I saw this together with the latest from Pixar. Both are animated, feature talking animals making crazy getaways and trying to retrieve loved ones, so you might think they're going to be somewhat in the same ballpark. How significantly lesser can one be? Let's see.
Pixar begin with small, memorable pockets of world that they expand, pulling back to reveal larger vistas. The effort is to have the narrative expansion in as much visually flowing ways. There is thoughtful engineering to this flowing; sequences have been choreographed and given room to unfold. There is an element of discovery. Characters retain a certain human gravity in their wants.
These guys just plop us here and there. The place is an unimaginative New York, simply digitized, poorly discovered. The unveiling of the larger world leaves us with an animal mob in the sewers plotting revenge. Sequences, ostensibly the very same chase scenes, are choppy and without any flow. We just bump on a bunch of things on our way out. Characters are sketchy, one is a wimp, the other is a bully, then we change them around to be caring. The hawk as villainous predator then our hero's girlfriend tells him they could be friends, so as of right now he wants to help.
We're talking levels of difference between Singin' in the Rain and an SNL skit that features song and dance.
And do you ever get the impression some movies simply have lame personality? I find this usually in how characters are presented, in the change of heart they have, in how they pursue what is deemed important. Oddly I never seem to notice the opposite in movies that engage me. Even when I disagree with what I'm being presented with by Noe or Trier but I'm being engaged by a view of the world, not a personality. It seems a certain kind of bad movie reduces the exchange to how things rub me, not having been conceived to do anything else. Well, this is one.
Pixar begin with small, memorable pockets of world that they expand, pulling back to reveal larger vistas. The effort is to have the narrative expansion in as much visually flowing ways. There is thoughtful engineering to this flowing; sequences have been choreographed and given room to unfold. There is an element of discovery. Characters retain a certain human gravity in their wants.
These guys just plop us here and there. The place is an unimaginative New York, simply digitized, poorly discovered. The unveiling of the larger world leaves us with an animal mob in the sewers plotting revenge. Sequences, ostensibly the very same chase scenes, are choppy and without any flow. We just bump on a bunch of things on our way out. Characters are sketchy, one is a wimp, the other is a bully, then we change them around to be caring. The hawk as villainous predator then our hero's girlfriend tells him they could be friends, so as of right now he wants to help.
We're talking levels of difference between Singin' in the Rain and an SNL skit that features song and dance.
And do you ever get the impression some movies simply have lame personality? I find this usually in how characters are presented, in the change of heart they have, in how they pursue what is deemed important. Oddly I never seem to notice the opposite in movies that engage me. Even when I disagree with what I'm being presented with by Noe or Trier but I'm being engaged by a view of the world, not a personality. It seems a certain kind of bad movie reduces the exchange to how things rub me, not having been conceived to do anything else. Well, this is one.