Theater Review: Brave

It seems odd, doesn't it? That the first Pixar film came out in 1995 and this is the first film that features a female protagonist. But, 2012 appears to be the year of the female action star - with The Hunger Games and Avengers already succeeding.

So, Pixar has given us Brave a film set in Scotland and we are introduced to Merida (Kelly Macdonald) a princess with very large, wild red hair. She is the daughter of Fergus (Billy Connolly) and Elinor (Emma Thompson).

At a young age her father gave her a bow and arrow and she was immediately hooked. As she grew up she loved heading out and shooting at targets.

But, she was also a lady and her mother was grooming her to be the princess she was born to be. She is to be fought over by the three first-born sons of the allied friends of Fergus. Being able to choose how the sons fight for her, she chooses archery.

Merida wants nothing to do with her suitors, so she rushes off into the woods and comes across a small hut with an older lady inside who appears to be a wood carver, but she is holding a secret - she's actually a witch. Merida asks that a spell be cast to get her mother off of her back - so she can changer her fate.

The film is basically a mother-daughter tale. A mother who is forcing her daughter to do something she is not ready for, mostly because of a silly tale the kingdom believes in. And, the daughter who wants to remain a free spirit and begins to pull away from her mother for making her do what she doesn't want.

Brave fits perfectly into the Pixar format. A great tale with a ton of heart and lots of comedy sprinkled throughout. The comedy for the most part comes from Merida's father and his three allied partners, MacGuffin (Kevin McKidd), Dingwall (Robbie Coltrane) and MacIntosh (Craig Ferguson) - and their sons. Plus, Fergus and Elinor have three, young triplet sons who never talk, but do a ton of hilarious things throughout the film.

Is Brave the new standard for Pixar? Absolutely not. But, it fits in nicely - probably around the middle. I love the fact that they continue to try new things - when Toy Story came out it was said hair was one of the most difficult things to create. But, here it looks amazing and you get a lot of it.

Plus, it is great that they finally came out with a female-led film. Pixar has had some great female characters over the years (Jessie, Dory, Elastigirl and Violet) but none of them were ever really the main character. Here, Merida is the focal point and it's wonderful.

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Theater Review: Cars 2

There are a ton of naysayers out there who say that the original Cars film is not worthy of the Pixar name. They say it is the worst of the Pixar films - which technically still isn't a bad thing.

I, on the other hand, have watched Cars about 20 times thanks to my 4-year old son. I have to admit, after the first viewing I was probably having the same thoughts as many of you, but on further views I have really learned to love Pixar's red-headed stepchild.

So, when Cars 2 was announced I was very eager to take my family to see the film. And, I wasn't disappointed.

The gang's all back, led by Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) and Tow Mater (Larry the Cable Guy). The lone missing character is Doc Hudson, who appears to have landed in that junk yard in the sky - which is a nice ode to Paul Newman, who passed away between the movies. Fillmore, however, does return - with a new voice after the death of George Carlin.

Anyway, the plot goes a little something like this. Sir Miles Axelrod (Eddie Izzard) has created a new green fuel Allinol, and plans to show just how great it is with a three races - Japan, Italy and England. Joining the races is Italy's hot racecar, Francesco Bernoulli (John Turturro), who manages to rope McQueen into joining the race.

McQueen brings along Mater, Fillmore, Sarge (Paul Dooley), Luigi (Tony Shalhoub) and Guido (Guido Quaroni) as his pit crew. Mater is a fish out of water - and embarrasses McQueen on a number of occasions - and accidentally gets mistaken for an American spy and joins Finn McMissile (Michael Caine) and Holley Shiftwell (Emily Mortimer) as they attempt to find a criminal mastermind.

The film feels like two separate stories being told at the same time, Mater's spy game and McQueen's race. However, both come together in a good way.

I enjoyed the action sequences in the film and it was amazing to look at. The racing scenes were beautifully created - seeing the three different race courses in the different countries.

Although a little Mater goes a long way, I didn't get too Matered out, like I thought I would. This was mostly his story - McQueen's story was told in the first film. And, it was enjoyable.

Again, it will be attacked - I know it will be. No, it is not the best Pixar film - but I don't feel anything can touch Toy Story. But, it is not a road bump either - it has a great, touching story about the meaning of friendship. And, enough action to appease the spy junkies.

Attack it if you must - but my son and I will watch it another 30 times, and enjoy it more with each watch.

Grade:

Toy Story 3

This was one of the few movies that I absolutely had to see in the theater. In fact, this was the first film since our movie theater installed the technology that I saw in 3D.

It was also a pretty good milestone because my son got to see his first full movie inside a movie theater. I say full movie because last year Mrs. Kano took him to see G-Force because they had two free tickets. He liked it, but didn't make it through the entire movie. This time, however, he hardly made a peep and was enthralled the entire time.

Toy Story 3 is not only great for the kiddos, but it is also pretty darn nostalgic for us older kids. The original Toy Story broke a ton of barriers back in 1995, being the very first animated movie to be created entirely through computer animation.

I have to admit that the Toy Story franchise films are pretty much some of my favorite movies and I couldn't wait to go and see this film.

So, on Father's Day Mrs. Kano and I took my son to Toy Story 3 and I have to tell you the Pixar team continues to come through with glorious results.

