in Enchanted, the whole message. The responsible approach to magical thinking – the “having a fall-back plan in case your dreams don’t come true” thing – here is a starting point from which the film makers then work towards delivering the old Disney message in a way that works better than ever in a world where that former message is all too hopelessly prevalent.

I cannot find the words to express the relief I felt and how astonished I was when the final act of this movie came out of nowhere to make all my pent-up frustrations with the run-up to it completely blow away. Like I said, I’m not gonna go all out and say it’s their best since Beauty and the Beast or Lady and the Tramp or god forbid further back (really would you believe there are people on this earth who completely dismiss the 90s resurgence stuff as “not really Disney”?), but it is certainly for me their best since Lilo & Stitch, and there are elements, particularly in the last half hour, that really did take my breath away like nothing from the studio has since Tarzan. I haven’t even talked about the quality of the animation itself or Randy Newman’s songs etc, but it’s probably been covered plenty elsewhere. I really cannot wait to see it again without all the fears I came to it with this time around, and my hopes for Rapunzel are beginning to crawl their way back too a pretty frenzied peak.



Up

Up

Wednesday, November 25th, 2009

I’m loathe to say it, but even on a second viewing (which I felt necessary for this movie before reviewing), I still had a real failure of disbelief suspension in parts that made total connection with the movie ultimately impossible, thus preventing me from giving it the high rating that’s best moments have me wishing I could give. Don’t get me wrong – Up is a beautiful movie, and if it turns out to be the first computer animated movie to be nominated for Best Picture as I’ve heard it might, I’ll be pleased (heck, anything’s better than 4/5 of last year’s nominees) – but there is a definite, undeniable lack of consistency here which I’ve felt before in Pixar movies but never so much as I did here.

It begins, as you’ve probably heard, with a sweeping view of the “curmudgeonly” (as he appears in the trailer: actually, I was pleasantly surprised by how lovable and involved the character is) hero’s life up to, as Simon Mayo and Mark Kermode might describe it, an “unpleasant event” which I won’t reveal except to say that the cut that follows the end of this opening is really where my problem with the movie begins. It’s a tactless cut, from 10 minutes of film making that has been proven to make the most hardened viewer bawl their eyes out, that those children who actually understand it will need days to recover from, into quirky, light comedy. I found myself even on the second viewing at this point wanting to shake the screen, “you just can’t do this following what you just showed me!”

But settle into the rest of the story you must, and what lies beyond this heartbreakingly real opening is a world you really couldn’t foresee. The trailer shows all of the unlikely rabble you’ll meet joining our elderly hero as he tries to navigate his balloon-lifted house to a “land lost in time” where he and his childhood sweetheart once dreamed they’d live. There’s an overweight scout just looking to get his “assisting the elderly” badge, a giant and ludicrously colourful bird and a dog equipped with a hi-tech collar that enables him to talk.

It’s not the unlikely nature of these characters’ presence that bugged me, and I grew to love all of them and they all have moments that hook into the movie’s foremost philosophy. What bothers me is that none of this gels with the genuinely gutwrenching reality of the way the story starts. There’s nothing to suggest, in the manner of The Wizard of Oz did, say, that when Carl’s house takes off that we’ve entered any kind of fantasy; and there’s so much that follows this point, slapdash treatment of physics etc (Carl seems unbelievably spritely considering he relies so much on a stick, eg), that really took me out of the flow of the movie. I know that some reading this will feel I’m being even more curmudgeonly than Carl seems in the trailer … but I don’t say this like it totally ruined the movie for me, because it didn’t; I won’t, however, avoid saying it just because I know how those people will read it. I just would’ve expected Pixar to make all of these shifts in tone, from the absurdly distressing to the distressingly absurd, gel better. It’s not the first time, either.

It’s hard to get mad at the movie, though, and while other computer animated (especially 3D) movies are still being made that rely on the tried and true combined with celebrity voices, you have to bow down to Pixar for continuing to make movies like this that make you think, while the end credits roll, “I can’t believe they got away with selling that as a kids movie,” lol. It is, if only for it’s most emotional moments, easily one of the studio’s best; but like so many of their “best” (for me, they have yet to top Finding Nemo) it’s mostly of predictably high quality. Pixar have such a high and consistent standard I feel compelled to demand more from them. They have proven over and over that they have enormous reserves of creativity and originality, but here more than anywhere it feels like they have just thrown it slapdash at a wall with little of the old Disney storytelling machine to hold it together. I would love if they would try to reign it in and try to distill it down more for their next project, because they really should be making flawless movies by now.



