Movie Box Review

CARS 2 is preceded by a short subject, the first in what's intended as a series called Toy Story Toons.  Entitled Hawaiian Vacation, it features all the familiar characters and voices, runs about 10 minutes, and effortlessly recaptures the joy, wit and grace of its predecessors.  If you see it, cherish those minutes, because after it's over, Cars 2 begins.

And with that, one of the greatest streaks in motion picture history comes to an end.  All good things, they say, will do that:  after 15 consecutive weeks in 1997-98, Titanic was no longer #1 at the boxoffice; 26 years following its 1939 opening, Gone With the Wind gave up its crown of most successful film ever (unadjusted for inflation) to The Sound of Music.  And now: after 16 years, 11 brilliant feature films, 6 of the 10 Best Animated Feature Oscars awarded thus far (not to mention 2 Best Picture nominees) and billions of dollars truly earned, Pixar, mighty Pixar, has... bunted to first. 

It would be neater to say that they've struck out, but not quite accurate:  It is Pixar, after all, so Cars 2 is often visually glorious, from spectacular cityscapes to tiny, marvelous details.  But it's the first film the studio has made that feels dramatically lazy and assembled for commercial reasons, with a "soul" applied by rote--it's their first "product."  If Pixar's unspoken slogan has always been the animation version of "It's Not TV.  It's HBO," Cars 2 is TV.  Which was probably inevitable, but still pretty damn depressing to watch.

Although formally Cars 2 is of course a sequel to its 2006 forebear, it's actually a reconfiguring of the original.  The main character this time is Mater (voiced by Larry the Cable Guy), the small-town tow truck from Radiator Springs who became race car Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson)'s best friend.  Cars 2 is an action comedy, and one of a familiar sort, where the slow-witted (but pure of heart) Mater is embroiled in an espionage plot, mistaken for a master spy by new characters Finn McMissile (Michael Caine) and Holley Shiftwell (Emily Mortimer).  This is the kind of thing Bob Hope did in My Favorite Spy in 1951, and Get Smart and The Pink Panther series are variations that date back 50 years.  Laboriously we have to wait for almost the entire movie before Mater can understand that the spies think he's one of them and he can convince them he's not, and it was funnier when Hope did it.  Meanwhile there are huge action sequences that could have come out of last year's G.I. Joe movie.

All of this would have been bearable if behind the story, Cars 2 had the kind of originality and heart that's been a hallmark of every other Pixar film, but this is just an empty romp, with an instantly obvious "surprise" villain and predictable jokes. (There's even something unpleasant about the story as it's revealed--mild spoiler alert--that the evil cars are a pack of jealous clunker models like Pacers and Yugos; it's like a version of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer where the Island of Misfit Toys hatches a plot to kill Santa.)  As a result, even though Cars 2 is the most frenetically paced of any Pixar movie, it's also the most tedious, because like any other hollow action movie, it just grinds its way from giant set-piece to set-piece; if Michael Bay ever directed an animated film, it would look like Cars 2.  

But in fact, this isn't just a Pixar movie, but one personally directed by John Lasseter, which makes its vacuousness even more of a shock (Brad Lewis is credited as "co-director"); the script is by Ben Queen, with Lasseter, Lewis and Dan Fogelman sharing the story credit.  This is Lasseter's first film as director since the original Cars in 2006, after which he took on heavy corporate responsibilities at Disney.  Pixar has become a multi-billion dollar business (Cars was a successful movie, but it became a financial bonanza through merchandising sales) that is now very much in the sequel business, with Monsters University upcoming.  Did any of that contribute to the routine feel of this film?  That seems like too easy an answer, especially since the masterful, heartfelt Toy Story 3 was only a year ago.

There are certainly things to appreciate in Cars 2.  The story is set against the backdrop of a series of 3 Grand Prix auto races in Tokyo, Italy and London, organized by alternative fuel tycoon Miles Axelrod (Eddie Izzard) and all these locations are spectacularly imagined in the film's car-centric universe.  (In Japan, there are kabuki, sumo and geisha cars.)  The sheer scale of the number and varieties of vehicles is sometimes breathtaking.  Almost alone among recent 3D films, the images are bright and clear (although the 3D isn't really necessary).  There's also a surprisingly political point of view in the film's ending.  The movie isn't a waste of money; it will earn its billions from global boxoffice and toys.   But the gasps it provokes are of a markedly lesser kind than the ones Pixar has in the past.

Along with the marvelous Toy Story Toon short, there's another promising sign before Cars 2 begins:  the first teaser trailer for Pixar's upcoming Brave, which will open next summer.  Set in ancient Scotland, with a female protagonist, it looks ambitious, distinctive... like a real Pixar movie.

Over the past few years, DreamWorks Animation has been emerging a bit from its place as the jokey, insubstantial sidekick to Pixar's superhero studio.  How To Train Your Dragon was a thoroughly enjoyable surprise, and even though Megamind had its share of pop culture parody, it also managed a real story and heart.  The first Kung Fu Panda was less impressive, built on lovely visuals but mostly serving as a vehicle for Jack Black's pudgy cartoon charm, but the new KUNG FU PANDA 2 aims higher and succeeds, a relatively serious adventure movie with more pressing emotional stakes and some impressive action chops. 

The villain this time is a sinister peacock, and let's face it, despite his more sympathetic recent roles in the Harry Potter and Dark Knight series, nobody does sinister villains like Gary Oldman.  His Lord Shen has figured out how to turn fireworks into explosives, and has invented the first cannons, which he's now planning to use to take over all of medieval China.  More evil still, he's been told by a soothsayer (voiced by Michelle Yeoh) that he'll one day be defeated by a panda, so he's disposed of all the pandas in China--with one conspicuous exception, of course.   Naturally Po (Black) and his fellow warriors (various animals with the voices of Angelina Jolie, Seth Rogan, Jackie Chan, David Cross, and Lucy Liu), not to mention Po's master Shifu (Dustin Hoffman) are dispatched to save the day.  Lord Shen's secret weapon, though, is that he also holds the key of what happened to Po's panda parents, and how he ended up raised by a goose (James Hong), so Po will have to prove he can absorb this knowledge and still be a hero.  (A final scene setting up the next sequel lets us know there are more revelations to come.)

The script by Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger, who also wrote the first film, this time doesn't linger on Po's cuteness, instead giving the character some melancholy and (metaphorical) weight.  Jennifer Yuh Nelson's direction has scale and she keeps the story pushing forward at a steady pace; there are live-action directors this season who could benefit from a look at her comprehensible, fast-moving combat sequences. Even the 3D is top drawer, although inevitably you have to give up some image brightness in exchange; there are lots of swooping falls and flights, and plenty of objects reaching into the foreground of the image.  One particularly nice visual touch is that when Po has fragmentary flashbacks of his past, those sequences are rendered as hand-drawn animation, rather than computer-generated.  The vocal cast also does a fine job:  in addition to Oldman's reliable villainy, Black manages not to push too hard, as does Hoffman, and Jolie gets the most to do among the supporting cast.  

Kung Fu Panda 2 certainly isn't in a league with the truly superb animated films we've been privileged to see over the past decade like Up and Ratatouille and the Toy Story series; Pixar, at its best, makes giant hits that are also works of art.  But Panda 2 is a solid piece of entertainment that doesn't pander (sorry) to its young audience or cause pain to adults, and as the trailers for upcoming family movies make clear (The Smurfs?  Really?), that's no small accomplishment.

(KUNG FU PANDA 2 - DreamWorks Animation/Paramount - PG - 92 minutes - Director:  Jennifer Yuh Nelson - Script:  Jonathan Aibel, Glenn Berger - Cast:  Jack Black, Gary Oldman, Angelina Jolie, Dustin Hoffman, Seth Rogen, Lucy Liu, David Cross, Jackie Chan, James Hong - Wide Release)

