Wall-E Review (My new best friend)

For those who don’t know me, I’m a huge Pixar fan. Pixar’s track record is relatively untarnished for me (Cars was the weakest, but still a good movie). The Incredibles is one of the finest cinematic experiences of my existence, and Monster’s Inc, Finding Nemo, and Ratatouille all have special places on my movie hall of fame. So I couldn’t have been more excited about seeing Wall-E at an advance screening earlier this week especially since my expectations I had for the film were through the roof.

I’m happy to report, not only were all my expectations for this movie met…. they were exceeded in every way. Wall-E is Pixar at its finest. The animation is superb, as we’ve all come to expect from Pixar, but the movie excels in other ways as well. I bought the soundtrack after watching the movie (my highest compliment) and the score is incredible. The story is beautiful. It really makes you think in a lot of ways, which I really liked. The voice cast was excellent. Everyone gave a fantastic performance, and spotting the John Ratzenberger cameo is always fun.

For all the Sci-Fi fans, there are great homages to classic sci-fi films that Ioved. 

I don’t want to spoil any of the story for those who haven’t seen it yet but I was captivated throughout. It starts out a bit “I Am Legend”-ish, which I found really interesting as I hadn’t seen this in an animated feature before. As a side note, being an Apple fanatic, I loved the Mac easter eggs they threw in.

As with most Pixar movies, after awhile I was completely engrossed in the film and forgot it was animated at all. I fully believed this world the animators had created from scratch was real. 

The comedy was well played, and another thing the film did which I absolutely love about Pixar films, it spoke to everyone. There are things in the film for adults and things that for children but at no time did I feel like I was being talked down to, or that there were things kids wouldn’t enjoy on an equal level. Kids will love this movie, teenagers will love this movie, grandparents will love this movie, YOU will love this movie. It’s the perfect date movie, but at the same time you can totally enjoy it Han-Solo.

The thing I enjoy most about Pixar films is their ability to tug at your heartstrings. There are few movies that bring tears to my eyes (both of joy and of sadness) and Wall-E did that multiple times. The best films are the those in which you fall in love with the characters and the fantasy/reality barrier is non-existent. Movies where you feel like the characters are alive, they are living, breathing entities that you can interact with. 

Wall-E is alive, and I love him.

A 5 out of 5

 

- Justincredible

Wanted Review (The Matrix Re-Reloaded)

Well let me first say that I had major pre-conceived notions going into this movie.

It’s based on a series of comic books by Mark Millar and J.G. Jones (two of my absolute favorite people working in comics today). I loved the book, it’s a 5 out of 5 for me in every sense of the word. The story is brilliant, in the book, yet when it got translated to film, the magic was lost for me. Everything I liked about the book, was changed for the film. Angelina Jolie’s character in the book looked exactly like Halle Berry from Catwoman (black, short hair, cat-like ears), Morgan Freeman’s character didn’t exist in the book.

And that’s where this movie went wrong for me. I wanted an adaptation of the book I loved so much and instead got The Matrixwith Angelina Jolie instead of Carrie-Anne Moss and Morgan Freeman in place of Laurence Fishburne. Exact same premise, a loser gets plucked out of his worthless existence to find he’s “The One”. I’m sorry but if I want to see a bad Matrix movie, I’ll watch The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions.

The action is unbelievable in a bad way (they don’t set up the rules for the universe, then seem to break the laws of physics at every turn). Angelina Jolie is getting too old for this type of action role (although there was a nice butt shot of her ) and needs to hang up her “Tomb Raider” mentality. The twist in the story left me unsatisfied on many levels, and I don’t know why they even bothered to call this movie “Wanted” since it has so little to do with the source material. I can understand making changes to a comic to film adaptation, I get it, what works in a comic book doesn’t always work in a film, but the amount of things they changed in this made it seem like it was based more off “The Matrix” than the source material.

The thing that saddens me even more is that the author, Mark Millar, has come out in numerous interviews online in defense of the movie. Everything I’ve read has sounded totally non-genuine and much more like he’s just trying to promote the movie and make more money. Very disappointed in you Mr. Millar. I would highly recommend you read the Wanted comic book (which is now collected in paperback and hardcover form).

It would be a much better way to spend 2 hours of your life.

 

A 2…..out of 5

- Justincredible