Woody (Tom Hanks), Buzz (Tim Allen) and the rest of the gang are back 11 years after we have last seen them. And, things are looking bleak. Their owner, Andy, is on his way to college and the toys' future is up in the air - will they end up in the attic? the garbage? or will Andy take them to college?

As Andy makes the decision, a mix up lands the gang in a box that is being donated to Sunnyside Day Care. At first it appears that this is the nirvana the toys are looking for - constant attention. They meet the leader of the Day Care, Lotso (Ned Beatty), who ushers the new toys into caterpillar room - which turns out to be for the young kids, or those not really old enough to care for the toys.

The rest of the film plays out like a prison break as the toys look to leave Sunnyside and make their way back to Andy's house before he leaves for college. And it is still up in the air what will become of the toys once/and if they do make it back.

The two new main cast members are Lotso and Ken (Michael Keaton), who is pretty darn vain and some how never ran into a Barbie before the toys arrived. I enjoyed all of the new toys and I felt like they each added something great to the film, and the other new toys are mostly background characters that don't get in the way or become a distraction.

Pixar continues to impress, this film is a little darker than the other two films and even gets you a little choked up at times. The action, humor and heart of this film is amazing and is a great addition to the Toy Story franchise.

My lone complaint is the loss of a few characters from the older films - which is mentioned, but their real whereabouts is not truly known - I do hope that if there is a Toy Story 4 that we get to see a few of them again. Small complaint, but their loss was definitely felt.

Grade:

Wall-E

My son is really getting into movies lately, and he has especially gotten into Pixar films. We watched Up a few weeks ago, and I was expecting a lot more out of the film than I came away with. After hearing so many wonderful things, and with the name Pixar on it, I was hoping for something that just wasn't there.

So, I went to the final Pixar movie I had yet to watch, Wall-E. I didn't know what to expect due to the enormous praise this film also received when it was released. A lot like that of Up.

What I found was that Wall-E was truly amazing. A movie that has so little talking was truly able to speak to its audience.

Wall-E is a robot that is left on Earth to cleanup the enormous amount of trash that has accumulated due to humans. The Earth's population is now living on a man-made space planet, and they have become so obese and lazy it is ridiculous (but also on point).

Wall-E is very self sufficient. He takes the garbage he collects and makes small squares out of it and stacks them into skyscraper-like forms. He also appears to have grown a personality and a heart. He has befriended a small cockroach and collects different types of garbage to take back to his home with him.

One evening a ship lands on Earth and leaves behind a very clean looking robot known as EVE. It is EVE's job to see if Earth is no capable of supporting life again. During her trip she befriends Wall-E and Wall-E falls in love with her. His main goal is to hold her hand just like the people in the movies he watches.

EVE finds a small plant in Wall-E's home and contacts the ship to come and get her. As the ship comes Wall-E doesn't want EVE to leave so he grabs ahold of the ship and heads into space.

The visuals, especially in space, are gorgeous. They did a top-notch job capturing the beauty of space.

Like most Pixar films, this one had a message and it wasn't hidden either. They hit you smack in the face with it, and I am ok with that. Two major problems in the world today are obesity and pollution and this film shows the extreme to where things may be headed.

With so little talking Pixar may have ruined its streak of having John Ratzenberger in each of their films, but sure enough one of the obese passengers on the man-made planet is awoken and the streak was able to continue.

Grade:

UP

I have been missing for awhile now, but this marks three posts in three consecutive days. I should be back for about a month before heading back to classes, but I will hopefully find the time to update more than I did during my last semester.

Also, it appears that many people are creating their Top movies of the year lists (and some are even doing top movies of the decade). I will do my best to give it a whirl as well in a future post or two.

But, I digress. The real reason for this posting is that I finally watched Up last night with my family. (Spoilers are possible).

Up to me was not truly a children's film, but dove pretty deep in the sentimental drama that many kids don't quite understand yet. I know for a fact that my 3-year old was not quite getting why Carl (Ed Asner) was so sad, although he did know that he was in fact sad.

The movie starts out with a young Carl coming back from watching a news reel featuring his hero Charles Muntz (Christopher Plummer). As he returns home he runs into another huge Muntz fan in Ellie. This is the start of a great friendship and soon love.

The next part of the film basically shows Carl and Ellie growing up together, getting married, and eventually shows Ellie's death.

Then Carl becomes a pretty large curmudgeon, and the house that he and Ellie had lived in their whole marriage is now in the center of a huge development project.

To save his house, and keep a promise to Ellie that he would make it to Paradise Falls, Carl gets the entire house to fly using balloons. What he doesn't realize, however, is that Russell (Jordan Nagai) is standing on his porch and is forced to take this trip with him.

The rest of the film is Russell and Carl trying to lead the house to the correct spot on Paradise Falls, except they are accompanied by a rare bird and a talking dog named Dug (Bob Peterson).

The dogs are out looking for this rare bird at the instruction of Muntz, who has spent his entire life trying to capture a live one to prove that the bones he found were not fake.

This movie has a lot of heart, and the ending will certainly pull at your heart strings. The movie does have a few laugh-out-loud moments, and Dug is certainly an enjoyable character.

Going in I had heard that this was quite possibly the best Pixar film of the bunch, but I have to say after one viewing that I would rate it somewhere in the middle of the pack. Toy Story to me is still the crowning achievement in Pixar films.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed this film a lot, and it still lives up to the Pixar name. But, it isn't the best ever.

Grade: