^^^ I’m not a big fan of IMAX. IMAX is only good for fly over the Grand Canyon type of movies (scenic movies) but to watch full on action flick, it’s little too much. You are constantly turning your head to not miss anything on the screen… but you end up missing whole lot.
Watched Wall-E and Wanted this weekend. Wall E had really nice environmental and social commentary. I enjoyed it but wasn’t as good as Ratatouille.
Wanted was little too over the top for me. I like action but to have bullet hitting bullets? C’mon. But if you like action, it’s entertaining.
WALL-E was TOTALLY more accessible than Ratatouille. I thought it completely lived up to the critics crying “PIXAR HAS OUTDONE ITSELF AGAIN”...and for the first time, I think Pixar lived up to the greatness it deserves (not Cars, or Incredibles...great story & graphics, but not much else).
This film did all of the above, and added an extremely moving love story. A kid’s movie...a love story. Brilliant.
Graphic wise, Ratatouille was more impressive. Organic stuff like human hair/skin/clothing and their movement is much more difficult to execute than flat shiny surfaces like robots/fish/cars/bugs.
Storyline wise, Ratatouille had much more complexity in many levels. By making all the different elements like love story between Linguini and Colette, obligation vs passion of Remy, greed of Skinner, enlightenment of Anton work seamlessly within one storyline is impressive. Wall-E had much more simpler storyline which was pursuit of love by Wall-E and struggle between obligation vs love by Eve. Both movies are good but Ratatouille just touched me more in many more levels.
Graphic-wise to me as a movie-goer I can resign to the fact that Ratatouille was more difficult to execute.
But to that, honestly I felt Ratatouille tried to cover too much. Linguini and Colette’s relationship had shaky build-up (and the resolution where he just “gets her back” because of the success of the restaurant to me felt a bit far-fetched). It DEFINITELY had a side-plot feel and a rather one-dimensional one at that.
Fighting his destiny with Remy was compelling, Skinner’s “greed” element was just a story prop to build an antagonist. If you took him as a serious character study, I’d be surprised. He builds absolutely no merit to the depth of the film except to drive it forward.
The BEST character imo was Anton Ego, especially when he first tasted Remy’s Ratatouille. that was truly a powerful scene.
But with Wall-E, the fact they had absolutely no dialogue (for the first half-hour), and used ROBOTS to convey human emotions...it was like a romantic silent film on steroids.
Plus, it had much more pertinent social, modern commentary along to boot. /two cents.
I guess I was able to relate to Ratatouille little more at a personal level. Being an Asian, most kids grow up with certain expectations. To be able to pull away from that and to pursue what makes you happy was a pretty powerful message to me. And I loved the ending cause Remy was able to fulfill his dream and at same time, make his family proud of him. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed Wall E. It just didn’t touch me the way Ratatouille did.
Oh yeah, I’m also Brad Bird fanboy (Iron Giant is my fav movie after all). He completely changed how Pixar deals with human characters in their movies. You can totally see it after Incredibles, humans are less realistic but more stylized… which I love.
Ahh..then to that point, I can see your viewpoint on the “dream vs. family” issue.
Iron Giant was awesome, too. Like I said to Mike above, Brad Bird has been one of the most consistent animation directors out there. period.
Chalk me up as another person who like Ratatoille more than Wall-E.
I found myself just asking a lot of questions about the whole ‘world-in-ruin’ thing all throughout the movie. And I still didn’t understand what the intended to do with the single plant - after all, they just took it an buried it at the end (likely to die in the first dust storm).
And the whole deterioration of humanity due to technology was funny but I found myself comparing it to the world in Idiocracy.
hancock: 3.25/5 stars. there are some major twists that i won’t give away now because you have no idea they’re coming in the preview. the story wasn’t great and it didn’t really have any sympathetic characters either. definitely not a dvd buy, but maybe a rent. i’m sure there will be better movies when you go to the theater.
one thing i’m not used to in these modern action movies is how fast the camera moves at times. a few times i asked myself if my eyes were alright.
hancock: 3.25/5 stars. there are some major twists that i won’t give away now because you have no idea they’re coming in the preview. the story wasn’t great and it didn’t really have any sympathetic characters either. definitely not a dvd buy, but maybe a rent. i’m sure there will be better movies when you go to the theater.
one thing i’m not used to in these modern action movies is how fast the camera moves at times. a few times i asked myself if my eyes were alright.
i think you’re getting old. i got used to the camera action from HK wire kungfu.
you should! maybe it was because i went in with a low expectation, but i thought it was really entertaining and good for what it is. let’s face it, it’s not mission impossible nor does it set out to be. it doesn’t take itself that seriously and neither should anyone going to see it. that being said, if you like steve carrell and/or the office, you’ll enjoy this a lot.
Dodgeball thursday night, people crashing over at my place… Breakfast being made around 4am.. waking everyones asses up at 5am, eating real quick. packing it up for the rest of the group meeting us up at Navy Pier IMAX for the 6am showing of Dark Knight friday morning.