Coraline (3D)

Coraline (3D)

Friday, May 8th, 2009

I’m a very funny Neil Gaiman fan as I think I may have written here before, and I’m sure I’m probably not alone in this. I don’t hesitate to call myself a fan of his, I read his journal a lot and follow him on Twitter etc. I think he’s a fascinating person, yet I’ve actually read barely any of his books. Till now, my only experience of his actual work had been the movie adaptations of MirrorMask, Stardust and Beowulf; and of his written words, only the novel on which this movie is based, Coraline. I know, for shame!

What I loved about Coraline was how despite being a book for children it held none of its ideas down. It’s a genuinely creepy story that doesn’t entirely make a whole lot of sense, owing clear debts to Alice in Wonderland and Roald Dahl but with a quirkiness all its own. Henry Selick and his stop motion of The Nightmare Before Christmas, then, made it almost a certainty that this production really couldn’t fail, and it doesn’t. It’s a near flawless representation of the book, deliciously understated in its borderline insanity with a point to make that you wouldn’t generally expect to find in such a high profile children’s flick (the trailers that preceded this were for Night at the Museum 2, G-Force, Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs and Ice Age 3: I rest my case).

The reason I skim over that part of the review is that I guess the real reason I’m here is for the 3D aspect of this release. This was my first experience of the new 3D technology (in a regular cinema, at least), my local multiplex only just having been equipped (I just missed out on Bolt and I wasn’t going to let a movie like Monsters vs. Aliens be my introduction to the format). I was far from excited by the claims that 3D was the future etc. that have been coming out in their droves this year, but I didn’t want to entirely knock it till I tried it, and I have to say that it wasn’t an entirely wasted experience (or even the extra £2 on the ticket price). Things have come a long way since Spy Kids 3. The first thing I noticed was the quality of the glasses I was handed; the second how wonderfully bright the screen was as the trailers (almost all of which in 3D) rolled. Another great thing about the new 3D is how the image can switch effortlessly between 3D and 2D footage (like, say, in the trailers) without one having to take glasses off and on. No more onscreen commands lol!

But is it the future? And I have to say, that’s really not the question. I think I’ve said even in one or two recent reviews how I’ve never been one to say any given movie “HAS TO” be seen on the big screen as some people are fond of saying, always believing that a truly great (in fact, even half-decent) movie will work no matter what size the screen and the same is true of 3D. It makes for a larger experience, that’s true, and for stuff like this where you really do want to scrutinize the artistry of the model making etc perhaps it is warranted at least for a first viewing. But Coraline will work just as well as intended on a regular 2D television screen if you’re gifted with that thing we all seem to be forgetting about lately in the cinema, imagination. It’s perhaps ironic that a movie concerned with the pitfalls of getting exactly what you want should be presented in such a lavish format, a ready popped pop-up book, entirely pre-conjured fantasy for the laziest of eyes and minds. But that’s being far too cynical. This is a gorgeous movie that will be particularly embraced by anybody who ever was or is still a lonely kid making up their own adventure on a rainy day. The production design is beautiful and the music is some of the best I’ve heard anywhere let alone in the movies. Some people will say think twice about taking younger kids but I say go for it; like Monster House this is a movie that believes in the value of a well-educated scare at that age and so do I.



Evil Toons

Evil Toons

Wednesday, April 1st, 2009

I dropped the ball on watching movies this week so I figured, what better way to get back into it than as atrociously easy a watch as this. I could’ve reviewed this one with my eyes closed almost – I have to admit, I have a weakness for the whole embarrassed nudity thing from Zapped! right up to a certain episode of Alex Mack LOL and from the surface it appeared that was this movie’s raison d’etre (“First they undress you, then they possess you!)

Here you have all the ingredients in place – 3 dumb certified “hotties”, one smart prude (she’s wearing glasses, that’s how you tell), one Bill Oddie lookalike who can’t believe his luck, and a preface ripped straight off from Evil Dead. Sooner or later, you hear the phrase, “Heyy … check this out!” and they awaken evil forces etc.

What’s clear in the end here is that they didn’t plan the movie very well. There’s barely any animated footage and what exists is laughable to say the least. The presence of Dick Miller not to mention David Carradine instills some confidence but there’s nothing to get excited about at all here. For kinky toon shenanigans you’re better off with Cool World or even Who Framed Roger Rabbit?



