The Incredibles

2004 superhero cartoon

Rating: 16/20 (Abbey: 20/20)

Plot: Bob and Helen Incredible, out-of-work superheroes, try to adjust to normal-person life after saving the world's been outlawed. Helen takes care of their three children while Bob works in a cubicle he barely fits into. On the side, Bob secretly meets with his friend Samuel L. Jackson to park and listen to police scanners and catch some motherfucking criminals. One day, he's contacted by a mysterious woman with a job offer involving the travel to an island and destroy a robot ball. Since Bob just lost his job, he eagerly takes the job but soon discovers that he might be in for more than he bargained for.

See, these are the characters the Pixar folk should be working to bring back to the screen. Those cars and those monsters were fine, but there are so many stories that these characters could be used to tell. Not that this is my favorite Pixar movie. It's not. But it is an exciting story, cool in a James Bond sort of way, and animated with a great attention to detail. The island scenery is realistic, and there's a depth to the animation, especially during scenes where the little fast guy is zipping around where it's impossible to see everything regardless of how much you slow things down. In 2004, it didn't seem like the CGI magicians had quite worked out making people or their movements realistic. Watching this on the big screen, I was impressed with the movements of the human characters, not just because of the semi-realism but because they moved, gesticulated, and grimaced with personality. I especially liked flamboyant Buddy (Jason Lee) and sarcastic and smirking Helen (Holly Hunter). There are still some moments where things just don't look quite right. Helen's butt looks weird in some shots (yeah, I looked), but that might be because I don't understand the physics of an elastic posterior. My favorite two characters are a pair of minor characters, both of diminutive stature. I love every hilarious moment Edna Mode's on the screen, and the fact that director Brad Bird actually does her voice is awesome. And the always-wonderful Wallace Shawn voices Bob's boss, a perfect depiction of Napoleon Complex. The narrative's exciting, tossing you around with some twists and turns, and the music is just as incredible as the titular Incredibles. As with all of Pixar's movies (now they really are all on the blog), there's a lot here for both big people and their kiddies to enjoy. Maybe the big people just a little bit more though.

Finding Nemo

2003 Pixar movie

Rating: 18/20 (Jen: 18/20; Sophie: ?/20)

Plot: The entire world finds out that a clownfish is called a clownfish as Marlin, a clownfish who lost his wife and all but one of his babies after a shark attack, takes a watery road trip to Sydney in search of his missing son, Nemo. Along the way, he meets Dory, a blue fish with no short-term memory, and they encounter sharks, bioluminescent fish with gnarled fangs, stinging jellyfish, surf-happy turtles, a giant whale, seagulls, and a dentist. Can they reach Nemo before the little guy is given to a notorious fish killer with braces?

I was so amazed with the animation when this came out. Pixar's always so good with character, and the animation of the ocean critters along with the good voice talent (love Ellen as Dory) makes even the most minor characters in this memorable. This is a good adventure story, a buddies-on-the-road movie, and although it's episodic, it never seems choppy because it alternates between the dual stories of the father's adventures as he tries to find Sydney and the attempts by Nemo and his new aquarium friends to escape the dentist's office. Finding Nemo's got a great story and that typical Pixar heart, and right from the get-go, with a pretty intense shark attack scene, you know you've got a story that isn't just for children. The adventures are exciting, but there's some great comedy as well, including what I think was Pixar's funniest moment until Potato Head was given a tortilla--the scene with the dentist waiting room occupants watching and listening to the great escape. But as I said, it's really the animation that steals the show. There's an artistic realism to the underwater scenes, and it's hard not to be pleased with the splashes of color across the screen. Nearly eight years later, it's still hard to imagine that animation can ever look better than some of the imagery in Finding Nemo. Just compare this one to its under-the-sea contemporary Shark Tale, and you'll see that the Pixar folks were Buzz Lightyears ahead of their competition. And that's even without a Fresh Prince!

Sophie's started watching movies. Well, to be completely accurate, she's started watching parts of movies. She gets the dvd cabinet open and reaches for either this or Monsters, Inc. usually. Actually, she handed me Kill Bill Volume 2 this evening, but Jen told me that wasn't appropriate for a one-year old.

