movies: elemental

Well, Elemental is...solidly middle of the road. It's not the worst Pixar movie by any means, but it is both very on the nose at times and conversely it did make me tear up by the end.

I will say, that I went into this movie knowing NOTHING. Beyond the fact that it was called Elemental and it was about elemental people. That's it.

It's essentially the first Pixar "rom-com". And I only put that in quotes because it's not the kind of dumb comedy rom-com that seems to exist currently, it's more of a romance with some comedy but also, you know, drama and stakes.

Weirdly, I would have put money on somebody associated with the writing or directing of this movie being second generation Middle Eastern or something similar, because the flame folks in this movie are SO incredibly Middle-Eastern-immigrant coded (down to the music, and a lot of the design in the fire part of town) that it's ridiculous. But, no, turns out it's at least partially based on director Peter Sohn's life as the son of Korean immigrants.

Interestingly, the water people are definitely Caucasian-coded. And we don't see enough of the air/cloud people or the earth/tree/grass people to draw a parallel.

I will say though, that the overall story isn't the greatest. It feels like it keeps picking new plot cards, playing with them for a short amount of time before throwing them away and picking a completely different card and going in another direction. It also feels like it introduces a main character trait at the mid point of the movie when it's never really been explored (I mean, kind of, but not in the way that makes it clear from the jump). Most of it gets paid off, but it's a little all over the place. Essentially, the script could have definitely done with maybe one more draft with a fresh pair of eyes.

I also maintain one of the same things I said after the abysmal Strange World, Disney, can you maybe pay for some therapy for your creators? They clearly have ongoing parental issues. I mean, I know what this story is going for, a story that while not "universal" is something that a lot of people can understand, but at the same time... issues.

And does this movie somewhat copy Zootopia's homework, less from a plot standpoint, but more from a design aesthetic? Absolutely. But that's going to happen when you set a movie in a fantastical city with design elements that lean into a world with a specific theme.

There are also a lot of design choices here that I love. I love the "formal" clothing for the flame folk that is essentially stained glass. I love that the fire people have legs that come to a point at the bottom, because of course flame spreads out as it rises. I love that there is no one look for the earth people. They're basically "dirt plus plants" in some combination, but they range from people with trees growing out of their heads to covered in grass and everything in between. At the same time, it's hard to do creatures made of air, and their shorthand was "cloud", but that's just water vapour, which essentially just makes them a different race of water folk.

As is expected, the effects of the fire and water and cloud are beautiful, there's a whole underwater section that is stunning, but that's only to be expected from a Pixar movie.

Would I have expected that I would get teary at the end based on even the midway point of the movie? No. But they still got me there, which I count as a success.

yani's rating: 3 sparklers out of 5

movies: lightyear

So, fun fact, Lightyear isn't a kid's movie. It's that movie that seems to be a rare beast these days. A family movie. It's not a little kid's movie, even though it seems like it might be. But, then, honestly, when was the last time that a Pixar movie was "for kids".

You want something that's going to hypnotise small children into an hour and a half of shutting the hell up, go to whatever small, yellow, overall wearing fart joke movie is currently showing.

Honestly, I didn't know what to expect from Lightyear. I knew it was "about Buzz Lightyear" and I knew that Chris Evans was playing the titular Buzz. Which was a good choice. Tim Allen is great in the Toy Story movies, but I'm always here for Evans.

And it kind of makes sense that the action figures for a movie would have a slightly off-brand voice.

Without spoiling it too much, because it's basically the opening of the movie, in the universe of "Toy Story", this movie is the movie that Andy went to see in 1995 (presumably a live action movie) which became his favourite movie and inspired his transition from cowboy stuff to space stuff.

I won't lie, that opening nearly got me. All of the feels. From like a dozen words of text.

Also, writer/director Angus MacLane really dotted his I's and crossed his T's in this movie. There's a whole bunch of references to the toy version of Buzz and things from the movies. Again, without giving too much away (because it's the first two minutes of the movie), Lightyear's first words in this movie are the same as Buzz's first words in the first Toy Story movie.

It's also a beautiful looking movie. They've gone for the "Pixar version" of photo real. I mean, you can see it in the poster. And the cat looks like it looks for specific reasons.

It is definitely a Pixar movie though. And it's a sci-fi/drama... it's not a comedy. Just because it's animated, doesn't mean it has to be a dumb comedy. See also, the entirety of Pixar's back catalogue.

Also, let me have a controversial opinion for a second. I'm very quickly approaching being over Taika Waititi. He's fine as a director. I just maybe don't need to see/hear him as an actor anymore. Because, he's only ever himself. And as soon as I hear his voice, it's just so obviously him. And it throws me out of the movie. Add to that the fact that the character is just supposed to be comic relief, but, you know, isn't actually funny and gets annoying really quickly.

And, since we're talking about a Disney/Pixar movie... let's talk about "Disney/Pixar's Gay Problem".

So... we have a gay character in the movie. Cool. However, if they actually self identify as gay in the movie, they have to be a lesbian. And they can have a partner, but that partner can't be a character, have any lines or be a person. And then you have to kill off your gay character. Or have them leave the movie. For a perfectly understandable reason within the movie. But the end result is the same. Dead gay.

It could not be any more a Bury Your Gay trope if it tried.

Is there a single, chaste lesbian kiss? Alleged. I didn't actually notice. Because it's such a non-moment between one person we've known for about five minutes and one person who isn't actually a character.

Disney/Pixar, please note, you don't get any fucking kudos for this. Because, once again, a gay woman of colour's story is only really important if it impacts the story of your white, straight, male protagonist.

You wanna make an actual lesbian character... cool. Make it woman who is actually in more than three minutes of the movie.

Was it one of the great Pixar movies? No. But it's solidly mid-tier.

yani's rating: 3 zurgs out of 5

movies: turning red

So... Turning Red is... fine.

The animation is lovely. The big furry red panda is sufficiently floofy, and I did get distracted more than once by close up shots of knitted textures. Because it just looks fucking amazing. As do pretty much all modern Pixar and Disney movies.

And I also need to say that I didn't hate the movie. It didn't infuriate me to the point of apoplexy like, for example, Soul. This won't be a long giant rant. The movie was, overall, fine.

It just isn't for me.

Which is perfectly valid.

I'm also not sure who the intended audience of this movie is. Yes, yes, yes... clearly the intended audience is 11-14 year old girls. 

But to me, this movie feels focused in a way no other Pixar movie has been so narrowly focused. At it's core, I would suggest that this movie is actually for the 13 year old versions of the women who wrote and directed it. Because this movie is the most on-the-nose metaphor for teenage girls and puberty I've ever seen.

I hope it works for the people it's being aimed at. I hope the movie works for people in general. I'm just not one of those people.

It's good to see Pixar not just doing the same old same old... in a world of Disney remakes, sequels nobody wants or asked for, weaponised nostalgia and the like, it's good to see them taking a chance on a different kind of movie, giving different kinds of storytellers the opportunity to flex and tell their stories.