Animation has, over the past decade, passed beyond being merely a movie genre to a veritable industry within the industry.  Every studio is in the business now, making films year-round that routinely cost $125-200M to produce, with another $100-150M for worldwide marketing.  It's worth the risk, because nothing is as profitable for a studio as an animated franchise that works, with its gigantic opportunities not just for sequels and spin-offs, but ancillaries like TV series and merchandising.  Plus, unlike superhero movies, most cartoons are original properties that the studios can own from the ground up, and even the superstar actors who provide voiceovers get just a fraction of the deals they command when they have to spend months in front of a camera.  That's a lot of pressure on what are mostly insubstantial comedies, but as the segment has matured, quality has become more widespread too--although Pixar/Disney still, of course, towers over everyone else, we've recently had excellent pictures from DreamWorks (How To Train Your Dragon) and Paramount (Rango).  The new RIO from 20th/Blue Sky (makers of the Ice Age series) isn't quite at that level, but it's a very creditable entertainment that should delight a lot of children without making their adult companions suffer.

The setting is, well--guess.  Actually, the story starts in Minnesota, where the only male blue macaw left in the world (named, with a certain lack of originality, Blu) lives in glorious mutual nerdiness with his owner Linda, in the bookstore she runs.  He's voiced by Jesse Eisenberg, and truly it's rare that an actor was so born to voice a part (Linda is Leslie Mann).  Blu's only shortcoming is an inability to fly, but in the limited life he and Linda have, he's adapted to it with ease.  One day, a Brazilian ornithologist named Tulio (Rodrigo Santoro) shows up to tell Linda that he has the only female blue macaw, and that she must let the two birds get together in order to save the species.  Reluctantly, she agrees, and when bird and girl arrive in Rio, nothing goes as planned:  the female, named Jewel (Anne Hathaway) is uninterested in the extreme in mating with Blu, and disdainful of his flightlessness.  Worse, a group of smugglers, aided by the villainous cockatoo Nigel (Jemaine Clement), capture the two macaws and shackle them together.  The rest of the tale is about the escape and romance of the heroes, aided by various wildlife voiced by, among others, Jamie Foxx, Will i Am, George Lopez and Tracy Morgan.

The storyline of Rio is rarely unpredictable--do you really wonder if Blu will take flight before the movie is over?--and one wishes the script had a little more cleverness and character (Pixar has spoiled us forever).  It's one of those committee jobs, with 4 screenwriters credited (Don Rhymer, Joshua Sternin, Jeffrey Ventimilia, Sam Harper) and 3 more for the story (Saldanha, Earl Richey Jones, Todd R. Jones), and as you'd expect, it doesn't quite achieve cohesion.  But it bounces along nicely, and sometimes it's downright funny.  Along with Eisenberg's perfect neurotic vocal, Hathaway is a most spirited romantic adversary, and she even gets to sing a little (listening to the two of them, you wish they'd do something live action together, like an updated spin on Midnight Run).  Clement is a terrifically vicious villain, and he has the best song, a paean to meanness called "Nasty Bird." Even the guest stars along for the ride, like Morgan and Lopez, are pleasant company.

 

One of the main complaints about 3D--that the lenses dull the colors so much, the visual experience is often less pleasing than 2D--definitely doesn't apply to Rio.  The picture takes full advantage of its setting and Carnival atmosphere, consistently vibrant with sharp, bright colors that are a joy to watch,  The director Carlos Saldanha, a veteran of the Ice Age series, also makes strong use of the 3D itself, with lots of vertiginous flight and chase sequences, not to mention the Carnival setpieces at the climax; people, animals, birds and objects are constantly popping unexpectedly into frame. So this is one time that paying the 3D premium doesn't feel like a tax on moviegoing. 

Rio is content to be nothing more than a lightweight 90 minutes of floating entertainment, but that's harder to pull off than it looks; you can't begrudge Fox its revenues from the new franchise it's probably created  Based on the trailers for the summer's 3D blockbusters to come, we should enjoy it while it lasts.  

(RIO - 20th Century Fox/Blue Sky - 93 min. - G - Director:  Carlos Saldanha - Script:  Don Rhymer, Joshua Sternin, Jeffrey Ventimilia, Sam Harper, story by Carlos Saldanha, Earl Richey Jones, Todd R. Jones - Cast:  Jesse Eisenberg, Anne Hathaway, Leslie Mann, Rodrigo Santoro, Jemaine Clement, George Lopez, Tracy Morgan - Wide Release)