Waltz With Bashir

Waltz With Bashir

Wednesday, January 28th, 2009

Not entirely sure what to say of this but seeing as it’s holding back other reviews I’ll just blast through and get it out of the way, lol. In short, I liked it. I’m not as wowed as others by the fact that animation can successfully cover a subject as bleak as war, because I’ve never been one to see animation and say, “oh it’s a cartoon, it must be for kids”. And of course, Richard Linklater made great use of this type of rotoscoping technique in Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly. But it’s clearly a story worth telling, and that they keep it down around the 90 minute mark without compromising any of its impact is very laudable. There are images and scenes here of the horror and chaos of war that instantly rank it up there with the best of them (for me, for the record, that would be Full Metal Jacket, Casualties of War, etc.).

I was initially surprised, then, that it wasn’t nominated for Best Animated Feature last week at the Oscar nominations, but I kind of understand that too. Casting aside any comment on whether rotoscoping really counts as animation, as technically it is kinda just “tracing”, it seems clear that Wall•E will triumph over anything else in this category and it would’ve just seemed wrong on the night for a robot love story to steal the gold from something heavier like this. And I must admit, I kind of am in the camp that looks at rotoscoping – even when it’s “adapted” here for more fantastical sequences – as something less impressive than fully hand-drawn or even the best of CG animation. This isn’t to look down on Waltz with Bashir as a whole – “true” animation or no, it is the perfect medium to tell this story and when the film switches to real footage at the end, it has all the more impact for the contrast it has with the hollow distance we have from what precedes it. Much of the film is about this distance, this, “how did you cope?” factor to the soldier’s story and the point at which is becomes “real”. It’s a haunting movie, certainly. Whether it’s so new anymore to point out that “war is hell” … I’ll just lay off that personal chain of thought for fear of offending anyone too much …



Bolt

Bolt

Saturday, January 10th, 2009

If I called Igor on being too like a whole raft of other things, then I’ve gotta be fair and point out from the start that Bolt is really just Toy Story in new clothes. Replace Buzz Lightyear – a toy spaceman confronted with the plastic hard fact of his fiction – with a little girl’s pup who believes he is the superdog he plays in a top TV show, and you pretty much have Bolt. The difference between this movie’s familiarity and Igor’s with its multiple sources? What can I say except this is just plain better.

The movie opens with one of the best action sequences I have seen since the first Matrix sequel – John Powell’s score is fantastic and on top of the thrills there are laugh-out-loud visual gags. Where a movie like Igor has me glad to find other things to do, this one makes me put things down as I find myself more and more incapable of removing my eyes from the screen. This, and considering how fully adorable I found first the younger Penny then of course Miley Penny, the best news here is how the movie kept me happy even in its middle section without her. In Mittens we have a kind of substitute for Jessie of the Toy Story sequel (which arguably told the same story, too) – her monologue that begins with her making an argument for Bolt not returning to Penny but ends with her finally revealing some of her backstory is just one of many moments that reminded me of the gutwrenching “When She Loved Me” scene in Toy Story 2.

Basically, it has all the substance these movies require on top of the great animation (which, incidentally, even that is better than Igor and the like – take the characters out of some scenes and you’d think you were looking at a photograph … heck, even some of the character stuff left this impression on me) that Igor sorely lacked. I kinda knew it from the moment at the start with the toy carrot. I just knew as soon as I saw the look between Bolt and Penny, “if it comes back to that carrot at the end, I’m gonna be in tears,” … you guess whether I needed tissues or not :) Needless to say, Disney, thank you, this makes up for Tinker Bell almost like Meet the Robinsons did for The Wild.



Igor

Igor

Saturday, January 10th, 2009

“You won’t believe this but … I’ve made someone else.”

Uck. The very set up here garners only a, “No thanks” from me – like where Monsters Inc. made a whole city of monsters in the closet, Shrek made a whole trilogy out of a world of fairytale characters, they here make … umm … a world of Igors (called Malaria – what the hell’s that got to do with anything?). I thought John Cusack’s presence could save a CGI version of Frankenstein told from the famous sidekick’s perspective (which is what this sounded like to me at first) – but even he can’t help here. It’s fairly beautifully designed and animated and all, especially not coming from one of the bigger studios; but I was just waiting for the 90 minutes to be over from the start here. It goes without saying that the ending is the best part, but even that takes the abusing (yes, that’s what I’m calling it) of “Tomorrow” and mimicking everything from Iron giant to The Hunchback of Notre Dame (there even immitating the beautiful pan-around of the Disney movie’s ending – don’t get me started on the Tim Burtonry that abounds here, it’s been covered elsewhere) to accomplish. One I’ll forget in a hurry.