Finding Nemo

I feel like the first several Pixar movies were good but not quite exceptional like their more recent output, and Nemo sort of marks that transition to true brilliance. It's not a favorite, but it's really quite good, capturing the right combination of humor, excitement, and heart. I guess they really figured things out when they started making things sad. The movie doesn't linger on it, but the opening scene where Marlin loses his wife and most of his children is probably harder than anything else the studio had done to that point, and it works very well to inform the character for the rest of the film. Marlin searching all over the ocean for his son isn't a terribly different story from say, the toys trying to rescue Woody after he gets stolen, but the knowledge of that earlier tragedy gives everything a greater weight and urgency. You want him to find Nemo because you know it will destroy him if he doesn't. One of the best family relationships the company has done.

It doesn't take over the whole movie though, as there's plenty of opportunity for the expected clever action sequences and windfall of entertaining celebrity voices. Sequences like Dory reading the address by the light of an anglerfish and escaping from the seagulls in the beak of a pelican are a lot of fun, and while I think having famous people do voices because they're famous can be damaging in pointless, everyone here seems really well cast. Albert Brooks and Ellen DeGeneres make a good leading pair, it's surprising hearing a very young Shane from Weeds as the titular character, Willem Dafoe is entertaining as the gruff leader of a group of aquarium fish including Brad Garrett and Allison Janney, and you'll probably hear a few more recognizable voices at some point. It's a nice looking film if not as eye-popping as what they've done in the last few years, and it tells its story and wraps it up at a very nice pace. Not my favorite animated movie, but a pretty good benchmark for what family films should aim for.

Up

Pete Docter was the first guy at Pixar to direct a film that John Lasseter wasn't in charge of, and his return to the job is a successful one. I didn't like it as much as Wall-E or The Incredibles, but it was still strong throughout and showed the studio's increased maturity and ambition to do something besides make kids laugh for an hour and a half. It's actually very deliberate about tugging at the heartstrings in the beginning, as we get a glimpse of protagonist Carl's entire life to explain why he decides to take off with a bunch of balloons in the first place. It honestly felt a bit manipulative, but it was still a well executed and fairly moving sequence. There's another scene later on that revisits the same idea that I actually thought was more effective.

But this is a family comedy, so most of the time is spent with Carl and young Russell the wilderness explorer floating on a house/airship and wandering through a strange jungle. If there's one thing Pixar can do, it's breathe new life into the simple slapstick humor of old cartoons. Normally a character like Kevin the bird would be only funny to little kids, but its movements are just so perfectly timed that I found myself laughing out loud at its antics repeatedly. And I loved the execution of the talking dogs. They could have been too silly, but the fact that they remain 100% dogs the entire time that they're acting like henchmen and servants just works perfectly.

And really, only maybe Hayao Miyazaki's films can match Pixar's for its incredibly inventive, unique, and exciting action sequences. It seems weird talking about an adventure movie starring an old man with a walking stick, but that's really what it is. The villain could have been developed better, as he goes from Carl's friendly childhood hero to murderous psychopath without much transition. I guess you can see how decades spent fruitlessly searching for something could make a man desperate and unstable, but some of his actions made me think "Really, you're doing this?" Oh well. Carl and Russell are likable characters with an interesting dynamic to their relationship, and overall the movie is quite funny with several moments of brilliance. Somewhere between the studio's fairly successful early work and their more genius stuff a bit earlier this decade.