Up

Up is a fantastic movie. Pixar is once again at the top of their game. I loved the characters, the humor, the emotion, and the animation. I've been dying to see Pixar use the new digital 3D technology, and it does not disappoint!

Parts of this movie had me in tears. They really get you to care deeply for the old man right from the beginning. And every character that is introduced is great in their own way. The boy is fantastic, and the villain is wonderfully twisted. But the dogs steal the show. They get so many great moments.

I don't have much to say except this is a great film, and I recommend it to everyone.

Coraline

Coraline is easily the best stop-motion animated film since The Nightmare Before Christmas. Not that there have been a great many others in between, but it's still a damn good movie. The precision in animation and storytelling is at a Pixar level of goodness. Henry Selick and Neil Gaiman make fine collaborators, and I only hope that more adaptations come about in the future. I'd love to see what a Sandman story looks like in this medium!

One of my favorite things about Coraline is that it is a genuinely creepy kids movie. All of my favorite movies growing up were not afraid to actually be scary. Selick does a wonderful job as a director of gradually ramping up the creepiness until the whole fantasy world is just one big nightmare.

I haven't read the book, so I can't say how close of an adaptation this is, but it definitely has Neil Gaiman's fingerprint. He has such a clever way of using familiar elements from classic stories, and giving them just enough of a twist that they become something new and exciting.

In addition to being a very entertaining film, Coraline is also the best 3D movie I've seen since this new digital 3D technology was introduced. It isn't overly gaggy (*ahem*, Beowulf), and it uses space in very clever ways. Gaiman and Selick recently did a fantastic interview on The Sound Of Young America. Selick describes how sets were built with forced perspective in Coraline's "real world" to give them a flatter look. This kind of attention to detail makes the movie a complete joy to watch in 3D.

I really enjoyed everything about Coraline from the characters, to the story, to its beautifully haunting soundtrack. This could easily give Pixar a run for their money in 2009. Up better be fantastic, is all I'm saying.

Wall-E

Congratulations, Pixar, on your ninth consecutive successful movie! Walt Disney Studios never even had that kind of run in its golden age.

Wall-E is a fantastic movie. The best they've done since The Incredibles. The story is incredibly simple: a robot left behind on Earth to clean up our mess, spends his free time collecting odd trinkets of humanity and watching Hello Dolly on his video iPod. One day a brand new sleek & sexy robot (EVE) shows up, Wall-E is smitten and adventure ensues.

The first half of Wall-E is a brilliant silent movie. There is a tremendous amount of story and characterization conveyed without any dialogue. Wall-E is endearing from the very first moment you see him, and only becomes more so as the film progresses.

It's almost a disappointment when the story takes Wall-E into space. If the movie had solely been about Wall-E's isolation, and then his reaction to a new friend, that would have been enough for me. Those scenes were so well done.

But the movie actually does develop a plot about EVE's mission to discover plant life on Earth, and what happens when the remains of humanity (Pixar's vision of our future is not pretty) decide to return to a home they left over 700 years before.

The animation is amazing as usual. There are some breathtaking settings, from Earth's towers of compressed trash cubes (Wall-E's legacy) to the reaches of outer space. The character animation is arguably better in this movie than any they've done yet, but it would have to be since all of the main characters can only interact through body language. The soundtrack is one of Thomas Newman's best scores, and as a bonus, contains a brand new song by Peter Gabriel (glee!).

Also worth mentioning is the new Pixar short animation shown before the movie. Presto is part Pixar, part Looney Tunes. It's about a magician trying to perform, and being upstaged by his rabbit who just wants a carrot. The rabbit thwarts the magician with the use of two magic hats. They act as portals to each other, which leads to a series of very original and hilarious gags. It's my favorite Pixar short since Geri's Game, which played in front of A Bug's Life.

Kung Fu Panda

This A.V. Club review was the only reason Kung Fu Panda entered my radar. My basic reaction to any CGI movie about talking animals (unless Pixar is involved) is simply to sigh and wait for the next trailer to start, or for the conversation to change. So while I was vaguely aware of a movie called Kung Fu Panda, the fact that it was a DreamWorks Animation picture as well as yet another American kung faux parody, basically meant I wasn't biting. Such is the sorry state of American animation.



But the A.V. Club surprised me with that glowing review, so tonight Brian and I checked it out on the Imax. The review is pretty spot on (though I may have graded it one step lower). Kung Fu Panda is a delightful animated film, shockingly devoid of snappy (painfully outdated) pop culture references and fart jokes. Could this really be from the studio that gave us multiple Shreks, A Shark's Tale, Madagascar (the eagerly anticipated Madagascar II!), and Bee Movie?

There are no cheesy hip hop sequences thrown in for no reason, no schmaltzy montages set to original John Mayer songs...did I mention not a single joke involving bodily gas of any sort? In a movie with an overweight main character that is an incredible amount of restraint for DreamWorks.

The action is genuinely exciting, the animation is much prettier than recent non-Pixar movies. Everything points to a promising future from DreamWorks animation. It's just a shame they had that Madagascar II trailer at the beginning.

The only real problem I have with the film is that a lot of the voice talent is wasted. Jackie Chan, Seth Rogen, Lucy Liu, and David Cross are each given very little to do. Each of their characters, despite being featured heavily in the marketing of the film, maybe have one good moment each. Ultimately this is Jack Black's film and he is great. He does his usual kid-friendly version of Jack Black throughout, and it's genuinely funny. The other really standout performance is from Randall Duk Kim, as the elderly kung fu master turtle, Oogway.

The only other problem is a directorial issue. The movie relies heavily on the standard DreamWorks Animation joke of going into slow motion in the middle of the action to show the funny faces all the characters are making. I think this joke has been used in every single one of their CGI movies, and Kung Fu Panda uses it more than all of those combined. It works stylistically for a martial arts movie, but it starts to stand out after the third or fourth time.

Overall I really enjoyed this movie. It's the best animated film they've done since their first, The Prince of Egypt, and that was a long time ago. More like this, please!