But the downside of that is movies that may not be universal and speak to everyone. I mean, maybe you get lucky and they are that thing. But sometimes you won't. And that's okay too.

My main issue with this movie is that I didn't actually LIKE any of the characters. Except maybe Priya. Because Priya has no fucks to give, and will also very definitely grow up to become a lesbian. But I disliked the main character quite a bit. Which is bad... because she's your main character.

I literally spent the first... twenty minutes of this movie staring at it with a raised eyebrow because the overwhelming emotion being inspired the movie was "WTF is happening and who the fuck are these people". And I realised that I needed to consciously lower my eyebrow before my face seized up.

Storywise it feels like it's pretty well worn territory, and it's a storyline that, personally, infuriates the living fuck out of me. Not because it's a bad storyline, but because it's at the same time both a well worn trope that I'm kind of sick of, but also a shitty real-life scenario that I don't really want to see in my media because it makes me mad.

And that's "immigrant family puts overly harsh expectations on child from that family and cause stress to the child as a result", combined with "if you people just had a real conversation we wouldn't be here". And with a little "repressing young women's sexuality" thrown in as a garnish.

Again, not BAD. Fairly realistic, relatively speaking, it's definitely an experience that people have had, but also not something I'm interested in watching. Because I just want to slap the people involved. Maybe it's also because it's a trope that gets trotted out in a lot of gay media as well... replacing "immigrant" with "straight". So, it's, as the kids say, somewhat triggering. But in a way that just turns me off and distances me from the story.

Also, for me, there's a bunch of ideas here that only get partially explored. I suspect some of that is probably because parts of the story are based on the real life experiences of the women who wrote and directed it, and that's their lived experience. But parts of this story seem... superfluous. Or not well explored. In a way that I'm not used to seeing from a Pixar movie. 

Generally if something is in a Pixar movie, it's there for a clear reason. It has definitive set up and pay off. This movie has that... but things don't get set up and paid off in ways that work for me. Like I said before though, that's potentially the cost of telling different types of stories.

But at the end of the day, I recognise that this movie isn't aimed at me, it's not a story that I have an affinity with and, therefore, it's not FOR me. And that's fine. A movie designed for 13 year old girls doesn't actually need to appeal to a man in his late 40's.

yani's rating: 2 boy bands out of 5

movies: luca

Let me just start this off by saying that Luca is an amazing movie. But at the same time, fuck you Disney for not releasing this into cinemas. Not allowing this movie to be seen full sized on a movie screen is a crime against cinema.

You can tell that parts of this movie are a love letter to, well, the Italian Riviera first and foremost, but also to Studio Ghibli movies. The skies in this movie are absolutely Ghibli skies... and the town in the movie is called Portorosso... giving a tip of the hat to my personal favourite Ghibli movie, Porco Rosso, also set on the Riviera. It also reminded me, visually, of both Call Me By Your Name and The Talented Mr Ripley, which is unsurprising since they both take place on the Italian coast.

It's also, oddly enough, a movie set in the 1950's. I mean, you wouldn't know beyond a couple of movie posters in the background, because the movie itself is timeless. Also, the music is pretty 50's (he says as he types this review while listening to the soundtrack). Italian 50's music... but very 50's.

I wasn't sure if I was going to love the movie during the first 15 minutes or so... because, well, the first 15 minutes are basically a riff on The Little Mermaid. Just with the titular Luca taking the place of Ariel. And, for all intents and purposes, the other main character, Alberto, filling in the Prince Eric role, by which I mean being the catalyst that gets Luca up on land.

Once they are on land though, it becomes it's own thing.

Let me do my usual trick and gush about the visuals in this movie. I've already said that this movie has Ghibli skies... actually, it has Ghibli grass too... which is a massive compliment. It's clear that they pulled in all of the Pixar expertise from previous movies... because everything about this movie is visually STUNNING. The town, the underwater sequences, the very Ghibli inspired dream sequence... the food.

There's less food in this movie than there was in Ratatouille, but without any doubt the food in this movie is leap and bounds more beautiful. And when there's basil on top of a dish of pasta and you know it's definitely basil because of the little creases in the leaves and you know that it's also covered in oil because it's shiny... when you can taste it just by looking at it. That's amazing looking food.

I may have also had a moment over the other main character, Giulia, because she wears a knitted hat. A cable knitted hat. Where you can see the individual stiches. I mean, I had a moment. Add to that moment that when I learned after the movie that she's basically dressed identically to Tombo in Kiki's Delivery Service (sans the hat), which is a Ghibli movie I also love.

It's not really surprising to me that the writer/director of this movie, Enrico Casarosa, also wrote and directed the La Luna short a decade ago... they share a sweetness and a visual style that I adore... and that makes me really glad they gave him a movie to make his own.

Now, let's circle around to the story.

Casarosa's sweetness shines through here, and, if the little bits I've seen about the making of the movie in the last 24 hours are any indication, it seems like the story is based around similar experiences he had with a childhood friend. I mean, clearly Enrico isn't a "sea monster" (as far as we're aware anyway), but the friendship between Luca and Alberto is what makes this movie a stand out.

It was also one of the best representations I've seen for a "disabled" character in a movie... a character with one arm, who just says that it's the way he came into the world (and that's the one and only time it's talked about), it's not a massive plot point about him not having the arm or how he deals without it and it's also not the only defining thing about his character, it's just yet another thing to add to the list along with fisherman, father, fabulous moustache owner and respected member of the community.

And while I get why they wanted to have dangers to Luca and Alberto's adventures coming from both the land and the sea, the weakest parts of the story for me are the douchebag teenager in the village (because why none of the adults have told him to shut up and sit down I don't get... I'm assuming in my head canon that he's the son of the mayor or the richest person in town or something... he's clearly borrowing clout he doesn't have himself) and Luca's parents from the ocean. Mostly because both antagonists are played very broadly for the laughs and Luca's parents are kind of stereotypes (although, at least he has one of each, this is a Disney movie after all).

While we're on the subject... I'm still not sure how I feel about Luca's colour scheme when he's in his sea monster form... something about it was a little too much for me... maybe it's the fact that his face is blue and green, his hair his kind of purple and his eyes are red and yellow. Too many colours going on. Whereas Alberto is blue and purple with green and yellow eyes. That worked better for me. But honestly, I'd rather have had them shoot for the fences and use all the pencils in the pencil box than not have that riot of colours in other places.

Now, we come to the proverbial elephant... well, possibly the proverbial sea monster in the room.

Is the movie Luca queer? Is it queerbaiting? Has Disney accidentally made a movie by a straight writer/director that resonates massively with a queer audience by talking about a fundamental human/sea monster experience of feeling like you don't belong and finding a person who expands your world more than you thought possible who then also leads you to people who love you for who you are and that found family is very often more important than the family that you're born into. And then released it during US Pride month.

