Pixar At the Crossroads

Somewhere back in its early days, Pixar had to have struck a devil's deal which insured glowing press for its films. There's just no other way to figure how something like Up could be received with such breathless criticism. It's being hailed as the 'best film of the year'. It's not even the best film released this month.

The Wall Street Journal pinpointed its central weakness as a lack of coherence. There's far too much weight placed on the back story of the old man. The montage which summarizes his marriage to his childhood sweetheart is told through a series of pictures. (BTW, am I the only one who gets creeped out when movie romances start in early childhood? These kids are six or seven years old when they meet!)

This montage has been as warmly received as the wordless opening of Wall-E. From the same WSJ review:

"It's the essence of daring, the sort of thing that only Pixar would try to do, let alone do wondrously well."

That's funny, because Zach Snyder dared to do the exact same thing a few months back to relate the back story of Watchmen. These montages are never silent, either. Dylan blared over Watchmen, and an extra syrupy Chaplinesque waltz is drizzled all over Up. For some reason, when it comes to Pixar, critics are not only quick to reach for their superlatives, they are also more than eager to abandon any grasp they ever had on film history. Pixar is seemingly the first and best to do anything.

The wordless sequence is now shtick for Pixar. Wall-E's opening sequence, which apparently broke all kinds of new ground, was actually, if anything, over-scripted. Not a second goes by that the little robot doesn't tweet or whir in a way that's adorable, and whenever you slap giant expressive eyes on anything, it becomes infinitely more likable. Whatever emoting is not done by Wall-E's sound design is ably picked up by his ever changing eyes. There's probably a snowball's chance in hell that human beings would design a robotic trash compactor with such adorable eyes. But then again, what are the odds that an alien from Brodo Asogi would have ginormous blue eyes?

To me, both E.T. and Wall-E would have resonated more if they were more alien to us. But if I were tasked with creating a blockbuster family film, I'd use googly eyes and sound cues too. With Up, it's just not clear what purpose is served by the heavy handed approach to the old man's marriage. The purpose of talking, adorable dogs is quite obvious, even though it's just as transparent a manipulation as the montage. The whole film feels like an endless series of pokes at your emotional buttons. Most of them provoke the desired response, but the feeling you're left with after all that button pushing stops is fairly hollow. The whole film is like a sugar rush, just a lot of empty calories.

You can skip the premium for 3D, too. The most eye-popping things in 3D are the fabrics of ties and curtains, actually. Everything else is barely an advance over Jaws 3. It's just an endless search for excuses to have things zoom straight at the camera. If this is the 3D that James Cameron has been working on, I might have to stop looking forward to Avatar.

This 3D is not much of an advance over stereoscopes. A few items are rendered in sharp focus in the foreground, and everything else is rendered in slightly less focus in the background. It's a neat effect, but it mainly feels like you're looking at a diorama. No matter where you look, there's still a 2D backstop to the visual. There's a struggle atop a dirigible at the end of the film which had a very real sense of danger to it because the 3D so effectively characterized the altitude of the action. I actually got a bit of vertigo, but for the most part, the 3D wasn't worth the extra $5.