Premise: An elderly man undertakes an adventure he's put off for decades but finds more than he bargained for when a neighborhood kid accidentally is brought along.
Stars: Ed Asner (voice) * Jordan Nagai (voice) * Christopher Plummer (voice)
Story: Carl Frederickson (Asner) is an elderly man whose life has been filled with love of his wife Ellie. After her passing, he lives alone, a shut-in, while the city moves in and surrounds the plot of land where the two had built their lives. Facing a forced move to a retirement home, he decides to undertake an adventure that both he and his wife had wanted to pursue as children, but had to put off as reality took most of their meager earnings.
Attaching thousands of helium balloons to his home, Carl detaches his home and life from the old plot of ground, but quickly discovers an unwelcome guest - Russell (Nagai), a Wilderness Explorer scout that was attempting to help the elderly man has accidentally stowed away on his porch. Unable to get rid of the boy, Carl faces his trip to South America with the passenger and experiences some - at first - unwelcome adventures as they approach his target.
Russell encounters a strange bird that he names Kevin and unwittingly involves Carl in the life's hunt of Charles Muntz (Plummer), setting the man against his childhood hero.
Review: The movie is absolutely superb. As with most Pixar films (A Bug's Life, Finding Nemo), the animation is excellent and does not distract. That aside, the story is moving, inviting, and endearing.
Without seeming to, Pixar has created their first truly human character, in Carl Frederickson, a triumph of writing, visual storytelling, and the gravelly voice of Ed Asner. Asner does an excellent job as Carl, an elderly man who has recently lost his beloved wife. The quiet, subdued music that accompanies the story of Carl & Ellie's life together is near-perfect as ten minutes unfolds and the trials, triumphs, and tragedies of their lives together unwinds on film. It literally left me in tears. As Carl faces life alone in his small house, the sprawl of the city takes over the once suburban landscape, leaving the man nothing but his dreams of the past. One can clearly see the years and care on the man's face, an achievement for Pixar animation.
Russell, voiced by newcomer Nagai, is a young boy whose happiness is built upon his scouting and the visits by his father at the awards ceremony. His earnestness and honesty are welcome even as they initially do nothing more than irritate the old man. His positive outlook masks an attempt to move past the disappointment in his family life, and the slow reveal of his inner character visibly moves Carl out of his shell.
The bond that grows between the two is possibly one of the finest storytelling moments in Pixar's movies. Previous films focused on established families (The Incredibles, Finding Nemo), blossoming romance (Cars, Wall-E), situational comedy (A Bug's Life) or buddy movies (Toy Story & Toy Story 2). This is the first film by Pixar where a family relationship is created on-screen, and between two dreamers - an old man setting off on what seems to be the end of his life's journey and a young boy trying to hold on to his fragile links to his father.
Their adventure together - it is unclear if the journey takes only a few days or more - brings Carl back to life, as it were, and through his experience, we share in the joy, the pain and heartache and the realization of a dream.
P.S. The opening animated short Partly Cloudy is also quite entertaining and serves as a nice appetizer for the film.
Overall: Good.
Other Sites: IMDb * AllMovie * Wikipedia * Rotten Tomatoes
Showing posts with label animated. Show all posts
Showing posts with label animated. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Monday, July 14, 2008
Meet the Robinsons (2007)
Links: IMDb * Wikipedia * AllMovie * Rotten Tomatoes
Premise: A young orphan gets a glimpse of the family he wants to have, but is focused on finding his past.
Review: A decent animated film where the impossible seems possible and you have to let go of what holds you back in order to move towards the future your dreams are made of.
Lewis is a young boy who was abandoned at an orphanage by his mother. He grows up as a science whiz, dreaming of trying to find his mother. During a science fair, he meets a villain from the future who wants to ruin his life, but is saved by another young boy about his age - Wilbur, also from the future. Wilbur takes Lewis back to meet his family, and discovers things about himself and those around him in the present, by seeing a possible outcome of his actions.
He learns to appreciate what is around him, to let go of the past, and look forward.
The film is pretty straight-forward, the animation is good, and the characters are somewhat memorable - the Bowler Hat Guy, DOR-15, the Robinsons themselves - although in the futuristic type animated films, it seems like a Disney-fied version of the Jimmy Neutron movie and series.
Overall: Mediocre
Premise: A young orphan gets a glimpse of the family he wants to have, but is focused on finding his past.
Review: A decent animated film where the impossible seems possible and you have to let go of what holds you back in order to move towards the future your dreams are made of.