Short version. No to the first, no to the second, FUCK YES THEY DID to the third.

But... and this is a very big but. While it's perfectly reasonably to read this as a queer movie and absolutely ship the two Nonnas (you'll know what I mean if you've seen it), it isn't a love story... even accidentally. It's about two boys who don't fit in because they're different no matter where they go learning to show the world exactly who they are and finding that the world loves them because they're good people and doesn't care about the ways that they're different.

And at the same time, that doesn't have to be read as a queer story. Stories about boys who care for each other, aren't afraid to show affection with each other, both physically and emotionally, and support each other are important in their own right, irrespective of anybody's current or future sexual orientation. And I want those movies to exist in the world without everybody pointing at every single one of them and screaming "GAY" like they're an extra in an Invasion of the Body Snatchers movie.

Because movies like this are important for little boys to watch. Little queer boys and little straight boys both. Because finding the weirdos who are your kind of weirdo and love you for it is an important thing to have in your life. For everyone.

It should be unsurprising to anyone who's ever read one of my Pixar movie reviews... I absolutely cried at the end of this movie. Even though I knew how the movie was going to end, I still cried. Because while I knew the destination, I didn't know exactly how they were going to get us there.

And I'll be honest, Luca is kind of all about the journey. A sweet, sweet Summer journey I'm very enthusiastic to take again.

yani's rating: 4 goatfish out of 5

movies: soul

So... this has been a little while coming. And a movie that we would have gone to see at Christmas, if Disney had bothered to release it to cinemas.

This is going to be one of those reviews where I kind of need to talk specifics about the movie. It's about to get semi, slightly, possibly quite a bit spoilery up in here. 

As a quick side note, I will say that I was very, very pleased that I managed to go into this movie without knowing anything of substance. I knew it was about jazz, I knew it was about a piano player. I knew there were "little cloud people". And that was that. I didn't even know who was voicing the lead characters.

Soul is... 75% of an interesting idea followed 75% of the way to a satisfying conclusion.

Let me say this also... I didn't cry. I cried in Coco and Toy Story 4. In fact I barely really got all that choked up. Which doesn't really surprise me, given that this is a Pete Docter movie. And I feel very much about this movie the same way that I felt about Inside Out.

You took a very broad and vast concept and you tried your best to define it, but you just didn't get it over the finish line for me. And left me somewhat emotionally distanced from the whole idea by the end. But slightly worse than Inside Out, the concept behind soul is... muddled.

I get what it's about, don't get me wrong, but for me at least, it went in too many directions and you didn't give me enough clarity to the point of your movie.

It's also one of the most curiously structured movies. We start out in the human world with our main character, Joe, and we're there what feels like a long time before we even get where the movie really needs to be to start the main story. And yes, some of the lead up makes sense in order to get to where we need to go structurally later, but I feel like there must have been a better way to get there.

Then just about the time I started thinking "So, is this is then, is this what we're doing for the rest of the movie, this seems weird", we switch back to the human world into what feels like a very well worn trope. In fact, I literally said right before it happened, "I bet you $50 that X and Y", sure enough 11 seconds later I would have been $50 richer if we'd been betting real actual money and it wasn't super predictable and obvious. So, now the movie starts... again. Which is fine, but the tone takes a turn every time we relocate.

And, honestly, if I stop and think about it, this part of this movie maps almost one to one onto Inside Out. Oh, we're two opposite personality types who want two different things and one of us is super uptight about it and now we're here when we need to be there, so we definitely have to find a way to get from here to there before the arbitrary deadline happens. And we learn things along the way.

Although honestly that's kind of the plot of Toy Story, Cars, The Good Dinosaur, Brave, Up, Onward and Monsters Inc. Huh... so it's a feature not a bug? Or that's just your basic buddy movie formula. Let's just say it's the latter, shall we.

Making Joe a jazz musician is all well and good... but, I honestly didn't care. I don't particularly like the style of jazz they were leaning into in the movie, it all sounds like a bunch of people working real hard at not making a decent sounding song to me. So, making that his emotional centre just didn't resonate. Also, as a person, he seems to have almost NO emotional connections.

But... you then go make him a teacher (which, honestly, doesn't factor into the movie AT ALL in any meaningful way... seriously, if you make him a... librarian giving music lessons on the side, it changes NO significant part of that movie), with a former student who is now a musician and who literally has the line "if it wasn't for you, I wouldn't even be where I am right now" and a current student who comes to him to essentially talk her out of giving up on music. And you DON'T make that the emotional heart in your movie beyond a couple of montage images at the end?

You have a character ask "why didn't you ever tell me about your life before?" and the answer be "because you never asked" and not find a way to make that more emotionally resonant. Especially given that you decide that the point of your movie is that even a "mundane and boring" life is something to be lived and experienced and savoured. I get that that's the point... I just can't get behind it.

Plus you have part of the overall conflict be between him having a day job OR a job that happens at night and on weekends. Sorry, what? And yes, I get it... in theory, and possibly in a throwaway line very early in the movie, the night job might result in "going on tour", but it never feels really like that much of an OR question. The choice is muddy which sets us up with stakes that don't feel like they matter. If he was doing something that was not connected to music in ANY way... then yes, I get it. But not this.

Like I said at the start... it's NEARLY there. It's 75% of an interesting idea. But they don't even take that 75% of an idea 100% of the way. Even that I could have gotten behind.

This was just... obtuse. In the "not clear or precise in thought or expression" sense of the word. It wasn't even that it was a "tell don't show" movie. There were times were it was kind of neither. It was instead going around telling me that it had already told me things by the end, but, honestly, I didn't feel it.

And really, the 75% idea is banging around in my brain because it's the ending where the movie absolutely falls flat on it's face. There were too many loops and hoops and i's and t's and ideas floating in the ether that don't get utilised. Too much busywork to get us to where the movie thinks that we need to be.

You set up the concept that people who really get into things they love leak over into this other reality... The Zone... and you have one of your two main characters in the real world and the other in The Zone at the end of the movie. And this ISN'T where you let Joe see the results of his decisions and choices? Instead you do that later in a completely DIFFERENT scene that is essentially repeating the same thing that we just did... but this time with a load of pocket junk?

And the thing that Joe, the person we've been theoretically rooting for this whole time, to get the thing he's been wanting, GETS the thing... and then... doesn't want it any more? Isn't feeling it? Nah, Joe, not good for you, huh buddy? No? Water is actually wet you say? What the fuck? I also realise that that is the whole point of your movie. That wanting a thing doesn't define your life, and learning to appreciate everything that makes up your life is important.

It just doesn't make for a satisfying movie conclusion. What it does make is a muddled message that spends most of the movie going zig and then goes zag in a very unfulfilling way at the last moment.

And honestly, having a character say that they could "die happy" if they got to do a thing, do that thing and then basically elect to die doesn't really make me feel good about life. And then have even that choice not mean anything because this is a Pixar movie and deus ex machina exists.

