Movies Mammalian!
Summer continues to offer tasty Hollywood dreck for our mass consumption, and I cannot help but consume. Besides, it's better with cartoons. Really.
Over The Hedge
Animation is almost always destined to be targeted at the younger crowd. It's a given. Simple happy messages are somehow best conveyed through cartoon critters, because when a donkey tells you that friends forgive, you're more likely to believe him. However, I think that anyone who's grown up watching cartoons and enjoying them still holds that love inside them, and thus wants to enjoy cartoons in adulthood, even if they're still a bit juvenile. However, some people have picked up on that trend, and have managed to make movies that appeal both to the younger and older crowds, with varying levels of humor and dialogue. And this is good.
Animation juggernaut Pixar has its baby in theaters now: Cars. Dreamworks Animation, while always second fiddle to Pixar, has still produced some decent films, and in this instance has made something that is worth watching. Cars leaves me cold with its trailers and plot, but Over The Hedge gives us a heaping helping of laughs for everybody. And that counts for a lot.
The plot: Bruce Willis is a raccoon and William Shatner is an opossum. I don't think I need to say any more.
The pros: I felt the comedy quite strongly, from the satirical view of suburbia, to the simplistic old-fashioned cautious ways of the forest dwellers, to the effect of culture shock between the two. The voice actors also make the most of their roles, with Bruce Willis being the perfect "slick salesman", William Shatner parodying himself, Steve "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" Carell bringing unbridled insanity into Hammy the Squirrel, and Gary Shandling as the overcautious head of a family thrust into the unknown. While the story and morals themselves are fairly simple (don't steal; family is cool; change isn't all bad; suburbia is wacky), the characters are what make this film truly enjoyable. Relax and enjoy.
The cons: Like it or not, this is no classic Pixar film. The animation is less crisp, less clean, just a touch sub-par in comparison. The humor is not always as subtle and clever as what was offered in Toy Story. I see this as holding up a tiny little gemstone and placing it next to the Hope Diamond: Of course it's not going to measure up, but that does not mean it is thus rendered worthless. It is edgier than your typical Pixar fare, although all three villainous characters together still can't match one Lo Pan. And as a side note, the makers of the film try the idea of a pre-cartoon feature to start off. And it's... bland. I'm going to have to poke fun at my movie-watching colleague who got all sniffly for it. Poke.
The verdict: Funny. Yes, really. Will it beat Cars? Probably not. But I still say it's worth checking out.
Disclaimer: William Shatner parodying himself is pretty damn funny, but still not quite as badass as Leonard Nimoy doing the complete voiceover for Civilization IV. Spock wins this round, gentlemen.
Over The Hedge
Animation is almost always destined to be targeted at the younger crowd. It's a given. Simple happy messages are somehow best conveyed through cartoon critters, because when a donkey tells you that friends forgive, you're more likely to believe him. However, I think that anyone who's grown up watching cartoons and enjoying them still holds that love inside them, and thus wants to enjoy cartoons in adulthood, even if they're still a bit juvenile. However, some people have picked up on that trend, and have managed to make movies that appeal both to the younger and older crowds, with varying levels of humor and dialogue. And this is good.
Animation juggernaut Pixar has its baby in theaters now: Cars. Dreamworks Animation, while always second fiddle to Pixar, has still produced some decent films, and in this instance has made something that is worth watching. Cars leaves me cold with its trailers and plot, but Over The Hedge gives us a heaping helping of laughs for everybody. And that counts for a lot.
The plot: Bruce Willis is a raccoon and William Shatner is an opossum. I don't think I need to say any more.
The pros: I felt the comedy quite strongly, from the satirical view of suburbia, to the simplistic old-fashioned cautious ways of the forest dwellers, to the effect of culture shock between the two. The voice actors also make the most of their roles, with Bruce Willis being the perfect "slick salesman", William Shatner parodying himself, Steve "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" Carell bringing unbridled insanity into Hammy the Squirrel, and Gary Shandling as the overcautious head of a family thrust into the unknown. While the story and morals themselves are fairly simple (don't steal; family is cool; change isn't all bad; suburbia is wacky), the characters are what make this film truly enjoyable. Relax and enjoy.
The cons: Like it or not, this is no classic Pixar film. The animation is less crisp, less clean, just a touch sub-par in comparison. The humor is not always as subtle and clever as what was offered in Toy Story. I see this as holding up a tiny little gemstone and placing it next to the Hope Diamond: Of course it's not going to measure up, but that does not mean it is thus rendered worthless. It is edgier than your typical Pixar fare, although all three villainous characters together still can't match one Lo Pan. And as a side note, the makers of the film try the idea of a pre-cartoon feature to start off. And it's... bland. I'm going to have to poke fun at my movie-watching colleague who got all sniffly for it. Poke.
The verdict: Funny. Yes, really. Will it beat Cars? Probably not. But I still say it's worth checking out.
Disclaimer: William Shatner parodying himself is pretty damn funny, but still not quite as badass as Leonard Nimoy doing the complete voiceover for Civilization IV. Spock wins this round, gentlemen.