Lewis is a young boy who was abandoned at an orphanage by his mother. He grows up as a science whiz, dreaming of trying to find his mother. During a science fair, he meets a villain from the future who wants to ruin his life, but is saved by another young boy about his age - Wilbur, also from the future. Wilbur takes Lewis back to meet his family, and discovers things about himself and those around him in the present, by seeing a possible outcome of his actions.
He learns to appreciate what is around him, to let go of the past, and look forward.
The film is pretty straight-forward, the animation is good, and the characters are somewhat memorable - the Bowler Hat Guy, DOR-15, the Robinsons themselves - although in the futuristic type animated films, it seems like a Disney-fied version of the Jimmy Neutron movie and series.
Overall: Mediocre
Monday, July 7, 2008
Kung Fu Panda (2008)
Links: IMDb * Wikipedia * AllMovie * Rotten Tomatoes
Premise: A dreamer obsessed with kung fu gets picked to be the mystical Dragon Warrior and save the village.
Stars: Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman, Ian McShane, Angelina Jolie
Review: A pleasant little movie. Typical fare, with silly humour, kid-friendly jokes, good animation. It's a nice addition to the list of average animated fare. It's not breathtaking, although the scenes with Tai Lung escaping the rhino-guarded prison are pretty nice. Actually, all the fights are pretty good.
It's kinda like a Karate Kid meets Legend of Drunken Master, only with plushy-friendly animals and Jack Black. Add in a superhero kung fu group and there you have it.
Overall: Mediocre
Premise: A dreamer obsessed with kung fu gets picked to be the mystical Dragon Warrior and save the village.
Stars: Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman, Ian McShane, Angelina Jolie
Review: A pleasant little movie. Typical fare, with silly humour, kid-friendly jokes, good animation. It's a nice addition to the list of average animated fare. It's not breathtaking, although the scenes with Tai Lung escaping the rhino-guarded prison are pretty nice. Actually, all the fights are pretty good.
It's kinda like a Karate Kid meets Legend of Drunken Master, only with plushy-friendly animals and Jack Black. Add in a superhero kung fu group and there you have it.
Overall: Mediocre
Sunday, June 29, 2008
WALL-E (2008)
Resources: IMDb * Wikipedia
Premise: A lonely robot falls in love and saves the world.
Directed by: Andrew Stanton
Stars: Ben Burtt, John Ratzenberger, Kathy Najimy, Fred Willard
Review: Amazing. The film depicts a lonely robot, the last living thing on an abandoned and polluted Earth. Humanity abandoned the planet to its toxic nature, with the intention of returning once it has been reclaimed.
WALL-E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-class) has evolved over that time to show care and compassion - he has a pet cockroach that he takes care of, he keeps small treasures that spark his curiousity, and he watches an old Hollywood musical, Hello Dolly. He still toils at cleaning mountains of trash, occasionally repairing himself from his long-deceased fellow units. While performing his duty one day, a ship lands and discharges a probe named EVE (Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator) who is like nothing WALL-E has ever seen; he is instantly smitten with the fellow robot and sets out to introduce himself - albeit cautiously as she has a strong sense of self-preservation and nearly kills him.
WALL-E introduces EVE to his home and treasures, and when he shows her a plant that he found in an old refrigerator, her automatic programming takes over - she seizes the plant and calls her ship for recovery. WALL-E, distraught over possibly losing the only other living being he's met, follows her and hitches a ride on the ship. The pair return to a large spaceship which houses thousands of people and their caretaker robots. Humanity has evolved to have little bone mass, giant baby-shaped bodies, and have all their needs met by robots and little viewscreens through which they talk to each other - even when side-by-side. As WALL-E follows EVE, he encounters a couple of individuals, sparking their awareness of their surroundings.
While on board the starship - the Axiom - WALL-E encounters fellow robots, including M-O, a little cleaner droid, larger versions of himself called WALL-As (Axiom-class trash compactors), and other little droids that have malfunctioned. He also encounters an AI named AUTO that is the ship's autopilot and a little robot named GO-4 which serves him - these two serve as the primary antagonists in the third act of the movie. These encounters serve to highlight the plot, which moves from WALL-E proving his love to EVE serving her function as proving that Earth's biosphere has begun to move beyond the toxic levels that have dominated the past 700 years. AUTO and GO-4 work to prevent the Captain from returning to Earth, and nearly succeed, except for WALL-E's love and EVE's dawning awareness.
