Dr. Seuss' The Lorax

Written at the time of the film's release...

Geiselling Up the Wrong Tree
or
What the Dr. Ordered (What the Patient Thneeded)

The Dr. Seuss library was getting a bad shake from the movies when they started. How the Grinch Stole Christmas (actually an expansion—and declination—of the excellent Chuck Jones Christmas special) was a live-action mess directed by Ron Howard. Then, the studio actually raised the ire of the estate (in the form of Geisel's widow, Audrey) with the live-action version of The Cat in the Hat. Then, someone had the brilliant idea of making them computer cartoons, starting with Horton Hears a Who (which did the book justice and stood out on its own as quite a good flick, being the closest representation of Seussian architecture, or lack thereof). Now, comes Suess' cautionary (and controversial) ecology tale The Lorax in the same format "from the creators of Despicable Me," Chris Renaud and his animation supervisor on that film, Kyle Balda.

And it's not bad. Despicable Me had a weird way of looking at the world all its own, and the creators have a tendency to take the "edge" off Seuss, (although preserving his architectural view of "no right angles") while still making a film that is lively, and with a comic timing that depends on the "ol' switcheroo" for laughs, not unlike a perpetual motion "Roadrunner" cartoon.

The expansion is interesting. Ted (Geissel's Christian name and voiced by Zac Efron) lives in a polluted plastic community of Thneedeville, run by a corporate overlord named O'Hare (Rob Riggle), who's a "zillionaire" from producing bottled air—a necessity since all the real trees have been cut done, owing to (and this where the book comes in) The Once-ler (voiced by Ed Helms) who used them all to make his fortune producing and selling Thneede's, which appear to be a scarf/sweater/hat contraption, which became a sensation. 

His initial tree-toppling leads to the appearance of The Lorax (cackled by Danny DeVito) who "speaks for the trees"—sarcastically, I might add—to try to set the young entrepreneur onto a more green-path when it comes to business (like that ever works without tax-breaks, cute woodsy animals be damned).

Ted, meanwhile, wants to grow a single, solitary tree for the woman of his dreams, Audrey (played by the woman of my nightmares, Taylor Swift, and despite my prejudices, she's quite good!) and the only way he can do that is to get by O'Hare, his burly security guards and escape Thneedville to find the Once-ler and let Nature take its course, Lorax or no Lorax.

It's not a bad translation of Seuss, story-wise. But one wishes that the visuals could be a little less plasticene looking, given the ecology story, which leads one to wonder if such a subject should even be rendered with pixels (and makes one cynical enough to note how much the End Title tune is auto-tuned to a semi-quaver of its unnatural life). Such thoughts should not be creeping into one's thoughts when one is watching a movie about how wonderful Nature's way is, and nature has nothing to do with it, no matter how "green" the movie declares itself to be.

Despicable Me

Written at the time of the film's release and before I developed my distaste for Minions. 

 
"Assemble the Minions!"

You can't swing a pixelated bug-eyed cat in a multi-plex these days without hitting a new digi-toon, being ground out like so many linked sausages, but with different degrees of quality.  The technology is now such that the makers no longer have to worry about working around the complexities of the images; such strides have been made in the field over the last 15 years that the work approaches photo-realism, if that is the intention of the pixel-wranglers. What is exciting now, with the constraints no longer a factor, is seeing what the various creators around the world DO with it, and the visions that they create, whether their source be in the world or the mind. Now that reality is no longer a problem, the makers of these visions can effectively throw it away.

So, here's Despicable Me.  You've been seeing the trailers for months, and for me, the impression has been a little "meh." Oh, the comic timing has been crack and the sensibility behind them a little twisted. But, whether that translated to a 90 minute feature is always the $20 million dollar question.

And Despicable Me is terrific. Frequently laugh out-loud funny, with breathless timing and a constant willingness to push the envelope in technology and story-telling. Sure, it has the obvious arc of a children's story, and you know how things will turn out, but the journey is the fun thing.

Gru (Steve Carell) is a "Fester-ish" super-villain on hard times. Oh, sure, he's not exactly hiding out in some super-secret headquarters somewhere—he only drives vehicles that pollute outrageously with a maximum of sparks and smoke, his is the only house in the neighborhood painted in dark, dingy colors and furnitured with Bondian uber-tech and stuffed animal corpses. Underneath is a vast gleaming complex linked by pneumatic tubes and what look like habi-trails, kept running by what appear to be thousands of animated twinkies.*He may seem like a villain who has everything (and what he doesn't have, he can obtain by ice-shackling the person who does with his "freeze-ray"), but there's a new villain named Vector (Jason Segel, voicing a character who's equal parts Bill Gates and Phil Silvers) who's just topped everybody by stealing one of the Pyramids. Good score. And the Bank of Evil ("formerly Lehman Brothers") likes the reaching entrepreneur with enough gall to think big when it comes to crime (call it "professional courtesy"), so they'll only dispense loans to those baddies with outlandish schemes. There's no greater "out-land" than The Moon, and so Gru sets his sights on it—a dream he's held since it was first pa-shawed by his crank of a Mum (Julie Andrews, wickedly unrecognizable).

