I agree the themes in Ratatouille are more mature, but I wouldn’t put it past kids to get the emotional connection, as the method for conveying the flashback is a purely emotional beat. Sure, some might not realize at first what they’re seeing is Ego’s childhood memory, but once they understand that, the rest requires only feeling that emotion in order to understand.

When I was a kid, I remember picking up on the overall theme of Mary Poppins, even though putting it into words would have challenged me at the time. Never underestimate kids. That was another movie where the writing was saying so much more than the words appeared at face value.

UP looks cute, funny, and I agree that it is going back to the well that Pixar draws from for its stories and visuals to combine to make a great and entertaining movie for the whole family.

They found a really subtle way to convey a much more complex message in Ratatouille (Ego’s flashback – wordlessly no less, and later within the context of a published review) than having the captain in Wall-E say: “You just needed someone to take care of you”, talking to the plant, and then glancing over at the globe. It’s the difference between having the message come from natural flow of good characterization, and having the characters almost stop the film to what almost comes off as a direct aside to the audience.

The rest of Wall-E’s stewardship theme (inter-personal and environmental) was conveyed more subtly, but that moment stood out as too overt and took me completely out of the film. It drew attention to itself when it should have blended, like in all the other Pixar films.

I get what your saying but for this message it has to be heavy handed, how else can you put it?

No, I haven’t seen Bolt, I should rent it.

@SK47

Depends on the message.

Vic

It doesn’t break any new ground storywise, but it finds a way to be fresh in it’s own way, and enjoyable for the adults as well. At least, it left me with that warm feeling inside when it was over.

The action scenes were cool to look at, but the whole time I kept thinking to myself: “Imagine how thrilling this would be if I actually cared about these characters?” The movie doesn’t have characters so much as it has stand-ins who talk but without rhyme or reason. We never know even one thing that makes them tick.

The movie as a whole did hold my attention, but just barely at times. Would have been nice if they tried to throw some surprises towards the audience, but I had the remainder of the plot details worked out by the halfway point (down to specific events). Most of the good laughs are spoiled in trailers and commercials, and the few that weren’t spoiled come only at the very end. There were a few scattered chuckles in my audience, but no real sustained laughter. And Dreamworks still insists on putting at least one or two completely out-of-place pop culture jokes in their films. Dance Dance Revolution? Really? “Axel F”? Again?

All of the visual elements for a film like this to work like it should were here, but’s it’s like hearing someone play “Freebird” note perfect, except the notes are out of order, so the whole effort falls flat and dull.

I know this movie ruled the box office this past weekend, but I’m really curious to see how big the drop off is, and how long the enticement of the name alone will continue to draw people in.

If anyone is thinking of seeing this, I recommend to wait till it comes out for rental, or pick it up on Netflix.

Anyway, The Incredibles is one of my favorite animated movies. Loved Finding Nemo too mainly because of Dory, her character was so cute and loveable.

And I think I’ll probably watch Up when it comes out… unless people here say it wasn’t good either… dammit…

I liked Wall-E more than Vic, but I still recognize it’s not a perfect movie. Ratatouille is my favorite Pixar film, which is only a hair above “The Incredibles” for me.

What strange universe do you live in where “I’ve made no secret of the fact that I’m not a big fan of Pixar’s Wall-E” = “I hated Wall-E?”

I thought it was fantastic until they introduced humans into the film. I didn’t like the heavy-handedness of the messages nor the fact they couldn’t make up their minds whether people should be portrayed by actors or CGI characters (did people used to be real centuries ago and morph into CGI or what?).

BTW, I gave it 4/5 here:

http://screenrant.com/wall-e-review-vic-2823/

So maybe you want to get down off your soapbox, hmm?

Vic