Toy Story 3 (2010) - Unkrich's B.O. champion is an excellent family animation

♥♥♥♥

 

1 Film Excess win:

Best Animation 

1 Film Excess nomination:

Best Animation (won)

 

Woody, Buzz, old friends and new adorn this poster for Lee Unkrich's Toy Story 3

 

Toy owner and former boy Andy has now grown to age 18 and is going away to college, so that his toys Woody, Buzz and all the others face a radical change after years of neglect. As a result they wind up in a daycare center, which is run by a dictatorial teddy bear.

Toy Story 3, which at the time looked like the end of the beloved saga, is extremely satisfying. It balances fun, action, somewhat frightening scenes and real emotions to fit the trademark Pixar come-together experience. The film's theme is the inevitable major changes that life brings about.

The decision to release the film in 3D, - a first in the Toy Story series, - serves no real purpose for the film, (besides maximizing its gross, a major purpose in itself of course.) The many fun details make the film enjoyable for grownups as well, but the raves at the time of release in hindsight begin to look a little exaggerated: Toy Story 3 follows a solid formula well and is excellent family entertainment, - but that's about it.

It is written by Michael Arndt (Little Miss Sunshine (2006)) with story elements contributed by Andrew Stanton (John Carter (2012)), John Lasseter (Toy Story (1995)) and Ohioan master director Lee Unkrich (Finding Nemo (2003)).

 

Related post:

 

2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]

2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 200 mil. $

Box office: 1,066.9 mil. $

= Blockbuster

[Toy Story 3 premiered June 12 (Italy's Taormina Film Fest) and runs 103 minutes. Due to Disney's seven-picture deal with Pixar, the Toy Story sequel was set to be made without Pixar's cooperation by Disney's Circle 7 Animation, who wrote a script that involved Buzz getting sent to Asia, which was ultimately never used: At Disney's buying of Pixar in 2006, the sequel reverted to Pixar, and a new development of the film began. The film opened #1 to a 110.3 mil. $ first weekend, - the largest Pixar opening, largest June opening and second largest opening for an animated movie overall, - in North America, where it stayed #1 for another week and remained in the top 5 for a total of 7 weeks and grossed 415 mil. $ (38.9 % of the total gross). It is estimated that it sold more than 52 mil. tickets in the US. The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Japan with 126.6 mil. $ (11.9 %) and the UK with 116.6 mil. $ (10.9 %). The film became the highest-grossing, in North America and worldwide, of 2010, the highest-grossing Pixar film, the highest-grossing animated film and the 3rd Disney release to break 1 billion $. It grossed more than the first two Toy Story movies combined. The film got nominated for 5 Oscars: Best Picture (the third animation to achieve this, following Beauty and the Beast and Up), lost to The King's Speech, Adapted Screenplay, lost to The Social Network, Sound Editing, lost to Inception, Best Original Song: Randy Newman's We Belong Together, which it won along with Best Animation, in front of How to Train Your Dragon and The Illusionist. The film was a favorite for many, named the film of the year by TIME Magazine and Quentin Tarantino among others. It was the best-selling home video release of 2010 in units sold with more than 10.9 mil. DVDs and Blu-rays sold in North America alone, adding 185.9 mil. $ to the film's revenues. Toy Story 3 is certified fresh at 99 % with an 8.9 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Toy Story 3?

Cars (2006) - Idiotic, loud sports drama animation

♥♥

+ Most Undeserved Hit of the Year

Powerful visuals on this poster for John Lasseter and Joe Ranft's Cars

QUICK REVIEW:

Lightning McQueen is a solo-driving race car star, who falls off the transportation truck and ends up in an abandoned small town, where he learns something about friendship and teamwork, before SPOILER he triumphs completely at the mega-race.

Cars is an almost unendurable movie; intolerably loud and overwrought, and seemingly based on the dubious core value that everyone wants to be famous and # 1.
This rather flat and illusory representation of people and the world is then exposed to a carpet-bombing of mostly American accents, whereof especially the stereotypical Southern ones are gratingly awful.
The story is wildly predictable and sentimental. It doesn't lift the task of getting us to feel any empathy for cars. The idea is in some way just too ridiculous... - What was Paul Newman (Torn Curtain (1966)) doing lending his voice to this film, which became the last of his career?
The one thing that can't be taken away from Cars is its animation, which is incredibly handsome. - But that is, of course, not enough, seeing as Cars is the last exclusive Pixar film (before their merger with Disney), the animation studio that brought us Toy Story (1995) and many other endearing classics.
It is directed by John Lasseter (Toy Story), with (according to IMDb) co-director Joe Ranft (Finding Nemo (2003), voice actor). Lasseter is busy with Cars 3 right now ...

Related reviews:

John Lasseter: Bolt (2008) - Hollywood dog road adventure fun for the whole family! (executive producer)

2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]

2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II] 

2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

The Incredibles (2004) - Unwanted animated action slam-dunk (executive producer)

Watch the trailer here

Cost: 120 mil. $
Box office: 461.9 mil. $
= Big hit
[Cars made 60.1 mil. $ in its opening weekend in the US, where its run landed on 244 mil. $ (53 % of the total gross). It was # 1 for two weeks before Click and then Superman Returns overtook the spot. It was even beloved by US critics and twice Oscar-nominated, (Best Animation and Best Song.) Cars was the biggest animated hit of 2006 in the States and the second biggest worldwide, behind Ice Age: The Meltdown. The spin-off merchandise has grossed a stunning 10 Bil. $ in the first 5 years since the release of the film, which has spun a sequel, a spin-off and soon a second sequel.]

What do you think of this huge, glistening money machine?

Bolt (2008) - Hollywood dog road adventure fun for the whole family!

♥♥♥♥♥

+ Best Dog Movie of the Year

A poster for Chris Williams and Byron Howard's Bolt

QUICK REVIEW:

It's no problem as an adult to get moved and blank-eyed by a story as Bolt, which is about a Hollywood super-dog, who goes on an American adventure with a cat and a hamster in a plastic ball.
- That hamster, BTW, (voiced by Mark Walton (Little Chicken (2005)) is a really funny character!
Bolt is full of action, songs and narrative that is all balanced very successfully. It is moving and a lot of fun. A fine piece of entertainment.
The film was Disney's first film to be conceptualized in 3D. It was Oscar-nominated as Best Animated Feature but lost to Disney-Pixar's WALL-E (2008). 
Bolt was first developed by Chris Sanders (Lilo and Stitch (2002)), who had creative differences with Pixar executive John Lasseter, working as a Disney producer on Bolt, and was removed from the project. Sanders left Disney and went to DreamWorks, where he has since directed major hits as How to Train Your Dragon (2010) and The Croods (2013). He is also doing The Croods 2 (2017).
Disney went along with two in-house people as directors instead; Byron Howard (Tangled (2010)), who hadn't directed anything before Bolt, and Chris Williams, who had only directed a short. Williams is now working on Big Hero 6, an animated Marvel adaptation for Disney.
Bolt was released in a week with a box office already packed by a Twilight movie and a Bond movie and fell in 3rd place in the US. Internationally, it became much bigger, but its success still hasn't garnered talks of a sequel.

Related posts:

 

Top 10: Best Hollywood-set movies

2008 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]

2008 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2008 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2008 in films - according to Film Excess

Watch the Bolt trailer here

Budget: 150 mil. $
Box office: 309.9 mil. $
= Flop

What do you think of Bolt?
Do you have an exciting premise for a Pixar/Disney-type animated movie?