There are several things I can think of that may have fixed parts of it... but I feel like we come back to the "75% of an idea taken 75% of the way there" concept again. Or maybe it's that the idea they're trying to cram into 100 minutes is just too damn large, and the most they could actually wrangle into a movie was 75%.

I don't know.

Then we have the Sadness to Joe's Joy, the Mike to his Sully, the Queen to his Merida... 22. They kinda did 22 dirty all through this movie. Her arc feels like a lot of loosely connected dot points. I mean, yes, if you connect them up, you can indeed make a picture of a pizza slice, but it's a weird three dimensional slice that only really works if you look at it from a specific angle.

That analogy may have gotten away from me.

There are three radically different 22's in this movie. We first meet a moody cynic, which kinda works while we're in the "other place", but then stops making sense once we get back to the real world. So 22 becomes something completely different in fairly short order, suddenly she's excited about stuff and curious and joyful. Yes, the movie does dot it's i's and such to get her from here to there, but feels like a long walk. And then once we're back in the "other place" she becomes something totally different... damaged, emotional, wounded... with seemingly completely different motivations.

I'll be honest though, I didn't really like 22 that much. With the possible exception of the scenes between the barber shop and the artificially created movie conflict scene. Those bits I liked. The fun version of 22.

Damn... this movie is a big woollen lump, and any time I start to pull at any of the threads, the whole thing feels like it's going to fall apart. Or 75% of it, anyway.

Moving on to things that did work for me. The Other Place... not what it's called in the movie, but whatever. It's very pretty... and weirdly reminded me of the original Fantasia in a lot of ways. It's a vibe. I think it's the fact that the whole design aesthetic has a very 1950's/cubist feel... most notably the Jerrys and Terry, and their line art aesthetic, which I really, really loved.

The music by Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor is very lovely. That sounds like faint praise... and in a way it kind of is, because, honestly, I don't notice the majority of non-diegetic music in any movie. Especially score music.

I also want to give them kudos for putting a lot of non-white voices (and animated faces, obviously) in the movie. Weirdly, the fact that I kept noticing it kind of kept pulling me out of the movie a little, as did the fact I kept recognising some of the side character voices. Speaking of which, shout out to Phylicia Rashad, because she's amazing, always and forever.

Just to circle back... I didn't hate it. Not at all. But it's a Disney Pixar movie, and I hold those to a very, very high standard. Higher even than just a regular Disney movie.

And this one just didn't get there for me.. so, given the repeated reference to 75%, I'm doing something a little different this time and scoring it at 75%...

yani's rating: 3.75 pizza slices out of 5

movies: onward

So, it's June and this is my first 2020 movie review. And we didn't even see this in the theatre.

But, onward to Onward.

Pixar, man... always right in the feels. And in the feels in a way I kind of didn't expect.

I wasn't at all surprised to discover that Pixar worked with Wizards of the Coast on this movie, and "borrowed" references to the gelatinous cube (and supposedly the beholder, but I have no memory of there being a beholder in the movie). Because this movie draws on Dungeons and Dragons a LOT.

From fantasy creatures, to quests, to an in universe "historical role playing game" that sounds like a simplified verison of DnD, it's all there. I'll be honest, to a distracting degree on occasion.

On top of that, it's a hero's journey story. They even specifically go to a tavern to start their quest.

And as I say at every new Pixar release, everybody say it with me now, this is a gorgeous movie. A combination a modern city (with fantasy trappings... the castle crenellations on the tops of the skyscrapers was probably my favourite touch) and some gorgeous natural wilderness. There wasn't really enough wildlife to be honest... thinking about it now, that seems a little weird. Or maybe it was all in the background and I just didn't notice.

I do have to give a shoutout to the sound designer who put a horse neigh sound under the sound of the van engine every time it started up. Because the van is the noble steed in this story.

I'm going to avoid specific spoilers, but this might still be too spoilery for some people, be warned.

While the end of this movie got me right in the feels, it was also partially emotionally unsatisfying. For me anyway. I get how it was emotionally effecting for the main character, and I got emotional based on that. But it was also reliant on a lot of information we didn't have for the duration of the movie. So it feels like it comes out of nowhere.

I just found myself wanting the ending the movie had spent the entire run time setting up and then took away from me at the last minute. Sure, that might also have felt unsatisfying for different reasons. But it felt like a bit of a bait and switch. It might have also been more satisfying if the movie didn't go out of it's way to say "look, we're putting this literal wall between these characters so that he can't do this thing"... for no real reason. If you want that, extend the final fight, have him miss his opportunity that way, don't just put up arbitrary obstructions.

What I did like though, was the role of the mother in this movie. It would have been very easy to fall into the usual Disney formula where the kids go off and have a big adventure, and we don't see the mother until the very end. Adding her in as an active storyline with a throughline certainly helped.

I could have done without the mother's boyfriend storyline. Sure, keep the character, but it was mostly a pointless plot point. It honestly doesn't go anywhere, and it makes me think less of the mother. I kind of wish that they'd finished the movie with the mother and the manticore having hooked up (ie put in a lesbian character who is integral to the plot and has more than like two lines). Because they did that thing they do yet again. A blink and you'll miss it gay reference. And I know now that the character only referred to her "girlfriend" because the actress involved asked to change it from husband, so it's not even like the filmmakers did anything. But just stop already.

Likewise there was some of the general awkward and cringe in the beginning of the movie that I wished they'd skipped (awkward high school boy is awkward and says dumb shit, is embarrassed by his own brain and also brother, cue cringe). Fortunately it didn't last long enough to really be a major problem.

Although making the "curse" at the end of the movie take it's form by ripping apart the high school, while excessively on the nose, is also a great story decision. Because as everyone knows, high school is a monster that must be defeated in single combat.

I'll also say that there were some very obvious "Chekhov's gun" tropes. Mention something at least twice and obviously it's going to show up before the end of the movie. And somewhat random settings that show up at the start of the movie out of nowhere will probably reoccur before the end.

Having said all of that, it's one I will definitely rewatch and try and pick up all the references I missed the first time through.

yani's rating: 4 feral unicorns out of 5

movies: toy story 4

If the previous movies can be summed up as "replacement", "abandonment" and "loss", then Toy Story 4 seems to be concerned with obsession.

I'll be honest, after the amazing end to the trilogy with the last movie, when I first heard about this one I did wonder why they were going back to the well, but Pixar knows how to put a movie together, and this was no exception.

Surprising nobody, I cried at the end... but in more places than I expected.

As I said, this movie's overarching theme is obsession. Not just Woody's obsession with making sure everything is set right for Bonnie (although Bonnie becomes a stand-in for Andy for much of the movie), but also the "villain", talking doll Gabby Gabby (voiced by Christina Hendricks), who is obsessed with the literal storybook version of being loved by a child, a feeling she's never known. Then there's Duke Caboom (Keanu Reeves) who can't move on from his past. And the way toys react when one of their own reveals that they "have a child"

I did realise at the beginning that Woody's obsessions throughout all of these movies, while they felt apt in context, also seem like they could very easily go to (or are on the road to) an unhealthy place. And the fact that he believes that all toys would be better off if they were owned/loved by a child.

