(Movie Review)
Ordinarily as a grown man I feel a little embarrassed about renting children's movies.
[Although to be perfectly honest, this is not the first - children's - movie - I've - reviewed - on this blog.]
But this movie had gotten such rave reviews that I thought I should check it out anyway.
In fact the reviews of this movie had even led me to believe it was really an adult film in disguise as a kid's film. But it turns out it is still, in fact, a kid's film. Although no doubt one of the better and more imaginative kid's films, it is designed for kids and not grown-ups, and the viewer should be fully aware of this going in.
(The charm of a lot of these Pixar movies is that you go in with low-expectations, and then are pleasantly surprised by how clever these movies are. This is perhaps somewhat ruined when the film gets so much hype.)
Ed Asner is perfect as the grumpy old man. And he had a couple grumpy one-liners in the movie that caused me to laugh out-loud. And those one or two times pretty much made the movie for me--even though the rest of it was kind of goofy childish humor. The image of the grumpy old man trudging on refusing to be impressed by talking dogs and giant birds was enough to justify this whole story. (No doubt it also helps that this is a short film at only about an hour and a half.)
Link of the Day
Noam Chomsky versus young conservative
Video version of an old post (as I explained about HERE)
Because the first four minutes of Up are so neatly devastating, I have little use for the rest of the movie. My daughters feel the same way, actually. When I asked them why they could re-watch the tragic start to Star Trek and not Up, they didn't have an answer (I suspect it's because Trek does a better job of completing the story arc). But Up doesn't deserve to get "Best Picture" any more than Avatar does (another "meh" from me).
ReplyDeleteHere is my brief mention of Up. And this is my vote for best Pixar pic.
Thanks for the link to your thoughts. I think I had read them at the time, but they had not stuck in my memory, probably because I had no memory of the film to connect them to.
ReplyDeleteI think I'm largely on the same page as you with this film. But you can't deny it has it's moments. The grumpy old man trudging through the jungle yelling at everything in front of him was pretty funny I thought.
It was quite entertaining, and easily worth my time and money -- as was Avatar. I just felt burned by the gravitas at the beginning. The first four minutes were, I felt, an emotional bomb; what followed was rollicking entertainment.
ReplyDeleteYes, you've got a point there. The film never really gives the satisfying emotional resolve you expect after the set-up (or as you put it in your Star Trek analoyg "completes the story-arc".)
ReplyDeleteAs for Avatar, that reviews coming up in the not too distant future on this blog. Refresh my memory, did you ever review Avatar?
I haven't reviewed Avatar yet. I'm not really sure where I'd begin. The best summary I've encountered was a one-liner (tweet, actually): "Watched Princess Mononoke for the umpteenth time and realized it's precisely the movie Avatar could have been with writing, characterization." I thought the 3-D was impressive, but still not a platform from which I'd care to view my future entertainment. And that's about it, really. Although, I have been mulling over its appeal to Ayahuasca apologists.
ReplyDeleteInteresting comparison with Princess Mononoke. (I just rewatched that movie myself a few weeks ago, so it's fresh in my mind.) Yes, the story was much better written. And it was a nice touch in Princess Mononoke that the people in the iron workers weren't simply pure evil, but also characters you could sympathize with. And Lady Eboshi was portrayed as a much more complex character.
ReplyDeleteOf course I guess since Princess Mononoke already did this so brilliantly, you could argue there would be no need to redo the same story.
Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself here, I should save most of my thoughts for when I get around to posting my review.
And I had never heard of Ayahuasca before, but a quick google search does reveal plenty of people are comparing it to the film. Interesting