WALL-E, the new movie from the animation wizards at Pixar, is the first art film for kids I have ever seen. The story of a lonely robot who inadvertently gives humankind a second chance is aimed at kids but doesn’t look like any other kid’s movie you’ve seen. If you’re expecting the same-old from Pixar—maybe Finding Nemo 2: That Darned Fish or Toy Story Three: This Time It’s Personal—think again. WALL-E is an ambitious and beautiful stand alone film. It’s 2001: A Space Odyssey for children.
Set in the year 2700, Earth is now a dystopian world rendered uninhabitable by wasteful and excessive humans who exited the planet centuries ago. For seven-hundred years WALL-E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class) has lived alone (save for a friendly cockroach named Hal) compacting the heaps of trash and collecting trinkets left behind when the exodus from Earth happened.
The monotony of his lonely life is interrupted by a search robot named EVE who thinks one of WALL-E’s discoveries is the key to repopulating the planet. When she heads back to the mother ship to pass along the news WALL-E tags along, unwilling to lose the only friend he’s ever had.
WALL-E is one of the most unique children’s films I have ever seen. Despite its relatively simple story, it’s risky filmmaking that has more to do with the great science fiction films of the 1970s than family friendly fare like Nemo. The world director Andrew Stanton has created here is a dark one, where Earth is a wasteland (with tones of The Andromeda Strain and The Omega Man) and overly pampered humankind has reverted back to an almost child-like state.
Add to that the fact that there is no dialogue at all for the first 30 minutes and only sporadic chit chat after that, and you are left with a film that can only be described as a brave and adventurous outing in the formulaic world of kid’s entertainment.
This is a kid’s film that doesn’t pander to kids; that assumes they can use their imaginations to fill in the blanks left by the lack of talk. Most kid’s flicks entertain the eye but don’t give their minds much of a workout. WALL-E does both. It’s the evolution of children’s films; after this the wisecracking animals and toilet jokes of Madagascar and the like will look like relics, as current as Steamboat Willie.
A few famous names pop up on the cast list—Jeff Garland, Sigourney Weaver—but Stanton doesn’t rely on them to sell the movie. Nor does he use current pop culture references to earn cheap laughs à la Shrek. Instead he relies on the most old fashioned of devices—good storytelling—to tell his futuristic story.
Coupled with the good story is spectacular animation from the computer nerds at Pixar whose great achievement here is to give WALL-E and EVE, two inanimate objects, complex emotions while staying true to the characters without stooping to cheap manipulation.
Director Stanton’s great achievement is to fill every frame with a sense of wonder and provide the viewer with one of the most unique and satisfying movie experiences of the summer.
Cars are one of the cool things about the James Bond series. From Aston Martin DB5s with pop out gun barrels and a remote control BMW, the autos have been a big part of those spy stories, so I guess it makes sense to make a spy story actually starring cars, but will it make sense to the kids it is aimed at?
The twelfth Pixar film, “Cars 2” comes five years after the original won a Golden Globe for Best Animated Feature Film. Once again, the story begins in the town of Radiator Springs, hometown to champion race car Lightning McQueen (voice of Owen Wilson), his pal Mater (voice of Larry the Cable Guy) and a host of other anthropomorphic cars and trucks. The action begins when McQueen and his tow truck BFF leave town to take part in a World Grand Prix race. While McQueen tears up the racetrack Mater good naturedly becomes embroiled in a top secret case of international espionage involving alternative fuel, corny jokes—“Is the Popemobile Catholic?”—and lots of frenetic action.
The first “Cars” film was my least favorite Pixar film—until now. The original was expertly made and wildly popular but for my money, lacked the kind of emotional punch of movies like “WALL-E,” “Toy Story” and “Up.” The new film has much of what you expect from Pixar—like beautiful animation—but seems to have left its heart at the junkyard. For the first time a Pixar movie feels more like a cynical excuse to sell merchandise—the original generated more than $5 billion in swag sales—than a fully realized film.