This is much more Woody's movie, even than all the others. The first one is a buddy movie, the second is a rescue movie, the third is a prison break. They all feature varying degrees of the two leads and the ancillary characters, but this is primarily a movie about Woody. You could really take out all of the usual gang of toys and not really lose a ton from the majority of the movie.

It's also Bo Peep's movie though, which is nice that she came back as such a self assured and self reliant character, the opposite of Woody in a lot of ways. Especially given that she was so ignominiously written out of the third movie, and if memory serves is barely in the second one.

Bo is also where the advances in technology are most keenly felt. Now she looks like she's made of porcelain... she's shiny and reflective. In fact lighting and surfaces are where this movie really kick it out of the park. From the opening sequence (and yes, I got a little glassy eyed when they included part of the TS3 ending in the opening) with the rain and water effects, through to the myriad of lights of both the antique store and the carnival, this movie looks amazing.

And yes, I know I say that every time. In fact I say that I say that every time. But it's always true. Pixar kicks it out of the part with each new iteration. Just compare the almost photo-realistic cat with Sid's dog from the first movie to see how very far they've come in the last 24 years.

I didn't see either of the plot lines that make up the end coming either to be honest. And once again, without spoiling things, they make sense. I'm sure they tried out a lot of different options, but the final fates of these beloved characters happen in a way that is both melancholy and triumphant.

yani's rating: 4 skunkmobiles out of 5

movies: incredibles 2

I'll admit that The Incredibles isn't really in my top 5 list of Pixar movies, but they have absolutely outdone themselves with Incredibles 2.

Also, lets put there out there right now at the beginning of this review... baby Jack-Jack legitimately steals every single scene that he's in, and I'm 100% here for all of it.

Going back a little... the first movie is, without a shadow of a doubt, Bob/Mr Incredible's movie. The story is all about him, plot gets moved by him, the others are only mobilised to save him. There's a B story with the rest of them, sure, but it's basically the Mr Incredible Show.

This time around it's Helen/Elastigirl/Mrs Incredible's movie.

With Bob being a stay-at-home dad as the B story (and it's probably a more well thought-out B story than Helen's was in the original).

The story is solid action adventure, and it's nice to see the female superhero taking charge, especially given that Elastigirl is capable of being much more subtle.

It also feels perhaps less "on message" than other Pixar movies. I mean, yes, there's definitely some "hey, taking care of children is hard work", equality stuff going on, but it's just a function of the story.

This isn't a movie that's going to make anybody cry (I don't think).

It's also SUPER obvious who the villain is. I mean, the moment the character appeared on screen I though "oh, so you're the villain then". I don't know whether they thought they were being clever and disguising it... and there were a couple of instances where I thought I was wrong, but no, turned out the the great reveal wasn't so much a reveal as a "well, dur".

But that didn't bother me to be honest.

Like the first one, the movie has that cool retro-future 50's vibe to everything... which somehow seems even more apparent this time around, perhaps because they're in much better looking locations overall.

And even though this movie starts right as the previous one finishes, the character models have definitely been given a spruce up... the most obvious of which is Dash, who has much more obvious freckles and cooler hair than he did in the first movie. He also looks a tiny bit older, which is weird, since it's all one time frame.

Oh... and the Edna Mode scenes... pure genius.

Also, the short that precedes the movie, Bao, is lovely but very weird... at least until it all comes together and makes sense at the end.

yani's rating: 4 domino masks out of 5

movies: coco

Disney Pixar's latest, Coco, is beautiful... and reduced me to tears.

This isn't necessarily something new for a Pixar movie, I quietly fell apart at the end of The Good Dinosaur and Toy Story 3, and they usually get to me even on the less emotive titles. But this one got to Ma in a big bad way as well, which is more unusual.

I also appreciate that between this movie and Moana, Disney has shown a level of cultural sensitivity that, while still not perfect (although I'm not an expert on either Mexican or Polynesian culture), definitely feels like an improvement on past efforts.

At its heart it's the story of one family and its relationship to both music and each other, and while some of the story structure feels like things I've seen a number of times before (the proverbial ticking clock, the chance encounter, etc), everything is handled here with the usual Pixar deftness.

It is definitely a slow movie though. Even at it's most frantic, it's still probably the slowest of all the Pixar movies, which isn't a bad thing, and suits the ton of the movie. But I feel like it may be better for a slightly older audience (child-wise). It's also one of the only Pixar movies I can think of with the on-screen death of not just one, but two characters. There's definitely some darkness here.

But, as always, the visuals are stunning... from the bone textures on the skeleton characters to the vibrant colours of the world of the dead and the warm tones of the human world, the whole thing is a feast for the eyes.

It's also partly a musical... I mean it has songs in it, but they're diegetic songs, songs that can be heard by the characters in the movie. So, not a musical as we might think about a Disney musical. But here they also got everything, if you'll excuse the pun, pitch perfect. I'm not surprised that the team responsible for Frozen also wrote the big number in this one.

At the end of the day though, it really doesn't matter what I have to say about Coco, it's just a movie you should go and see.

yani's rating: 5 alebrije out of 5

movies: cars 3

It's not really any great secret that the Cars series is my least favourite Pixar subset of movies, but Cars 3 is possibly the best of the bunch.

My main problem with the first Cars movie was that it was incredibly predictable plot-wise. The second one I enjoyed a lot more, but it is incredibly goofy.

The third outing manages to combine an effective and moving story with less wacky humour but with stunning visuals.

Like the first one, this is Lightning McQueen's story, but this time it's about what happens when "the up and comer" becomes "the veteran"... and given that the first movie came out in 2006, it seems appropriate.

Once again, the story feels a little predictable in a way that other Pixar movies don't, but I'm not sure if that was because I'd read or seen something about the story, or if it was just that obvious after a certain point. This time though I didn't mind as much, possibly because it was a more interesting story.

I will also say that this is, without a doubt, the most beautiful Pixar movie since The Good Dinosaur. Water, plants, lighting, weather effects, everything. It's all gorgeous, especially once they head across the country.

Part of the problem with this series has always been that it's hard to pay off the large cast of characters from the original movie, which they've done in both of the sequels by mostly isolating a character with a couple of new cast members. In this case it's mostly Cristela Alonzo as Cruz Ramirez. But also, hats off to Nathan Fillion for his second Pixar role.

And I'll admit, I did get a little choked up towards the end, which is pretty much to be expected from a Pixar movie, if not necessarily from a Cars movie.

Oh, and the short that precedes this one is called Lou, and I think it's the most beautiful and emotive short they've made yet.

yani's rating: 4 treadmills out of 5

movies: finding dory

The very beginning of Finding Dory starts with an adorably cute baby version of Dory and does a nice match-up with the scene where Marlin and Dory first meet from Finding Nemo... and then jumps to a year later. And I'll admit, right up until the jump, the movie had me by the heart-strings.

