Considering a long time Pixar and animation devotee in my tardy thirties and with two kids beneath the age of ten I was ululate to go and see the latest offering from these legends of storytelling. Meeting the movie, since I uncherished, I reflected on the last two hours in the cinema and father the most satisfying worldliness for me was the short film that came before the main characteristic, Night And Day.
I wanted to like the film, I really did, but in the end it wasn ' t satisfying and actually left me with a rather disconcerting feeling - not an experience I would like to have after seeing a film with my two kids. Not to give away the ending, but the story structure as a whole was ok. It affected me emotionally in the right ways, particularly the penultimate dramatic moment in the trash compactor scene.
What threw me was Pixar ' s reliance on the creepy factor. There are at least two characters in the film that are just plain creepy; one a money ( yes I know Pixar staff ' s love for monkeys ) and a baby doll. Another character was a lovable character turned bad who in the end could not redeem himself despite being given every reason to do so. To me, that is not the kind of message I want to send to my kids, this is not The Sopranos we are talking about.
And yes I know enough about Pixar to realise they make movies for themselves and don ' t start out making movies for kids. I guess I knew what that meant a few years ago. But over the last few films the creep factor has increased and there a certain level of innocence has been lost.
In the end it was the presence of Miyazaki ' s icon of innocence, Totoro ( from his film My Neighbor Totoro ) in Toy Story 3, which reminded me that you don ' t need to make kids films that sensationalise the loss of innocence to make a film great, especially not one that kids will come to see.
