Toy Story 3

We review Pixar’s third (and final?) instalment in the much loved franchise.

At the end of Toy Story 2, everything seemed perfect. Woody’s cowboy-cunning had ensured that he could stay with his old friends from Andy’s Room, whilst making sure he didn’t ‘break up the round-up gang’. Everything was peachy. We all left with beaming smiles, safe in the knowledge that Bullseye the Horse and Jessie ‘the Yodelling Cowgirl’ hadn’t gone back into storage and instead were being ‘loved by a kid’, the most important thing for a toy’s happiness.

Instead of leaving with beaming smiles, many a hard-nosed male reviewer reported leaving the cinema with tears rolling down their face. This was what stuck in my mind the most as I sat down to watch what must surely be the final major instalment, although there will be a short featuring the characters before the start of upcoming Pixar release Cars 2, in a franchise that grew up alongside me. Mark Kermode has called it ‘the greatest trilogy of all time’. Rotten Tomatoes had given it a 99% fresh rating after 235 reviews.

Toy Story 3 is definitely not a ‘kids movie’. It is definitely a ‘family movie’. Where Pixar films really have the edge over the work of other computer animation studios is the way in which their films are, literally, universal. The Shrek films may be broadly entertaining and funny, but you definitely know when you are not part of the target audience any more, and you have to temporarily switch into kid-mode for most of the film in order to enjoy it. Pixar somehow manage to effortlessly create a story that doesn’t patronise the adults, but at the same time doesn’t go over the heads of its younger audience. And when I say ‘effortlessly’ you know that in reality this is a production that has been refined and perfected to such an extent that it is impossible to describe it as anything other than a modern day masterpiece. The story moves along at a perfect pace, the characters are totally believable, and there are comic moments that are genuinely funny and don’t just rely on toilet humour. Dreamworks, take note.

The general themes then are of love, loss and growing up. What seems particularly poignant about the final of those three is that the target audience, if there ever was one, for the original Toy Story will be at round about the same stage in their lives as the character of Andy – leaving home, moving to college or university, and as a result having to make sacrifices along the way. As Andy has grown up, Woody, Buzz et al are having to face the prospect of being passed on to a new owner or, worse, finding themselves on the route to death and destruction in the ‘garbage can’. Instead, they end up at Sunny Side Day Care Centre, which turns out to be not quite the toy heaven it appears at first.

On a purely nostalgic level, it’s a complete joy to watch. If you’ve seen Toy Story and Toy Story 2 the number of times I have over the years, you find yourself noticing all kinds of references to them throughout 3 – identical music sequences are used, lines from the previous instalments are resurrected, old toys make brief reappearances…And yet, it feels fresh and new. The animation looks brighter, louder and more vibrant than before, when even then it was jaw-droppingly impressive. I can’t speak for the 3D, having felt I would be easily satisfied with the 2D version, but apparently it actually succeeds in creating a more immersive experience, rather than you being frequently conscious that you’re watching a 3D film.

I didn’t come out of the film crying, emotional though the ending was. I just don’t think I’m one for crying at films – Pan’s Labyrinth being an exception. I’m not sure whether it’s better than Toy Story 2, which I considered easily superior to the first. However, watching the final scenes, without trying to give anything away, I did think to myself that it was brilliant that Pixar felt what might otherwise be considered an unnecessarily long addition to the story should be left in, and given the weight and significance it deserved. This is an unbelievably smart movie and a beautifully heart-warming franchise. The latter deserves all the praise it gets, and more, for being unquestionable cinematic perfection.

Official Trailer

And for those that have seen it…did you spot the surprise cameo?

This week – 13/08/10

Apologies for the silence on the blog lately – we’re now resuming normal service and, as usual, updating you on this week’s fresh and exciting offering of new releases.

NEW RELEASES

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (12A)
Director: Jon Turteltaub
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Jay Baruchel

This Disney fantasy-adventure-comedy from National Treasure director Jon Turteltaub and legendary producer Jerry Bruckheimer (Pirates of the Caribbean, National Treasure, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time) takes the well loved sequence from Disney’s Fantasia and drags it into the setting of 21st century Manhattan. It’s a pretty generic fantasy stroke fairy tale formula, with reluctant teen Dave Stutler (Baruchel) and master sorcerer Balthazar Blake (Cage) fighting the evil Maxim Horvath (Alfred Molina) in an attempt to save the Big Apple from Horvath’s vindictive plans. Jerry Bruckheimer’s influence in the film is clear, says NME magazine, with ‘plenty of stuff getting smashed up alongside the sorcery’, whilst still including affectionate references to the original, with the dancing out-of-control mops being a particular example of this.

The cast are generally likeable, with Molina’s evil character particularly shining through, but Cage still seems unable to replicate his more convincing performances of old. And, to be frank, the more times he appears in Disney films the more difficult it is to take him seriously.

