What Are They Saying In Those Movies (part 2 of 4)

The Incredibles, Monster's Inc., and WALL-E

The Incredibles

The Incredibles is my favorite of the Pixar movies.

Alright, so a lot of the early humor stems from the fact that Mr. Incredible is simply too big. Since most of those gags are visual, I can't really point them out here. I like that "TIs" is a spoof of superhero movies, which actually starts out with Mr. Incredible being sued for trying to save people (one's supposed to laugh at the irony), which results in the govt. starting "Witness protection, superhero division" for the supers themselves. In the very beginning, Mr. Incredible is doing "mundane" things like rescuing cats out of trees and chasing bank robbers (with a very Bondish car). I should also add that he has a run-in with an extremely nerdy fan who invented rocketboots. In response to the kid's assumption that  he will join Mr. I as his sidekick, Mr.I replies "I work alone." and ejects the kid out of his car. Eventually, after a very busy day, he marries another super named Elastigirl. That scene is interesting because you can spot several supers in the background who turn up dead later. As I said above, there are a lot of "sight gags" and the ones that aren't require extensive background.

Things that are good include the fact that this is a very family-centered movie,  numerous sight gags, and basically the whole of the first paragraph. Mr. Incredible's best friend Frozone and the supersuit maker Edna Mode are also funny. Mr. Incredible's idea of a workout is funny because it's so oversized.

Disappointing things about this movie are things like the sequence in which Edna Mode decries the use of capes. At each name, they show a clip of an unfortunate super's horrible death, which I guess they added because the talking wasn't enough. And there are stupid mistakes like "If Syndrome's scanner thing was supposed to detect life, how could it have been fooled by sitting behind a skeleton? Major flaw there" (Syndrome the villain, by the way, is Buddy the ultimate fan at 30 years old, who was turned toward destruction because "You always said to be true to yourself, but you never said what part of yourself to be true to.") We also see a return of the clone troopers. Every kids' movie that portrays a huge army of humans never fails to put them all in identical eye-covering uniforms, so you'll think "oh it's ok, they're bad guys." not "they're people being killed" and Syndrome did not have to be sucked into a turbine.

On the whole, though, this is probably the film with the strongest morals, simply because the whole film portrays Mr. Incredible slowly realizing that he needs help and that no one works alone , and by the end the dsyfunctional family has molded into one unit that works together. In this one above the others, they are definitively glorifying the family as a unit.

Monster's Inc.
Monster's Inc. is the consensus favorite in our house. We have watched it so many times the tape is damaged.


Mike and Sully are hilarious together, Mike is good by himself, Randall's comeuppance (vaguely) resembles Hulk's reaction to Loki, the monsters' opinion of human kids is hilarious, the great spoof "heroes' march" scene,  the awesome "door chase" which seriously ought to be a virtual reality ride in Disney parks, the Abominable Snowman, the CDA (child detection agency,... well, basically everything.


But... there are flaws in everything... It is perhaps overly sappy at some points and there a couple of plot devices/ holes, but not having seen it recently, I can't think of them at the moment.


In Monster's Inc., the question is integrity or success, another question that can only be answered one way. And it's pretty clear: Sully (integrity) becomes CEO. Randall (dishonesty) gets pounded with a shovel. What can I say?


WALL-E
If there's one thing we object to in kids' movies, it's blatant political messages, which WALL-E is based on.


WALL-E is the last working unit of an army of Waste Allocation Load Lifter -Earth class robots, the purpose of which is to clean up Earth, which has been too unsanitary to live on for the past 700 years. (the cubed junk reaches the top of the Empire State building. There is no clean spot on Earth. Somehow, WALL-E finds a plant that's still alive, taking it back to the trailer where he stores himself. Eventually, a scanner comes back to Earth, takes the plant from WALL-E, and reembarks on the spaceship it came on.


It is funny to see how lazy (enabled by the handy hovercraft chairs provided) people get get in space, because the look simply absurd. There is an interesting "suspense" element. People have also gotten absurdly stupid. Sinde that's a main point of the humor, you will never like WALL-E the movie if you don't think that's funny. WALL-E the robot, by the way, only ever says "waall-ee"


First, there's the in-your-face plot-turning Greenpeace message. My family, though not opposed on principle, refuses to believe it's a big deal, so that bothers us when it's shoved in front like that. The entire world is owned by a Wal-Mart-like conglonerate called Buy-n-Large, the CEO of which had far more power than the U.N. assembly combined, or any world governments. 


On the whole, WALL-E is a so-so movie, with unexceptional good parts and annoying, but not terribly so, lame parts.


The quite obvious message of the film is a demand that people focus on the environment and get out and be active, which, of itself, is an excellent compound goal.