But where at least Cars 2 consciously tried to go in a radically different direction, Cars 3 feels like a tame holding pattern, providing the race sequences and heartwarming homilies that were rampant in the first film — except without the same level of inspiration. Pixar finally set out to fix its lack-of-female-protagonists problem — but unfortunately, it did it with an undercooked story that feels more like a response to criticism than a well-thought-out Pixar adventure.
They would finally come up with a terrific female lead three years later, but Brave was the first time you thought, Wait, have they really lost something? This may be the one Pixar film most deserving of a reappraisal in ten years. As the years went by, Pixar became unusually skilled at making movies as appealing to adults as they were to kids, but the scale is still being balanced here: This is not one adults will rewatch, like The Incredibles or Toy Story.
It still wins big points for having the queen of an ant colony voiced by Phyllis Diller. The movie still feels a little half-baked, but it gets considerable mileage out of the simple visual of a pair of bodiless khakis, along with the most likable Chris Pratt since Parks and Recreation. They can do a lot better than this. But even at Replacement Level Pixar, they still find a way to crawl across the finish line.
By , Pixar had been making features for more than a decade, and so a backlash was inevitable; perhaps overdue. Into that awaiting storm walked Cars , a sweet, modest family comedy. After the frustrating, half-baked Onward , Pixar course-corrected a little bit with Soul , a goofy, weird, kind of all-over-the-place charmer about a jazz musician voiced, well, by Jamie Foxx who dies and is sent to the Great Beyond, where he tries to get back to his life and fix all that he regretted during his life.
Unfortunately for the boy, his family has forbidden music ever since his great-great-grandfather abandoned his wife and child to pursue his art years earlier.
The studio spent significant time researching Mexican culture and history, which adds authenticity and vibrancy to a quest-like tale about redemption, understanding, and forgiveness that will be familiar to Pixar fans. This sequel may take place immediately after the events of The Incredibles , but for audiences, the movie world has changed immensely since the first film blasted into theaters 14 years ago. Though the movie was successful at the box office, with the release of DreamWorks' "Antz" a month earlier, you're more likely to remember the Lasseter-Katzenberg feud than the films.
Though the "Cars" movies are the least acclaimed of anything Pixar makes, the company continues to churn them out. Perhaps one of the more serious stories in the Pixar inventory, this coming-of-age tale about an Apatosaurus and his human friend Spot trying to return home didn't catch on nearly as much as Pixar's other release in , "Inside Out.
Burnout may have been at play here, but mostly Pixar challenged its core audience with a darker story than they were used to. With perhaps a little too much old-school Disney gloss, the movie nevertheless featured a princess who's one of the most strong-willed we've seen in an animated feature.
But it just didn't work as well as Pixar titles before or since. In this touching story that centers a family story in the fantasy world, we follow two elf brothers as they set out on a magical quest to bring their father back from the dead.
Like all Pixar movies, there's a lot of self discovery in this one that is hit or miss throughout. In the prequel to the popular "Monsters, Inc.
Setting the story in the college life of monsters opens the door to easy traps, but the movie mostly steers clear and has a strong ending. In Pete Docter and Kemp Power's latest directing effort for Pixar, the two take us into the world of a struggling musician, who dies on the day of his big break. On the verge of going to the great beyond, or an alternate universe for souls, he tries to get back into his own body.
Jamie Foxx is great voicing the main character, Joe. Tina Fey, as the difficult spirit 22, can get annoying at times, but that's likely the point of her bratty character who doesn't want to live on Earth. The real hit of this movie, however, is the amazing digital animation that makes New York City pop.
Though the pacing falls away somewhat, Soul 's true stumbling block has been the criticism of its Black lead. Many have stated that Joe Gardner fails as a well-rounded depiction of a Black man and could've done much more to avoid racial stereotypes.
The note-perfect ending of Toy Story 3 meant few were expecting or wanting a fourth visit to this iconic franchise. Disney and Pixar had other ideas, and Toy Story 4 landed in On one hand, Toy Story 4 still includes all of the essential Toy Story ingredients.
Tom Hanks and Tim Allen are great, the gags land consistently, and the carnival setting neatly broadens the toy universe through creepy dolls, lost toys and The return of Annie Potts as a toughened-up Bo Peep is inspired stuff, and marks a very welcome return for the staff-wielding shepherd.
Reconciling the end of Toy Story 3 with the fourth movie's plot is trickier than it should be, and the divisive Forky lacks the charm previous newbies such as Jessie and Ken showed from the start. Soul wasn't the first time Pixar sought to blend death and music - Coco got there a whole three years earlier.
Swapping the jazz aesthetic for Mexican culture, Coco rivals any of Pixar's classics in terms of stunning CG, memorable songs, and heart-wrenching storytelling with timeless appeal. Starring a young aspiring musician chasing dreams his family refuse to support, Coco follows Miguel's nail-biting escape from the Land of the Dead and his quest for ancestral answers. Coco isn't perfect by any means, but the sincerity of its world and characters papers over the cracks, encouraging the audience to be forgiving in light of the film's many charms.
