Of toys and kids
Movies seen winter 2010.
Originally written: August 2010
Toy Story 3
Day and Night
Karate Kid
You can never tell what's going to pique the interests of the film-going public. From my equivocal review you would be unsurprised to find that I am quite surprised to find the Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland (which is surely not Charles Dodgson's Alice) has become the sixth movie to gross more than $US1 billion worldwide. Even more surprisingly it has amassed about two-thirds of that total outside the USA. It ranks only about #20 in the US, even though it is now #5 world-wide. In four weeks, Toy Story 3 had already surpassed Alice's domestic box office take. The success of the latest Pixar animation (reviewed below) and the critical and popular reception of Christopher Nolan's latest masterpiece (he said in anticipation of seeing it), Inception, reinforce something I said to Bruce a couple of issues back: that either Nolan or Pixar's John Lasseter may well be the film-maker of the decade. It's hard to think of a miss from either - in terms of either artistic or commercial success.
CM
is the Featured Attractions Review and Criticism section.
Also in
CM
Alphabetical archive of movies reviewed
also in
Movies
Opening Credits
Critical Mess - Reviews
From the Director's Chair - Essays
Lists
Andy hardy in adversity
They just cannot miss, those writers and animators from Pixar. Certainly they have the technology right and have advanced the art of computerised animation to the point that hand-drawn cell animation is going the way of the live-action stunt. But you'd be wrong to suggest that Pixar's success is based on the technology: it is based on the writing, and in particular on the "heart" inherent in the writing. The latest feature of the studio is a rare sequel - Toy Story 3. The story is no longer about the boy and his toys: it takes the coterie of toys away from Andy (who is now old enough to go to college) and into a child-minding centre that turns out not to be all that it appears on the outside. The plot purports to be about the heroics of Woody, Buzz and co as they assist each other in a great escape, but that is only on the surface. The film is much more sophisticated than that - not that the kids, who were in the audience when we saw it, cared about the additional layers. They were entertained by the broad humor, especially when Buzz is rebooted into his Hispanic mode, and when Rex, Hamm and Mr Potato Head perform the more slapstick gags. Also entertaining the kids was a new Barbie (voiced by Disney regular Jodi Benson) and a quasi-gay 1980s Ken (Michael Keaton), with a wardrobe that provides many of the sight gags. Woody (Tom Hanks) is suitably heroic, aided by Jessie (Joan Cusack), with Tim Allen's Buzz helping him most of the time. The additional layers, which help solidify the entertainment for adults, relate strongly to an end-of-childhood theme. The impetus for the plot is Andy's imminent departure for college, causing him to leave behind the things of his childhood. The toys' nemesis at the centre is also a victim of the fact that children and their toys do not always have happy endings together, as age and experience cause most of us to leave our childhood behind. Amazingly, an animation, ostensibly aimed at a kids' audience, captures brilliantly the concepts inherent in the transition from adolescence to maturity, and the loss of childish innocence required for the concept of play. In many ways this theme is more relevant to the American market, where the reluctance to leave behind the idyllic youth (personal and national) is more ingrained into the psyche. But, even though I have experienced no such personal dislocation (perhaps because I remain infantalised in my cultural tastes), and even though there were no toys from my youth remaining by the time I reached teen years, let alone the time I went to university, I could appreciate and empathise with the ideas that the writers were filling their subtext with. These are heady issues and not ones you'd normally associate with a kids' flick. But Pixar is not your average studio and, having shown in both WALL*E and Up, that they were prepared to deal with more sophisticated subject matter while still delivering an entertainment, Pixar almost tops the lot with Toy Story 3: funny, emotional, touching and with a pitch-perfect ending. And, yes, brilliantly technologically accomplished as well.
With it when we saw it was an accompanying short feature, Day and Night, in which those concepts are explored in a new and interesting way through a novel computer animation technique. Basically hand-drawn images are used as the "screens" for 3-D computer animations of the contrasting light states. It's almost as good as the feature film it accompanies.
Who are you kidding?
I still have some fond memories of the 1984 Karate Kid. Not much of that fondness extended to Ralph Macchio, who was the title character, a fish-out-of-water high schooler in a new town, confronted by bullying and helped by a handyman to defend himself. There were several forgettable sequels in the 1980s. Now Will Smith has produced a new version, set in China, with his son Jaden in the title role. It is pretty faithful to the original in many respects: the new kid in town, the bullies, the martinet instructor with his violent minions, young love, nice mum, the handyman, even the climactic martial arts tournament. There are a couple of vital differences: the film is now set in China, which adds a cultural dislocation to the earlier film's geographic one; and the protagonist is not a teenager, played by an actor in his earlier twenties, but a twelve-year-old, played by a twelve-year-old. The latter is the more vital difference: while one could accept the punishment meted out to Daniel, the bullying of sub-teen Dre comes across as a lot more creepy, and the love story angle just doesn't play as well as the Ralph Macchio-Elisabeth Shue scenes played in 1984. But, in the end, those are quibbles I have with a movie that I largely enjoyed. The storyline - in the National Velvet-Rocky school of films (it's interesting to note that Rocky director John G. Avildsen helmed the first movie) - is tried and tested and, leaving aside the reservations stated, works again. The settings in Beijing and around northern China, including scenes set in the Wudang Mountains, the spiritual home of kung fu, are exotic and interesting. The actors, young and old, are uniformly good. Despite his age, Jaden Smith is believable in the role and Taraji P Henson is excellent as his harassed mom. More surprising, given that Noriyuki "Pat" Morita was Oscar nominated for Mr Miyagi, Jackie Chan's very different take on the handyman, here named Mr Han, adds another level of complexity to the film. I like the way the screenwriter of the modern version has provided a very different back story, with a revelation that helps us better understand what drives him. I also like the constant presence of the car, creating an anticipation of the "wax-on/wax-off" that never comes. This is a successful re-imagining, not just a remake. Its strength is in the ideas and philosophy of the handyman/instructor, whose spiritual path is shown to be more useful than the violence preached by his rival guru. No crane this time but an equally satisfying conclusion.
[Note: Information about the movies mentioned, including cast and crew lists and all sorts of trivia, is available at the Internet Movie Database (IMDb).]