After the jump... I'm going to be honest, it takes a while to really get good. The first half of the movie feels a little like a watered down version of the original... it's less about the actual "journey" this time and more about what happens when they all get where they're going. And that made it feel a little bit less interesting.

Once it does find it's feet though it's a beautiful story. Still not at the same level as Nemo, but beautiful in a different way.

I saw an article online earlier about it where the headline was "it isn't about family, it's about living with disability", and while I haven't read the article yet, I do agree with the headline. This movie is much more about Dory's relationship to the world, and everyone's relationship to both her and her disability.

I think it's one of those movies that now that I have that thought to pick away at, I'll see more and more of it in the movie each time I rewatch it.

And with the exception of Hank, the octopus, I don't feel like the characters who were introduced this time around were as interesting as, for example, the tank gang from the first movie. It may be more about the purpose they serve in the story, but there were a couple of characters who probably could have been combined into a single character without losing anything from the story, and at least one group of characters that felt a little ill defined.

I was also a little annoyed with Marlin a few times, his character felt like he'd slid back a little too much to his personality at the beginning of the first movie.

And while Dory "remembering" her past is a key part of the plot, it almost felt as though there were too many of those flashbacks... some of them move the plot along a little, others don't really seem to beyond reinforcing something we've already seen.

But that's not to say that I didn't get emotionally choked up in the last third of the movie... as always with Pixar, they manage to hit that emotional nail right on the head. I do wonder though if the movie is a little too dark overall for smaller kids... or if they just won't get a lot of it.

As always, the movie itself looks amazing... you can see some of the leaps forward they took with water and the backgrounds and plants in general in The Good Dinosaur at play in this movie too.

I can't say that it was an instant favourite with me like Nemo was, but I feel like it's one of those Pixar movies that will grow on me over time.

yani's rating: 3 cuddle parties out of 5

movies: the good dinosaur

While I'm generally quite enthusiastic about the visual look of most CG animated movies we go and see, Pixar's latest effort, The Good Dinosaur completely rewrites the visual book.

There were legitimately certain shots, particularly at the beginning of the movie and again during the end credits, where I would have sworn I was watching live action backgrounds.

Fifteen years ago, Disney did exactly that with Dinosaur, which used real locations with CG dinosaurs... however a lot has changed in that time and this movie shows off just what can be done with CG. From water effects to trees and grass and clouds to the stunning eyes of the human character, this movie is so stunningly beautiful I really don't have the words to describe it.

But my hat goes off to all the people at Pixar responsible for making every leaf, every flower, ever tree look as good as it could possibly look, and then some.

The story owes more than a little bit to The Lion King at times, but is essentially your standard Hero's Journey tale of an Apatosaurus called Arlo trying to find his way home with his human "pet", Spot.

While it's an emotional and affecting story, if the movie has a flaw, that's where it is... if only because it's a story we've seen a million variations of.

Having said that, if anyone can take something like that and make it still interesting to an audience, then it's Pixar... they also know how to push the emotional buttons and I did tear up a few times, and cried towards the end.

yani's rating: 4 critters out of 5

movies: inside out

Interestingly enough, given the subject matter, I really am not sure how I feel about the latest Disney Pixar release, Inside Out.

I'll go through the good points first... as always it looks absolutely beautiful, the leaps forward that these movies make in turns of effect and textures are always incredible. And in this case it's the fully human characters, particularly in terms of hair, which are really nicely refined, but also the emotion characters have an amazing look to them.

The concept is also something reasonably fresh and new... we meet the anthropomorphic personifications of Riley's emotions as she moves to a new city and starts a new school (there was the TV show Herman's Head from the 90's which covers some of the same ground)... but this does capture part of that sense of childhood where your emotions seem to come out of nowhere and be beyond your control.

Straying slightly into spoiler territory, the progression from memories that are based on a single emotion at the start of the movie to memories that are made up of multiple emotions at the end also feels pretty right for that transition out of childhood.

There were also some nice moments at the very end of the movie when we were given a chance to see inside other people's heads.

And as very often happens I did have a little teary moment at the emotional resolution of the plot.

But on the flip side, I didn't connect with this movie the way I've connected with previous Pixar movies.

Even with the way the character stories resolved, I didn't really like Amy Poehler's Joy or Phyllis Smith's Sadness who are really the major characters inside Riley's head. And because of the way Riley's character has to change throughout the movie, I found I didn't necessarily like her all that much either at times.

There were also a number of, not quite plot holes, but definitely logical blips or perhaps just cases of "well, what does that mean in the real world" concerning some of the stuff inside Riley's mind.

It's a clever movie, and one that might grow on me with further viewings but I guess I was just expecting to love it more than I did.

yani's rating: 3 core memories out of 5

movies: monsters university

Wow... it's been a long time since my last movie review... almost two months in fact.

Before I dive straight in to my thoughts on Monsters University, I have to stop and say a few things about the short that preceded it, The Blue Umbrella. A little like Paperman which was the short before Wreck It Ralph,The Blue Umbrella is a masterpiece not only in animation but also in the art of wordless storytelling.

I think I felt every possible emotion during the six minute short... and I'm not going to lie, I shed a tear or two, mostly due to the incredible music by Jon Brion. And it's such a simple, relateable story of two umbrellas in a city.

It's also possibly one of the most photo-realistic Pixar shorts to date. If it hadn't been for one of two small moments I could almost have believe that it was live action with a layer of CG over the top... but no, the whole thing is CG which is absolutely amazing.

If it doesn't win Best Animated Short at next year's Oscars then I don't know what's wrong with the world.

But that brings us to the main feature, Monsters University.

I read part of a review earlier in the week which mentioned that unlike the first movie, Monsters Inc, which was incredibly universal in it's themes, the sequel/prequel is essentially American in it's basic story. As far as I'm aware, no other country in the world has the same kind of university experience as the US, and this story is set deep in the world of the University.

So it you've never experienced going away to college, dealing with a roommate, pledging to a fraternity or taking part in general US college life, then large chunks of this movie won't have the same emotional resonance that the simple idea of "there are monsters in the closet" did.

Having said that, if you've ever seen any American movies or teevee shows set in a University context, then you're up to speed on all the basic concepts. In fact, if you've seen Revenge of the Nerds I think you'll know everything that you need to know.

From that perspective, even with the Monsters universe layer over the top, I don't think the movie breaks a lot of new ground. It's fairly "by the numbers" as far as plot is concerned with a couple of small exceptions.

There were a couple of things that did kind of bug me... the first one being a line from the original Monsters Inc... "You've been jealous of my good looks since the fourth grade, pal."

That implies a whole lot of things... all of which is thrown away for the purposes of this movie. And it's not like they "forgot", I've read somewhere that they knew about the line but decided to disregard it on purpose. Which is a little disappointing... there must have been a bunch of ways that they could have worked that story point in... but they chose not to.