Rotten Tomatoes have given it a 42% rating so far, crediting the impressive CGI but ultimately saying it doesn’t go far enough. Ultimately, it seems a bit of a mindless summer crowd-pleaser. Which is fine really.

And here’s the original, from Fantasia 1940…

The Last Airbender (PG)
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Starring: Noah Rigner, Dev Patel

The last time M. Night Shyamalan had a critical success was with his 2002 sci-fi thriller Signs. Since then he has unarguably had a series of complete critical failures, most recently resulting in the ‘incoherent and unconvincing’ suspense drama The Happening, which you can see Mark Kermode getting angry about here. The chance then was that The Last Airbender was going to follow in similar vain. It does.

If the appalling reviews of The Last Airbender haven’t given Mr Shyamalan a headache, then surely the race row the film has provoked will force him to reach for the painkillers. The film is a live-action remake of the popular animated children’s tv series ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’ and for some, as yet unexplained, reason Shyamalan has decided to change the races of the main characters around, so that they are all whites, rather than the Asian-Mongolian-Inuit mix implied in the TV series. Not only is this ‘a distraction for fans of the hugely popular TV series’, writes Ben Child in The Guardian, but ‘all three actors are pretty bad’. It’s ‘strictly for the preteens’ wrote Scott Bowles of USA Today, with no ‘Pixar-style dual themes’.

Ian Nathan, writing in Empire, believes that the heavy criticism levelled at the film may be rather over the top, calling it an ‘occasionally stirring’, if ‘largely botched’ fairy tale. And anyway, Slumdog star Dev Patel seems to be taking it all on the chin, saying he felt there was ‘too much praise after Slumdog’ and that to get ‘critically smashed…is great’. Patel was even considering pulling out after reading the script but a phone conversation convinced him to follow through after being impressed by Shyamalan’s ‘vision’.

Altogether then, this film is in a bit of a mess, both in terms of the storyline and the unwanted controversy it has generated. Just in case you are interested in seeing it, the film is situated in a world of Waterbenders, Earthbenders, Firebenders and Airbenders who  are all masters of their respective element. A young boy called Avatar, however, is able to control all four elements. This causes war, and Avatar is the only ‘bender’ (not quite sure how else to put that’) who can restore harmony.

We would however like to draw your attention to the fact that it’s currently racked up just 8% on Rotten Tomatoes. You have been warned.

The Secret In Their Eyes (18)
Director: Juan José Campanella
Starring: Ricardo Darin, Soledad Villami

This crime thriller from House and Law & Order director Juan José Campanella revolves around corruption in the judicial system and Argentina as a whole. Darin’s character, Benjamin, wants to use details from a 1970s case in which a woman was raped and murdered in a novel, but romantic interest and judge Irene (Villami) doesn’t seem totally convinced. The plot develops, through uses of flashbacks, into a hunt for the perpetrator of the crime, who they believe is not the man that has been convicted.

It’s already claimed a controversially granted 2009 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, which caused much criticism especially from film critics who felt The White Ribbon and A Prophet more worthy winners. However, since increased screening of the film it has been already accepted as a ‘classic’ that, according to Phillip Maher of allmovie.com, ‘delights, frightens, and intrigues’.

This is supported by its 93% fresh rating on RT, with its ‘engrossing plot,…assured direction, and mesmerizing performances’ gaining near universal praise from critics.

Please note that the trailer below may not be suitable for some audiences.

This week’s

ONE TO SEE: The Secret In Their Eyes – seamlessly blending its twin genres of legal thriller and romance, this Spanish Academy Award Winner is elevated by the excellent direction and fine acting.

ONE TO MISS: The Last Airbender – easily the worst film out this week. The shocking reviews from critics coupled with Dev Patel’s revelation that he considered backing out after his first read of the script suggests you may leave the cinema feeling robbed rather than rewarded.

This week 16/07/2010

There was only going to be one film out this week – Christopher Nolan’s new movie Inception – but due to the huge buzz around Toy Story 3, Pixar have pushed the release date forward to this Monday. Good, eh?

NEW RELEASES

Inception (12A)
Director: Christopher Nolan
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Ellen Page

Dark Knight director Chris Nolan helms this psychological sci-fi action movie, acting as both director and chief screenwriter, with DiCaprio starring as Dom Cobb, a man who has the ability to steal ideas. This ability turns out, as you might expect, to be rather lucrative for Cobb, though he quickly finds out that even weapons have their weaknesses. Expect dizzying special effects, thrilling action sequences and stuff exploding in general. Here at TDMR, we have a lot of love for Chris Nolan – we loved Dark Knight – and it looks like Inception isn’t disappointing the vast majority of fans and critics, racking up 84% on Rotten Tomatoes after 196 reviews, with the consensus being that it ‘succeeds viscerally as well as intellectually’. Your perfect summer action blockbuster then?