Many reviewers focus on the excellent first half of the movie, in which the only words spoken are electronic or from a viewscreen hundreds of years old. The robots do not talk, act, or look human - their actions show their personalities, from task-oriented to comical. The menace from AUTO and GO-4 are not overblown sinister like Maximilian from The Black Hole, nor are they humans in a shell like C-3PO from Star Wars. The move is to create a very sublime picture, with cute overtones and an arresting beauty.
The second half, occurring as it does on the Axiom, where humans are present and robots are everywhere, is manic and reminiscent of the quick-moving portions of other Pixar films (Monsters, Inc. and Toy Story 2 come to mind). Humans begin to be aware of their surroundings and each other, the love between EVE and WALL-E is expressed in a beautiful dance between the two, and the struggle over the future of humanity takes place.
The animation is nearly picture-perfect, the presentation is amazing, the story of WALL-E and his fight for love is great. The film wears its heart on its sleeve, from the first moment WALL-E notices the stars beyond the clouds to when EVE desperately tries to save him.
It's kid-friendly but the writing and art will clearly appeal to adults as well.
My only issue: Given that humans have apparently evolved to have lower bone density by living in outer space, how can they stand up in Earth's gravity?
Overall: Good
Premise: A lonely robot falls in love and saves the world.
Directed by: Andrew Stanton
Stars: Ben Burtt, John Ratzenberger, Kathy Najimy, Fred Willard
Review: Amazing. The film depicts a lonely robot, the last living thing on an abandoned and polluted Earth. Humanity abandoned the planet to its toxic nature, with the intention of returning once it has been reclaimed.
WALL-E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-class) has evolved over that time to show care and compassion - he has a pet cockroach that he takes care of, he keeps small treasures that spark his curiousity, and he watches an old Hollywood musical, Hello Dolly. He still toils at cleaning mountains of trash, occasionally repairing himself from his long-deceased fellow units. While performing his duty one day, a ship lands and discharges a probe named EVE (Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator) who is like nothing WALL-E has ever seen; he is instantly smitten with the fellow robot and sets out to introduce himself - albeit cautiously as she has a strong sense of self-preservation and nearly kills him.
WALL-E introduces EVE to his home and treasures, and when he shows her a plant that he found in an old refrigerator, her automatic programming takes over - she seizes the plant and calls her ship for recovery. WALL-E, distraught over possibly losing the only other living being he's met, follows her and hitches a ride on the ship. The pair return to a large spaceship which houses thousands of people and their caretaker robots. Humanity has evolved to have little bone mass, giant baby-shaped bodies, and have all their needs met by robots and little viewscreens through which they talk to each other - even when side-by-side. As WALL-E follows EVE, he encounters a couple of individuals, sparking their awareness of their surroundings.
While on board the starship - the Axiom - WALL-E encounters fellow robots, including M-O, a little cleaner droid, larger versions of himself called WALL-As (Axiom-class trash compactors), and other little droids that have malfunctioned. He also encounters an AI named AUTO that is the ship's autopilot and a little robot named GO-4 which serves him - these two serve as the primary antagonists in the third act of the movie. These encounters serve to highlight the plot, which moves from WALL-E proving his love to EVE serving her function as proving that Earth's biosphere has begun to move beyond the toxic levels that have dominated the past 700 years. AUTO and GO-4 work to prevent the Captain from returning to Earth, and nearly succeed, except for WALL-E's love and EVE's dawning awareness.
Many reviewers focus on the excellent first half of the movie, in which the only words spoken are electronic or from a viewscreen hundreds of years old. The robots do not talk, act, or look human - their actions show their personalities, from task-oriented to comical. The menace from AUTO and GO-4 are not overblown sinister like Maximilian from The Black Hole, nor are they humans in a shell like C-3PO from Star Wars. The move is to create a very sublime picture, with cute overtones and an arresting beauty.
The second half, occurring as it does on the Axiom, where humans are present and robots are everywhere, is manic and reminiscent of the quick-moving portions of other Pixar films (Monsters, Inc. and Toy Story 2 come to mind). Humans begin to be aware of their surroundings and each other, the love between EVE and WALL-E is expressed in a beautiful dance between the two, and the struggle over the future of humanity takes place.
The animation is nearly picture-perfect, the presentation is amazing, the story of WALL-E and his fight for love is great. The film wears its heart on its sleeve, from the first moment WALL-E notices the stars beyond the clouds to when EVE desperately tries to save him.
It's kid-friendly but the writing and art will clearly appeal to adults as well.
My only issue: Given that humans have apparently evolved to have lower bone density by living in outer space, how can they stand up in Earth's gravity?
Overall: Good
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)