The other quibble is with the resolution of the story... there's a point where it just feels like the whole movie has smacked face first into a wall. And it kind of stands there for a while, somewhat dazed. Yes, the end of the movie does polish it off nicely, but it almost feels like they weren't completely sure how to get from point A to point B cleanly.

There are a couple of other little quibbles with certain parts of the story, but those are the main two.

But I have to admit there were a large number of really nice callbacks to the first movie... either just by characters showing up or other subtle jokes, like the use of "The Winds Of Change" line as a motivational poster in Mike's dorm room.

And now to pretty much say the same thing I say after every CG animation movie...

This is honestly the best looking CG movie I've seen yet. For the most part this is always going to be true... each CG movie should build upon the backs of all the previous ones, but I noticed so much detail in Monsters University.

Maybe part of it was the fact that I'm familiar with the main characters, so I noticed all the little improvements, and once I noticed them there, I kept on noticing them. But even so, what they've done with fur textures is really amazing... there's one scene where Sully is walking away and the fur at the top of his back just moves so realistically.

The lighting also looks fantastic... while the first movie had a lot of great lighting, there's some small moments in the sequel that really caught my attention.

There are a lot of new characters this time around and while there are a number of them that have a great visual style (both the PNK and HSS sorority girls spring to mind) the single most memorable character has to be Dean Hardscrabble, voiced by Helen Mirren... but when the character is a demonic winged centipede that flies a little like a dragon and speaks like a refined English governess.

While it's not as much of an emotional effecting universal journey this time out,it's still an enjoyable trip through the back-stories of a couple of great characters.

yani's rating: 3 two headed pigeons out of 5

movies: finding nemo 3d

This isn't going to be a full on review of Finding Nemo... given that it's amongst my favourite of all of the Pixar movies, plus it was originally released in 2003, so there's the fact that I've seen it a number of times, it wouldn't be the same as reviewing it after seeing it for the first time.

Instead I'm going to give a brief rundown of my thoughts on the 3D conversion for this rerelease.

As it's a computer animated movie, the 3D effect is pretty much flawless... there's perhaps a couple of moments where the backgrounds show up as the flat "backdrops" that they are, but there is literally only one that I can think of that really drew my eye.

Everything else has been seamlessly switched over to having depth and volume.

The only part where it falls down in the same problem that I have with a number of modern 3D movies. They're so busy being all "aren't we clever, look, depth and volume and roundness and whatnot" that they forget or else disregard the history of 3D and the ability to make things come out of the screen as well as appear dimensionally within it.

Especially in this particular instance, where your characters don't exist within a fixed plane that's anchored to the ground. They're fish for goodness sake, they float, and it would have been easy for them to essentially appear right in front of my face.

There were two scenes where I would have thought they would have "broken the fourth wall" was it where.

The first was the scene with the "jellies"... they surround the characters, and pushing them out towards the audience, increasing the claustrophobic feeling of that scene would have worked really well in my opinion.

Secondly, there's one scene in the movie where characters do in fact fly straight at the camera... the "krill" scene... even if there was no other point where characters leapt out of the screen, towards the audience, it would have been this.

But sadly, they didn't take up the opportunity.

That being said, it was a very minor issue and didn't detract from my overall enjoyment of the movie. I am subtracting a point for the lost opportunities however.

yani's rating: 3 P. Sherman's out of 5

movies: brave

I'm going backwards and forwards about how I feel about Brave...

On the one hand, it's an amazingly beautiful movie with some great characters, fantastic scenery and beautiful music.

On the other hand, the more I think about the story, the more it feels recycled (cue the spoilery link)... and the more there feel like there are parts missing or that were somewhat glossed over.

Pixar seem to often alternate between making stories that are unique and completely unpredictable... and stories that you see coming a mile away.

Brave probably lays somewhere in the middle. Nothing in any of the advertising for the movie really gives you a clue about what direction the movie is going to take (possibly a flaw on the part of said advertising), but once it does, the plot becomes a tiny bit predictable.

But as I said, there were also parts that didn't necessarily seem to go anywhere... whether they'd been taken out of the movie due to time or to focus the story more on the main character, I don't know... it's not that there were holes in the plot exactly, it's more that things were glossed over.

And just as a brief aside, am I the only person who's been to see Brave and come out of it hearing a Scottish accent in their head as they read things? No? Just me then.

For all it's flaws, I did love Brave's protagonist, Princess Merida... she's feisty, brave (unsurprisingly), wields a mean bow and has the most amazingly rendered hair in the history of computer animated movies. Seriously, I could watch about half an hour's worth of footage of just her hair. It's gorgeous.

The whole move is gorgeous though... the amount of fine detail and texture Pixar manages to squeeze into every corner of every frame of the movie is just amazing.

It's by no means the worst of Pixar's movies (that honour still belongs to the original Cars)... but it's somewhere in the middle of the pack... entertaining, occasionally quite funny, but overall good, not great.

yani's rating: 2 wee naked bairns out of 5

movies: cars 2

I've always said that the original Cars is the weakest of the Pixar movies from a story/plot perspective, but happily, the sequel, Cars 2 is much improved in that regard.

But in a lot of ways it's a sequel to the first movie in name only... yes, it's set in the same universe and yes it contains the same characters, but it's not a continuation of the story from the first one, it's pretty much a full 90 degree turn away from it.

It's a much less predictable story though, even if it doesn't have the same emotional depth that every other Pixar movie seems to have.

It is a gorgeous movie though... and they've taken the idea from the original movie about landscape and architecture inspired by the shapes of cars and car parts and given Japan, France, Italy and England a car themed makeover. It's definitely one of those movies that you'd have to watch more than once just to get all of the little details. I know that they added a "Car-ified" version of Gusteau's restaurant sign to one of the Paris scenes.

But it's safe to say that Michael Caine pretty much steals every scene he's in as British agent Finn McMissile.

All in all, it's very much a "boy" movie, and maybe a little sluggish in places but mostly enjoyable.

yani's rating: 3 magnetic tyres out of 5

movies: toy story 3

I'm going to come right out and say it... Toy Story 3 is kinda dark...

And it made me weep like you would not believe... but that's probably not really news to anyone, and maybe you'll all believe it quite easily.

The overriding theme of the third and final Toy Story movie is "loss"... the first two touched on it, but were more skewed towards "replacement" and "abandonment" respectively, but this seems to be the saddest, darkest and most heartbreaking of them all.

I just reread that last paragraph. Man... we let KIDS watch these movies? They're not exactly bright and happy are they? Replacement, abandonment and loss... yeah, that's a recipe for award winning children's entertainment right there!

But everyone ends up in a good place at the end of each movie, so that helps I think.

I don't think I've cried during a Toy Story movie though... other Pixar movies, sure... but I pretty much lost it through about the last quarter of this one.