With this, I believe I've got all the Pixar movies on the blog finally. Now I can just wait patiently for Cars 2 to come out!

Toy Story

1995 movie

Rating: 20/20 (Jen: 20/20; Abbey: 19/20)

Plot: Cowboy Woody is Andy's favorite toy. Andy goes everywhere and does everything with Woody--helps him stop antagonistic potato heads with diabolical schemes, throws him around, repeatedly smacks his groin on a stair railing. Woody and the other toys are happy. Until the threatening arrival of a new spaceman toy, Buzz Lightyear. Wait a second. The characters' names are Woody and Buzz? That seems kind of dirty.

Go ahead and try to argue with me that this isn't a 20/20. Go ahead. I dare you, readers. An impressive start to Pixar's reign of delight with terrific "new" animation (Jen and I saw this in the theater without the one child we had; I was mesmerized) and wonderful characters. The Pixar peeps hit a home run right away with a story that has their unique brand of humor and heart and creative spirit and depth. The often funny and exciting and occasionally touching and (surprisingly) human story's aided by a lively score from the ubiquitous Randy Newman. The voice talent, especially stars Tom Hanks and Tim Allen who were not Pixar's first choices, are great, adding real personalities to the characters. This is not my favorite Pixar movie, and when you've watched it over a thousand times (bad parents that we are, we let Dylan watch it over and over again after it came out on video), you notice some flaws, mostly continuity errors. For example, Andy must live in a tower or something because I'm pretty sure he's got windows on every wall in his room at some point in the movie. The "You're flying!" moment still gives me chills almost every time. Movie magic!

Note: If you care to read it, I do have an alternate "Andy is psychotic" reading of the movie. In it, the toys are of course not actually alive, Sid is actually Andy, Andy's mother is chopped up and stuffed in a toy box, and Pizza Planet is the cafeteria at an asylum.

Cars

2006 cartoon

Rating: 14/20 (Jen: 17/20; Emma: 13/20; Abbey: 20/20; Sophie: ?/20)

Plot: It all comes down to a final race between three cars with the winner, including a cocky rookie race car named Lightning McQueen, getting the Piston Cup. That's apparently a big deal. On the way, he gets stuck in a dumpy little forgotten town called Radiator Springs where he's forced to repave a road that he destroyed. Can he complete the task in enough time to get to California and the Piston Cup championship? Will his selfish feelings change as he gets to know the locals in Radiator Springs?

For me, it can be summed up in three simple words. More accurately, two words and a part of a word. Two and a half words. The words? "Get 'r done." A lot of the animation, especially the stuff at the tracks, is beautifully done, and I like Lightning as a good dynamic character voiced by Owen Wilson. It's my least favorite Pixar movie, and I wish the Pixar geniuses would tackle an Incredibles 2 instead of following up this or the monster movie.

Now, to be the opposite of randy since not enough people have participated in the poll to help me figure out the appropriate level of randiness, I'll force my children to type something about Cars.

Abbey: Cars the movie is the best movie ever because it has lots of action. I love how Lightning is a race car. When Lightning was in the truck, I liked all of the toys he had. At the end I liked how Lightning saved a racing car. I thought it was really nice when they found Lightning in Radiator Springs. They were all taking pictures.

Emma: A lot of movies are somewhat amazing and the other ones are kinda boring. But there is also a middle. Cars, in my opinion, is one of those in the middle. I like some of the parts like the whole idea of the movie but it was predictable... in some parts. cows are awesome. MOoO

Moo indeed.

Toy Story 3

2010 cartoon

Rating: 16/20 (Jen: 17/20; Dylan: 15/20; Emma: 20/20; Abbey: 20/20)

Plot: The mouse is getting behind on his payments to keep Walt Disney's head cryogenically frozen, and after a failed attempt at a bakesale--failed because of pre-sale rumors abounding involving Goofy and perverse activity and cupcakes--they decide it's time to wheel out Woody and Buzz and the other toys and make another Toy Story movie. They struggle to find a plot and eventually decide to just redo the one from Toy Story 2 with a few twists and a whole bunch of new characters because then they can make a lot more money with action figures, etc. "Because kids," the mouse said, "will even want toys based on characters who were only in the movie for a few seconds."