But, you need a plan.  And his involves orphans ("We got adopted by a bald guy...I thought it would be more like Annie"), a "Spy vs. Spy"-style industrial espionage plot, and...cookie-robots.

The thing is witty in look and happenstance: the people are bulbously malleable as in The Incredibles, and the sets have a Burtonesque retro-engineering feel to them, but because the animation is done in France, the flow and pace, and attention to detail, is quite unlike things state-side, making it intriguing and refreshing. The voice-actors are spot-on by being nearly impenetrably unidentifiable...you won't recognize Will Arnett, or Kristen Wiig (two of my favorite comic actors of the moment) or Russell Brand, and Steve Carell's Gru is an amazing comic performance featuring crack timing, muttered asides and a nicely Slavic accent that tortures its way through idioms. 

And I love the buried movie references, little echoes of the past that tweak the unconscious, be they from It's a Wonderful Life, The Wrath of Khan, The Empire Strikes Back, or The Godfather (the last is so wickedly placed, I couldn't believe the writers were so sick to think of it). But, it's all done with its heart in the right place and a warmth of spirit tough to find in movies these days. It'll yank your heart strings to a ridiculously cartoonish length and never let them go.  This is one for the whole family, even though the parents will need to do a bit of explaining along the way (some of the jokes will just sail past the heads of kids, which is always a sign of a good cartoon).

I saw Despicable Me in 2-D, but it might actually benefit a 3-D screening, especially for the end-title sequence where the Minions attempt to bridge the gap between the screen and the audience—a hilarious concept that's a bit mind-blowing when you think of it (and evidently there's a phone app that allows you to translate what they're saying during it—will wonders never cease?).

* Called "Minions," they have all sorts of uses and are voiced by the co-directors and "Flight of the Conchords" Jemaine Clement.  Yee-es.

The Secret Life of Pets

Neutered Pets
or
"...no biscuit."

The creators of Despicable Me have come out with a new semi-original movie The Secret Life of Pets and top-loaded it with an entertaining trailer. But, as lovely a film as Despicable Me was, it didn't deserve (unless you count the box office) a sequel or the flood of seemingly endless Minion knock-offs that generate thoughts of minion-cide. Directors Chris Renaud and Yarrow Cheney know a money-train when they see one and when they hit the jackpot they appear to stay at the same table in the hopes of another jackpot rather than count the diminishing returns.

So, it's a relief of sorts to see them come up with a new concept and The Secret Life of Pets seems to fill the bill. It is one of the mysteries of life what your quadruped friend does when you're absent. I, myself, suspected that my last animal was day-trading on the computer, while the less imaginative of us merely suspects that it's peeing on something. I've had the opportunity to watch my dog on an internet-fed closed-circuit of the doggy daycare he went to, and his behavior was, in the company of strangers, typical. He would shun attention, turning his back on the caretakers, but inch closer to them as if to say "I'm here, ya know. You could pay attention to me if you wanted to, not that I really want that, of course." 

My dog was an aggressive breed. But, he turned around to be passive-aggressive.

Renaud and Cheney exploit our curiosity with this movie. They start with a basic recap of the trailer—various domesticated's doing what we might suspect they'd do given thumbs—parakeets geeking out with flight simulators, cats exploiting privileges, including kitchen privileges, animals messing with our stuff for reasons that they would find practical, but mostly wasting time while we slave away to keep them kibbled. The two directors mine this stuff for laffs, occasionally straining the point where the behaviors of dogs belie their appearance—a snooty poodle hammers away to death-metal while his patron is away. Okay.

The film focuses on one dog, Max (voiced by Louis C.K.), devoted to his master Katie (Elle Kemper) to the point where he spends working hours staring at the door, waiting for the sound of her keys. If one is looking for The Secret Life of Pets, Max is the least interesting prospect. Then, inexplicably, Katie comes home with Duke (voiced by Eric Stonestreet) a very large, overpowering dog who has boundary issues, much the same as Max. They spend a restless night battling over territory. Okay. Conflict. Got it.

The next day, the two conspire against each other creating a Terrible Mess in which they're both on the street and eventually having to negotiate with The Society of Flushed Pets—a loose association of amazingly non-carnivorous animals, who are against the very concept of domestication, a concept I find hard to believe because most groups with an agenda have a tendency to eat their own (we are in the middle of an election cycle).

There begins a story of Duke and Max having to put aside their differences against adversity, while the other animals, who normally are living a sedentary life while their masters are away, go against their natures to bond to try and rescue their pals.