The movie starts off dark actually... the toys have already been whittled down to a fortunate few who are trying to get Andy to notice them, to play with them, to love them again before he goes off to college, but he's 17 and not interested any more.

In fact, Stinky Pete's prediction in the last movie is particularly apt...

How long will it last, Woody? Do you really think Andy is going to take you to college, or on his honeymoon? Andy's growing up, and there's nothing you can do about it.

They've resigned themselves to storage in the attic... which is pretty depressing when you think about it... from being loved and adored, to ignored, to being packed up in a box and stored in an attic for who knows how long.

But, as is the formula with these movies, they end up far away and have to find a way to get back to Andy before the end of the movie.

And while there's a fair amount of comedy to lighten the mood, at heart this is possibly the least "funny" of the three movies.

I'm sure there will also be a couple of scenes towards the end that might scare little kids. I know I was feeling anxious about certain plot developments even though I know these things invariably work out for the best. And that was one of the scenes that made me start crying.

The other scene that totally wiped me out was the final scene (without giving anything away) where Andy decides on the fate of the toys (and as an interesting side note, Andy is played by the same actor, John Morris, who played him in the first two movies... at ages 10, 14 and now 24).

I think part of the emotion comes from the advances in animation... the humans in the first movie were very clunky and jerky, and even the textures were "almost but not quite", whereas now they're very beautifully rendered and the movement is pretty much spot on.

All in all, while it's not going to rank high enough to be my Favourite Pixar Movie Ever, and it is, as I've previously said, quite dark and maybe a little intense for some kids, it was an enjoyable movie.

yani's rating: 4 Mr Tortilla Heads out of 5

movies: up

Okay, let's see... Gold Class, 3D and the new Pixar movie, Up... what could be better.

I know, I know, it's a little bit over the top, but I wanted to see it in 3D and there was a Gold Class session starting about half an hour after the regular session, plus I had a couple of Magnum wrappers laying around which entitled us to a free upgrade. So Gold Class it was...

I love Gold Class... I've said it before, and I'll say it again... although I was much more fidgetty this time than I've been in the past... but then I didn't take my shoes off this time around.

We decided that instead of getting dinner and then going to the movie, we might as well combine the two... perhaps not the best option on reflection (not the best pizza ever and it did seem to take much longer for everything to arrive than we specified), but it wasn't so bad.

The short that preceded the movie, Partly Cloudy, wasn't bad... not their best ever, but it was cute, although very subtle as far as the 3D went... but when you're dealing with soft fluffy clouds, how much D do you want.

Following that thought process to it's logical conclusion, in a lot of ways there wasn't a whole hell of a lot of point going to see Up in 3D. It's not an action movie like Bolt was... and even though some of the jungle scenery later on in the movie is really lovely, there really weren't that many "Oh WOW" moments to be had.

It's not really an "Oh WOW" movie actually. For all that it contains a flying house and South American jungle and giant birds, it's this small little story about a man and a boy. And yet again, damn Pixar made me cry.

And I will give Pixar their due... they're not afraid to either take their movies to a dark place or else explore, however briefly, subject matter that I'm sure a lot of people would say isn't appropriate for a "children's movie". But it makes their movies all the more powerful because of that.

As always, I don't want to give away too much of the story, but the opening scene (after a newsreel section that is very reminiscent of The Incredibles) covers pretty much everything you need to know about crotchety old Carl Fredricksen, and why he's the way he is in the trailers. Which is good, because it warms you up to the character and you feel for him.

To be honest, there isn't a whole lot to the story, and it's very similar to a lot of Pixar's other work in that it's essentially a buddy movie. It's sweet though. Not on the level of Finding Nemo perhaps, but it's enjoyable, even if it did make me cry.

yani's rating: 3 Adventure Books out of 5

movies: wall-e

My favourite Pixar movie of all time would have to be Finding Nemo... it makes me cry, it makes me laugh, I love it... and it beats pretty much all the other Pixar movies by a fair distance (with the possible exception of Ratatouille which slides into a slightly closer second place).

However, Wall-E, is now equal first with Nemo... maybe even edging ahead...

And unsurprisingly they're both written and directed by "Sooooperdirector" Andrew Stanton...

I loved this movie SOOOOOO much!

Before I launch into the whys and wherefores of Wall-E, I will say that the "silent" short that preceded it, Presto, is possibly their best ever... it certainly had Ma howling with laughter, and it was a little bit Bugs Bunny, but much, much cuter.

But once Wall-E started, I was just completely and totally absorbed... from the opening song against a starfield, to the reveal of the title character, the movie had me by the frontal lobe all the way through to the end credit sequence that starts out with an epilogue done in various artistic styles through time before settling into some nice 80's pixelart when the credit crawl starts.

With a few of the Pixar movies (Cars, I'm looking at you now) I've been able to work out what's going to happen (more or less) by the end of the movie within the first ten or fifteen minutes. Not this time... we were at about the two thirds or three quarter mark and I remember thinking "I have NO idea how this is going to end"... I mean even with Finding Nemo, you were pretty confident that they were going to, you know, FIND Nemo by the end of it... this, colour me clueless. Which I totally love in a movie!

In a lot of ways it's a very experimental and "out there" movie, especially from the perspective of a mainstream Hollywood animation studio... with the exception of some "commercials" and the simplistic speech of the two main characters there actually isn't any "human" dialogue for the first 40 minutes, and even after that there are only a handful of speaking roles... the cast list is about ten people (and one of them isn't even a person, it's the MacInTalk text to speech program), so in a lot of ways, especially until we first meet the humans, it feels like some sort of silent movie.

And it's also the first Pixar feature length movie to ever feature live action footage. Which did throw me a little bit in some ways... I'm honestly not sure why they didn't do that footage with computer animation, especially since it has real people in it, and then you end up comparing that against the rather unique looking humans later in the movie, but it also makes the early part of the movie feel very real, Pixar's usual attention to magnificent detail notwithstanding.

I can also see why people have been talking about the movie having this big grand "environmental" message to it. But, honestly, it's not something that clubs you over the head... you can choose to really read a pro-environment stance into it, or you can just let it go and enjoy the movie at face value.

But there are any number of other themes that you can tease out... the dehumanising and unhealthy effect of technology, how random acts of kindness can spread, that thinking for yourself is better than mindlessly following orders... all that good stuff... the environmental stuff is just one part.

In many ways, the titular robot reminded me of Johnny 5 from Short Circuit... but, you know, in a "doesn't actually suck" kind of way (okay, I'll admit, Short Circuit was one of my favourite movies when I was 12)... I think it's the all terrain treads, the eyes and that sense of sweet innocence to be honest.

But my favourite character has to be M-O (Microbe Obliterator)... he never says anything beyond "MO" and "Foreign contaminant!" but there's something adorable about him.

And now, for only the second time ever, I'm going to score Wall-E a perfect five.... I loved it THAT much...

yani's rating: 5 Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-class robots out of 5