Wary of its high placement? Look no further than the chase sequence on a conveyor belt of doors that double as portals to different worlds. Its concept (monsters only scare kids because their screams power the city they live in) is ingenious and its supporting players – the villainous Randall, the studious Roz, not to mention the long-suffering George – make it a treat to revisit. Which isn’t to say there’s nothing else to marvel at. Sulley and Mike – the unlikely pals at the heart of Monsters, Inc – are characters for the ages and precisely why the film lands as well as it does.
The children will laugh and cheer the adults will sob until their muscles ache. But not only does Soul live up to Pixar’s own impossibly high standards, but it represents the very best the studio has to offer: beauty, humour, heart, and a gut-punch of an existential crisis. Why not embrace, head-on, the biggest mystery there is: life itself? What, after all, is the point of all this living? The studio are certainly up for the challenge. Pixar’s latest film cuts right to the chase. Coco might be an entry point to the tough topic of death for many youngsters, but it remains a remarkable, often hilarious experience, albeit one filled with tears. It’s also an existential minefield as viewers are told that to be forgotten by your living relatives is to suffer a “final death” in the afterlife. Mexico’s “Day of the Dead” is the inspiration behind a film that’s tied together by legacy and memory via a love of music. Pixar further proved its verve with Coco, a film that tapped into a completely different culture while also exploring the fantastical. Away from its cast, Inside Out is also a glorious gut-punch, its feelings lived-in and authentic, its climactic character death by far and away the most heartbreaking in the Pixar canon. Inside Out is one of its best in that regard, with sentient emotions portrayed by their most obvious real-world counterparts – Amy Poehler as a sunny Joy, Lewis Black as a literally hot-headed Anger, the marvellous Office alumna Phyllis Smith as Sadness. To its credit, Pixar has always avoided stunt-casting, for the most part preferring character actors over starrier celebrities. Finding Nemo remains remarkable on its own, though, for both its slapstick comedy and emotional power. JSįinding Nemo more or less laid the groundwork for much that would follow, with parental absence and childhood trauma factoring into a number of the Pixar movies to be released in its aftermath. You will belly laugh, you will slide towards the edge of your seat and – as is the Pixar norm – you will weep into your jumper. Its twists and turns subvert expectations throughout – and there is slapstick comedy aplenty. It follows two teenage elf brothers who, against all odds, are faced with the chance to spend one last day with their father, who died when they were too young to remember him. Pixar has a near-perfect track record with its original films, and yet Onward’s brilliance still came as a surprise. It finds itself in a traditional run-and-escape pattern, which is often smart and clever, but lacking in a ton of emotional resonance. Much like Up, however, the film becomes slightly more conventional as it goes along.
WALL-E’s early sequences, nearly wordless and anchored entirely by a lonely robot, are as radical and ambitious as Pixar gets. It doesn’t, however, entirely conceal the fact that Up peaks very early. There’s still a lot to adore here, of course, from the cutesy charm of its unlikely heroes (an old man and a plucky boy scout) to its sort-of talking dog.
Up’s opening sequence, charting a decades-long love story, is the most brilliant thing Pixar has ever done. At least Kevin Spacey is merely a supporting player in Pixar’s film. It’s also at least aged better than DreamWorks’ Antz, which now bears the indignity of being anchored entirely around Woody Allen. But it remains delightful all the same, its lack of creative inventiveness made up for in its elegant creature designs and gentle humour. Sandwiched in between two Toy Stories, one representing Pixar at its dazzling beginning and the other as it became a world-conquering behemoth, A Bug’s Life is easy to overlook. There’s a thrilling chase sequence through the skies between Elastigirl and the villainous Screenslaver here, while even post- Marvel, the comic-book storytelling feels dazzling. While it never totally justifies its existence, largely replicating what worked so well in the first film, this belated sequel at least makes up for its lack of creative energy with stunning animation.
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