Life, the Universe and Everything

I've seen several mainstream animated films recently that surprised me with their dramatic quality.

In 2006, I saw several animated films that convinced me that the leaps in animation technology were leaving storytelling behind. In particular, "Robots," which was really mediocre, and "Madagascar," which had some good ideas, but ran out of steam more than concluded. [I'm of the opinion that "Madagascar" would have been much better if they'd focused on the penguins.]

I saw "Shrek III" over the holidays, and while it wasn't horrible, it it wasn't up to the level of the first two Shrek films.

But then, on New Year's Eve, we rented "Cars." "Cars" came out just a little after "Robots." I remember seeing a trailer for it when we went to "Robots." The trailer didn't particularly engage my interest. It looked rather juvenile, as I remember.

After seeing it, though, I've got to say that the trailer really doesn't do it justice. "Cars," is a fairly mature, fully fleshed out comedy/drama. The characters are clearly realized, and the plot isn't entirely predictable. The gags are well crafted -- set up carefully, but not obviously, and played out for maximum impact.

It's a reworking, BTW, of the Michael J. Fox film "Doc Hollywood," if you can believe that.

Anyway, I give "Cars," at least a 9/10.

Another film I've seen recently was "Ratatouille," which was on the hospital video system. This is one I've been wanting to see, and once again, I was surprised at the dramatic depth they got out of the animated medium. This film did an outstanding job of melding the voice performances to the drawn characters. The film creates a just slightly surreal universe, where the rats can't actually talk to the humans, but the main character can communicate -- and has human intelligence. I mention this, because after you accept the intelligence of the rodents, the story works very hard to be "real-world" believable. (Just as "Cars" works very hard to be realistic, if you can accept that people are cars.) I thought the artwork of Ratatouille was the best I've seen lately.

The other film I saw was "The Ant Bully" which was not quite on the same level, but still amusing.

"Ratatouille," was different from most other "big" animated films I've seen lately. Peter O'Toole (playing Ego, the restaurant critic) was the only major star in the cast. Most animated films these days use a cast of big names: Paul Newman, Cliff Ratzenberger, Cameron Diaz, Nicholas Cage, etc. I can see why the stars would want to do it. It's really easy work for them. They go in for a day or two and record and that's it. No stunts, no costumes, not much work. But, I wonder why the producers want to use them. I have a hard time recognizing their voices! (I recognized Paul Newman in Cars, but none of the other voice performers.) "Ratatouille" was just as enjoyable without big name voices. (O'Toole was only in two scenes -- it was more of a cameo than a star turn.)

I can only conclude that the major value of the stars to these films is in the advertising campaigns.