Maybe I'm being too discriminating (I am, after all, more than 12 years old) but that's the template for just about every animal cartoon that's been released to the unsuspecting public in the last few years. If the "Despicable/Minion" series hadn't shown Renaud and Cheney to be great proponents of recycling, then "Finding Max and Duke" The Secret Life of Pets shows them to not be innovative even when supposedly striking new ground.

In the criticism game, you're supposed to talk about the thing as is, not what you would want it to be, but this one has me wishing that the story they put out wasn't where they could have taken this. I would like to have seen more of that "secret life of pets" idea as put forth in the trailer. I doubt one could sustain it for the ninety minutes it would take to flesh out a feature, but it would have been better than spending the length of this movie wondering "why isn't this better?" and "Pixar might have done something worthwhile here, given a little strategic thinking." As it is, The Secret Life of Pets probably should have stayed secret.

Despicable Me

Written at the time of the film's release.

"Assemble the Minions!"

You can't swing a pixelated bug-eyed cat in a multi-plex these days without hitting a new digi-toon, being ground out like so many linked sausages, but with different degrees of quality.  The technology is now such that the makers no longer have to worry about working around the complexities of the images; such strides have been made in the field over the last 15 years that the work approaches photo-realism, if that is the intention of the pixel-wranglers.  What is exciting now, with the constraints no longer a factor, is seeing what the various creators around the world DO with it, and the visions that they create, whether their source be in the world or the mind.  Now that reality is no longer a problem, the makers of these visions can effectively throw it away.

So, here's Despicable Me.  You've been seeing the trailers for months, and for me, the impression has been a little "meh."  Oh, the comic timing has been crack and the sensibility behind them a little twisted.  But, whether that translated to a 90 minute feature is always the $20 million dollar question.

And Despicable Me is terrific.  Frequently laugh out-loud funny, with breathless timing and a constant willingness to push the envelope in technology and story-telling.  Sure, it has the obvious arc of a children's story, and you know how things will turn out, but the journey is the fun thing.

Gru (Steve Carell) is a "Fester-ish" super-villain on hard times.  Oh, sure, he's not exactly hiding out in some super-secret headquarters somewhere—he only drives vehicles that pollute outrageously with a maximum of sparks and smoke, his is the only house in the neighborhood painted in dark, dingy colors and furnitured with Bondian uber-tech and stuffed animal corpses. Underneath is a vast gleaming complex linked by pneumatic tubes and what look like habi-trails, kept running by what appear to be thousands of animated twinkies.* He may seem like a villain who has everything (and what he doesn't have, he can obtain by ice-shackling the person who does with his "freeze-ray"), but there's a new villain named Vector (Jason Segel, voicing a character who's equal parts Bill Gates and Phil Silvers) who's just topped everybody by stealing one of the Pyramids. Good score.  

And the Bank of Evil ("formerly Lehman Brothers") likes the reaching entrepreneur with enough gall to think big when it comes to crime (call it "professional courtesy"), so they'll only dispense loans to those baddies with outlandish schemes. There's no greater "out-land" than The Moon, and so Gru sets his sights on it—a dream he's held since it was first pa-shawed by his crank of a Mum (Julie Andrews, wickedly unrecognizable).

But, you need a plan. And his involves orphans ("We got adopted by a bald guy...I thought it would be more like Annie"), a "Spy vs. Spy"-style industrial espionage plot, and...cookie-robots.

The thing is witty in look and happenstance: the people are bulbously malleable as in The Incredibles, and the sets have a Burtonesque retro-engineering feel to them, but because the animation is done in France, the flow and pace, and attention to detail, is quite unlike things state-side, making it intriguing and refreshing. The voice-actors are spot-on by being nearly impenetrably unidentifiable...you won't recognize Will Arnett, or Kristen Wiig (two of my favorite comic actors of the moment) or Russell Brand, and Steve Carell's Gru is an amazing comic performance featuring crack timing, muttered asides and a nicely Slavic accent that tortures its way through idioms. 

And I love the buried movie references, little echoes of the past that tweak the unconscious, be they from It's a Wonderful Life, The Wrath of Khan, The Empire Strikes Back, or The Godfather (the last is so wickedly placed, I couldn't believe the writers were so sick to think of it). But, it's all done with its heart in the right place and a warmth of spirit tough to find in movies these days. It'll yank your heart strings to a ridiculously cartoonish length and never let them go. This is one for the whole family, even though the parents will need to do a bit of explaining along the way (some of the jokes will just sail past the heads of kids, which is always a sign of a good cartoon).

I saw Despicable Me in 2-D, but it might actually benefit a 3-D screening, especially for the end-title sequence where the Minions attempt to bridge the gap between the screen and the audience—a hilarious concept that's a bit mind-blowing when you think of it (and evidently there's a phone app that allows you to translate what they're saying during it—will wonders never cease?).

* Called "Minions," they have all sorts of uses and are voiced by the co-directors and "Flight of the Conchords" Jemaine Clement.  Yee-es.