Word: pixar
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Apparently, because for its first 30 min., the new Pixar astonishment WALL?E has virtually no dialogue. Nor does it offer a Star Wars--like print crawl to inform viewers that this is Earth 800 years from now. The mechanical critter who is the film's hero can speak only in electronic grunts and sighs, or in one-word bursts, like a chattier R2-D2. The movie's other main creature, a robot named EVE, also can speak only a few words. Yet it's Pixar's big, bold belief that the mass audience will be astute enough to follow...
When writer-director Andrew Stanton--whose last film was Pixar's all-time box-office champ, Finding Nemo--showed the first reels of WALL?E to the studio's brain trust three years ago, fellow auteur Brad Bird (The Incredibles) told him, "Man, you didn't make it easy for yourself." A movie that shows but doesn't tell, and whose leading characters are essentially mimes, could put an end to the eight-film box-office winning streak that began with Toy Story in 1995 and continued unbroken through last year's Ratatouille. To sell the project, Stanton had only...
...works; this is Pixar's most enthralling entertainment since Nemo. A science-fiction epic that starts off as a smart twist on the last-man-on-Earth plot and veers into a fable about humans' overreliance on technology, the movie should connect with audiences of all ages because it stars the most adorable little trash-bot ever. He's less a trash collector than a trash connoisseur, adding new items to the treasures he keeps on shelves in the shack he has built for himself. Hmmm, what about this green thing, a plant sprout, that he found in his foraging...
...movie also follows a precept of animation that stretches back to Gertie the Dinosaur, Krazy Kat and Mickey Mouse, through the classic Warner Bros. cartoons and up to Disney's The Lion King, Pixar's A Bug's Lifeand of course Happy Feet: stick to animals. When stylized artfully, they have so much more wit and personality than mere human beings. Not having to attempt a duplication of reality liberates a good animator's imagination. In KFP you'll see this in the spectacular fight scenes, but also in the character sketching, in the subtlety of glances and gestures...
...Make Mine Music and Dumbo won prizes the first two years. More recently, DreamWorks' Shrek had a lavish premiere here; and last year Marjane Satrapi's Iranian-French animated autobiography Persepolis copped the Jury Prize, on its way to international renown and an Oscar nomination. (But never a Pixar movie, though several would have been ready for a mid-May slot. Go figure.) Today DreamWorks unveiled its latest ani-movie, Kung Fu Panda. As cunning visual art and ultra-satisfying entertainment, it proved an excellent choice...