Stories laden with carefully developed messages and themes have always been Pixar’s strong point, but “Cars 2” with its overly complicated narrative and hard to follow messages about the importance of alternative fuel sources misses the mark. Before seeing the film I would have guessed that if anyone could make a kid’s movie about “big oil” and pull it off it would have been Pixar, but I would have been wrong.
The colorful characters will likely have the same kind of appeal for kids, especially young boys, as they did the first time around but fore me the new car smell is completely missing from the sequel. “Cars 2” is a clunker.
Recently I complained that X-Men: The Last Stand blew a great opportunity to actually make their movie about something other than special effects and explosions. So often in the steamy hot days of summer Hollywood insists on making movies that entertain the eye but don’t really stimulate the mind, which is why I find it ironic that two of the most thoughtful films this summer season have been animated films laden with messages.
The recently released Over the Hedge was an anti-consumerist diatribe disguised as a kid’s comedy with cuddly animals, and now, here comes Pixar’s Cars down the track. On the surface cars is a story of a hotshot young racecar that gets sidetracked on the way to a career-making race. Stranded in the small town of Radiator Springs he learns about the true meaning of friendship and family. So far the story could have been ripped from any number of animated kid’s stories, but leave it to Pixar to deepen the story subtly adding in a wistful look at how the Interstate system of highways devastated the small towns that dotted the fabled Route 66. It’s not quite Jack Kerouac, but it is an effective comment on the high price that society pays for progress and convenience.
Not that kids will care about that. I think kids—young boys especially—
will be drawn to the colorful animation of these big-eyed cars. It took me a few minutes to warm up to the characters—the shiny cars aren’t as immediately lovable as previous Pixar characters like Nemo or Mr. Incredible—but as usual Pixar has cast the voice talent so well that it doesn’t take long to start thinking of these hunks of steel as flesh and blood. They are full of life and each has a unique personality—there is the brash Lightning McQueen, voiced by Owen Wilson, the embittered but wise Doc Hudson, brought to life by Paul Newman, a rusty old tow truck played by Larry the Cable Guy (who jokes that he gained 1700 pounds to play the part before he learned that it was an animated movie) and even George Carlin as a VW bus who doesn’t seem to realize the 60s are over.
Cars is a solid family movie with good life lessons and is touching tribute to a by-gone era in American life.
I’m not sure how long something has to exist in order to be called a classic, so I’ll qualify this review in a different way. With “Brave” it’s possible Pixar has created an instant classic, a film that will be as fresh thirty years from now as it is today.
It’s a brand new fairy tale about Merida (voice of Kelly Macdonald), a flame-haired Celtic tomboy-turned-princess. She’s feisty, with little regard for the customs of her station in life, including an age-old ritual that will decide who she will marry. When her mother (Emma Thompson) insists she follow custom and choose a husband from the eldest sons of the MacGuffin, Macintosh and Dingwall clans Merida learns that you have to be careful what you wish for—especially when that wish is granted by an absent-minded witch (Julie Walters).
“Brave” so effectively creates its own world and mythology it would be easy to think it is an old tale updated by the story shamans at Pixar, but it’s a new story that feels timeless. There’s no pop culture references à la “Shrek” and only a couple of pop-song montages to date it. Other than that it feels like a classic, with one major difference—strong female characters.
Merida may be a princess in the tradition of Disney princesses but she’s also strong willed with a story arc that keeps her in the middle of the action. There’s nothing passive about her, or about her mother’s character either.
It’s a refreshing change, and one that should appeal to girls. But the movie isn’t just for the distaff side of the family. Everyone will enjoy the humor, the gentle action and characters.
When I first saw the trailers for “Brave” I thought it looked very conventional, as if Pixar was leaving behind the imaginative storytelling that had become their trademark to tell a simpler tale. How wrong I was.
WALL-E, the new movie from the animation wizards at Pixar, is the first art film for kids I have ever seen. The story of a lonely robot who inadvertently gives humankind a second chance is aimed at kids but doesn’t look like any other kid’s movie you’ve seen. If you’re expecting the same-old from Pixar—maybe Finding Nemo 2: That Darned Fish or Toy Story Three: This Time It’s Personal—think again. WALL-E is an ambitious and beautiful stand alone film. It’s 2001: A Space Odyssey for children.