Of all the mad ideas to emerge from Pixar's California HQ, a chef being controlled by a rat must've been the hardest to sell. A refreshingly small-scale concept, Remy is a talented chef with a palette way more sophisticated than your average sewer-dweller. Unfortunately, kitchen jobs are hard to come by in Paris, and even more so for rodents.
By hiding underneath the hat of Linguini, however, Remy fulfills his culinary ambitions in an enchanting animation that carefully infuses slapstick restaurant hi-jinks with an all-too-relatable story of acceptance, passion and individuality.
Despite being a quieter affair than Pixar regulars might be accustomed to, Ratatouille never drags or dips, and never panders to cartoon convention. The best testament to Ratatouille 's success is how for every food expert who loves the film, there's ten more who were inspired to cook for the first time. Playing on every child's fears, Mike and Sulley exist within a hilariously true-to-life setting where scaring kids is just a mundane 9-to Perfectly-pitched characters are given room to roam, and the deeply upsetting farewell between Sulley and Boo easily ranks as one of Pixar's most heartbreaking moments.
At its core, Monsters, Inc. That is, after all, when Pixar is at its best. The animation might look basic by modern standards, but Monsters, Inc. Who knew looking for a fish could be so enjoyable? Pixar is famous for its all-ages appeal, and though Finding Nemo is clearly aimed more toward little'uns, the smash captures the ocean's wonder like no animated film since The Little Mermaid.
In a void of endless blue, Finding Nemo accentuates its characters, boasting one of Pixar's best-ever line-ups, from Crush the stoned turtle, to Bruce the vegetarian shark. Some of the jokes might come across juvenile to the adult viewer, but Finding Nemo compensates by partially framing the narrative from the perspective of Nemo 's overprotective dad. Finding Nemo represented the next stage of Pixar's evolution, arguably the biggest leap forward since Toy Story , and cemented the studio's position at the pinnacle of western animation.
While the sequel and gritty Liam Neeson remake couldn't quite match up, Finding Nemo 's appeal is as enduring as the tide itself. The infamous Up opening sequence is Pixar in a nutshell - endearing characters that are animated beautifully and leave you crying at the end. The rest of the movie isn't bad either, following old-timer Carl, overly-enthusiastic youngster Russell, and talking dog Dug, Up unites generations by proving pensioners might have more in common with "kids these days" than either would think.
An unconventional tale about grief and purpose, the colorful balloons on the poster betray just how emotionally powerful Up can be, recalling the works of Studio Ghibli in its effervescent tone and whimsical nature.
Toy Story 2 's production was anything but smooth, but somewhere in the midst of arguing with Disney and almost deleting two years of work, a true classic - animated or otherwise - was born.
Through the journey, he realizes that love is the only way for him, and for those who have died, to forever remain in the world of the living — at least in spirit. The narrative twists and trapdoors in making Woody more cognizant of his own existence, and his wants and desires, are equal parts stress-inducing and thought-provoking for those of us who have grown attached to the pull-string cowboy.
The creativity, adventure, and emotional depth in Toy Story 2 make it, in the eyes of some viewers, the best Toy Story of all time.
One of my favorite things about Up is the delighted conversation my friends had upon its release about Kevin the Bird. Dogs that can tell you they love you! To me, Kevin was just a bird named Kevin; to them, it was an entire sly cultural in-joke. I love Up all the more for that. Ratatouille is best remembered for its triumphant finale, which serves as a thesis on the nature of criticism — one that almost feels like director Brad Bird is speaking to film critics directly through the intimidating food writer Anton Ego.
What makes this remarkably strong takeaway so effective is that Ratatouille works as a great example of why film critics are so drawn to the medium. The movie is a work of art on its own — beautifully animated, with a well-constructed story. Art is an opportunity to share our passion, and it can offer pleasure, no matter the bona fides of its origin.
In all art, we seek entertainment, or joy, or excitement. And Ratatouille offers all of that in spades. The movie benefits from the work of a Pixar crew performing at its height, even if its high-concept, slightly bizarre story — a rat that cooks? Instead, they think with more complexity about the many things that make us human, and they do it with humor, grace, and subtlety that feels uncommon in animated storytelling, even from Pixar.
They also do it with incredible visual imagination. Segments of Soul bend visual conventions that we are used to seeing from Pixar, evoking other dimensions and planes of being with different sorts of art. And even when the characters are just moseying along the streets of New York, the landscape is rendered in such detail and with such attention to texture that the specificity feels almost startling.
Rare is it that a film studio gets its first-ever feature just right. But Pixar came out of the gate as a unique breed: a studio that dared to release a full-length animated movie created entirely with computer-generated graphics. In , that was unheard of; traditional animation was still dominant.
Its introduction of Woody and Buzz Lightyear, opposites who very much repel each other until they naturally attract, contends with love, friendship, and the meaning of life in funny and thoughtful ways. As a kid, I found that world to be, well, a world: somewhere I felt safe and comfortable and excited to see more of.
What makes Toy Story so essential where Cars feels exhausting, though, is the toys. Brad Bird is the closest thing Pixar has to an auteur filmmaker, who makes movies with a strong, personal vision that keep returning to the same ideas over and over.
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