Don't get me wrong though. I loved seeing a brand new Toy Story movie, and this has to be considered one of the most successful and maybe even the best trilogy of all time. Most of the success comes from the audience already knowing and loving all these characters. Parents and their children have seen the other two Toy Stories dozens of times, so you go into this third one with Woody, Buzz, et. al. already feeling like you grew up with these toys or that they're your best friends. If they are your best friends, however, you really should go out and meet some actual people. So there's no wasted time or need for a lengthy exposition, and the previously-developed characters just slide right into the newish story. Newish instead of new, by the way, because there are quite a few parallels between this and its predecessor. The story is a little tidier than number two, and the animation is a lot better than either of the others although the toys thankfully haven't been given any kind of technological upgrade to make them look better than the very first installment of their story. But the human characters look a lot better and move a lot more naturally than in the other movies. The parts of Toy Story 3 with humans (good to see Sid again!) really couldn't have been done when the first movie came out. And the atmosphere and backgrounds are also vastly improved, creating a ton more depth than we had the first time we met these guys. When the characters are in peril in this movie, like in a genuinely frightening and intense scene where they are about to die, the background textures add to the mood. Compare that with the most frightening scene in Toy Story when Woody and Buzz are trapped in Sid's scary room, and the atmospheres in this new one blow the old stuff away. There were a lot of allusions to the first two movies, including a lot of repeated lines which sort of annoyed me, and there was also a continuation of the references to the original Star Wars trilogy. I also appreciated the references to prison escape movies with the toys' busting out of a daycare center. There was also something going on in that scene that I couldn't stop laughing at, so much that I really started feeling like a fool after a while. There are a ton of funny moments in this, but there are some pop culture references that seemed a little too easy, and I got to the point where I'd cringe whenever Barbie and Ken were on the screen. With over three hundred characters, including a nod to the wonderful My Neighbor Totoro, the screen is just filled with stuff to look at. It's a feast for the eyes. As a parent, this was a strangely emotional experience for me, but a lot of the tears seemed a little more forced in this one than in other Pixar features like Up. Very good movie, and like most Pixar movies, I look forward to seeing it again.

A Bug's Life

1998 Seven Samurai remake

Rating: 16/20 (Abbey: 19/20)

Plot: Mean grasshoppers threaten a colony of ants after clumsy Flik dumps the food they collected to keep the bullies happy. The lead grasshopper, the cleverly-named Hopper, doubles the order and gives the ants until the last leaf falls to collect. Flik is sent away to find some warrior bugs, but he brings back circus bugs instead. Together, they come up with a plan to rid themselves of their grasshopper enemies.

I love the nod to Seven Samurai and The Magnificent Seven here although if you count the inarticulate Tuck and Roll, you've actually got nine bugs that come to help the ants. This movie has a little trouble getting started since few of the ants really have any character. The exception would be the protagonist voiced by Kid in the Hall Dave Foley, but even Flik has to grow on you a little bit. Once Flik gets to the big city, the story, as well as the animation and the action, picks up. The circus bugs and P.T. Flea (The Empire Strikes Back's John Ratzenberger, Pixar regular) give the film funk and flavor, and as soon as they're introduced, the puns, some of them very bad, start flying so rapidly that you'll wish you had a fly swatter. There are three terrific action sequences in this although the climactic battle scene that takes place at night might be a little too intense. A Bug's Life is a funny movie, but, uncharacteristically for Pixar movies, a few of the jokes are a little on the cheap side. Still, A Bug's Life is stuffed with creative ideas, fun characters (Kevin Spacey's Hopper is a great villain), lively Randy Newman (of "Short People" fame) music, and terrific animation. I also really appreciate the messages behind the cute little bug story. There are lessons about noncomformity, the power of the imagination, facing up to bullies, and reaching goals despite your size. I'll always have enough of a sweet spot for Toy Story to love it a little more than this one, but it's hard to watch this and not think of it as a step up for Pixar.