Please note that the trailer below is for ‘Appropriate Audiences’ only.

Toy Story 3 (U)
Director: Lee Unkrich
Starring: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack

So it’s finally here – the third (and sadly probably final) instalment in this much loved franchise from the wizards at Pixar. (By the way, there has been plenty of buzz, excuse the pun, on the internet about Tim Allen getting signed for Toy Story 4 – we’re not sure this means anything, since there is a Shrek 5 in production, and it’s difficult to see that coming to fruition, if we’re honest.) Anyway, we return to a theme introduced in the closing scenes of Toy Story 2 – the fact that sooner or later Andy will have to grow up, and the toys have to cope with him leaving their lives. This does indeed happen, and the toys are packed off to a daycare centre where they meet a whole host of new toys including Barbie’s squeeze Ken (played by Michael Keaton no less), but despite their new friends they begin to plot their escape.

Amazingly, it seems to be an unusual case of a second sequel with better reviews than the previous two instalments – it received near perfect reviews from critics, with a 99% fresh rating on RT from 225 reviews, which must be some kind of record. Its blend of ‘comedy, adventure, and honest emotion’ makes this a real winner and undoubtedly worth seeing.

This week’s…

ONE TO SEE: Toy Story 3 – truly the end of an era (supposedly), and could you ever wish to spend your time in the cinema with a cooler bunch of imaginary people? Can’t wait to see it.

ONE THAT YOU SHOULD STILL DEFINITELY SEE, IT’S JUST NOT QUITE AS SIGNIFICANT: Inception – its release might have been overshadowed by Toy Story 3, but this is still well worth a watch and looks to be the perfect action blockbuster for summer.

Why we (probably) don’t need 3D

I say probably, because actually I do understand why people are drawn in by the third dimension. If done properly, 3D can be jaw-droppingly, eye-poppingly good to look at – take IMAX cinema for example. I don’t understand why this never took off to a greater extent. The films shot in this format are truly immersive. You find yourself actually forgetting, and not just in that vague cliched way, that you are still in a cinema, something that I find is an increasingly rare experience. You find yourself utterly involved with the film, even if it doesn’t really have a plotline – if I remember correctly the IMAX film Space Station 3D consisted of little more than nice shots of various planets, but it didn’t matter. It was the breathtaking excitement of seeing a spectacle like that, on a giant screen, with the occasional bonus of an astronaut floating right past you. I do ‘get it’.

Unfortunately nearly every single 3D film I’ve been to see in the cinema has been pretty much a disappointment. I should perhaps mention at this point I haven’t been to see Avatar, and this is perhaps where my argument falls down. It’s just not my kind of film, especially if I have to sit through two and a half hours of it. I accept that Avatar may have breathtaking cinematography, in fact I completely believe that it does. My worry is that it was undoubtedly a cinematic exercise in adding a third dimension – the acting wasn’t good, the story wasn’t interesting…In other words, without the 3D element, it’s lacklustre.

I’ve heard many critics, including Mark Kermode, criticising the release of films that were originally shot for 2D being brought out in 3D. Again, I can see where he’s coming from. When I went to see Toy Story 2 rendered in 3D there was part of me that thought ‘this is a waste of money’. Why was I paying through the roof to watch a film in 3D that I had seen countless times in 2D, when it wasn’t even meant for 3D in the first place? The answer was simple. It’s a great story, superbly told, beautifully animated and with characters you can believe in, even if they’re ultimately cheap bits of plastic. The added bonus of watching it in 3D was exactly that – an added bonus. It did make the experience better, but only because of the writing that was already in place. I know that the Final Destination films tend to lack in clever storytelling anyway, or at best they’re entirely predictable, but that’s what made for such an indifferent experience when you watched the 4th instalment in 3D. Sure, the screwdriver flying out of you at the screen in the opening sequence was mildly thrilling, as was the racing car tyre falling out of the sky. But it wasn’t enjoyable because it lacked perhaps the most crucial element of cinema – the storytelling.

Ultimately, the film has to be watchable in 2D, if it’s going to be a good experience in 3D. I think it will be a long time before we regularly see ‘made for 3D films’ that contain genuinely good storytelling. I, for one, cannot wait to see Toy Story 3, which has so far gained mouth-wateringly good reviews. At least one studio has managed to get that crucial balance right.

Why we (probably) don’t need 3D is simple. It shouldn’t be the centrepiece of the film – if any film is advertised as a ‘great 3D experience’ it’s usually not worth bothering with. It’s expensive to watch, generally full of cheap thrills and ultimately doesn’t leave you with anything nearing a sense of catharsis. Take a well crafted story, such as the one that seems to have been unsurprisingly pulled off by those magicians at Pixar, add that additional 3D depth, and you might just have got yourself a winning formula.