March 13, 2005
Robots Makes You Appreciate Pixar Even More
Here's the shortest review I've ever written. Robots is a pretty good film.It's not spectacular. It's not great. It's not bad. It's a fairly entertaining light family film with some nice moments and just enough funny parts to keep your attention.
What jumped out at me the most while watching this movie, was that my appreciation for Pixar was growing by the minute. Yes, Robots is a mildly entertaining film... but when you watch a Pixar film, you're consistently blown away.
While films like Robots, Shrek (which I really like), Ice Age and others start with a concept and work the story around it... Pixar goes the other way. Pixar always starts with a solid story idea and then works concepts around the story.
The result is a more engaging story, better characters and finally a better film overall.
Companies like Fox Animation and Dremworks set out to make great animated movies, and for the most part they do a pretty decent job. Pixar on the other hand, doesn't set out to make great animated films... they set out to make great films period. And therein lies the difference.
Robots is a good film and worth your time seeing. However, it leaves you with a bit of a shallow feeling because it misses those deeper characters, that better story and doesn't get you as nearly engaged as a Pixar offering.
The first thing I wanted to do after seeing Robots was rent Finding Nemo.
Did any of you check out Robots? What did you think?
Posted by John Campea at March 13, 2005 04:06 PM
Comments
Posted by: Raven at March 13, 2005 05:41 PM
i didn't see robots this week. i won't see it next week or the week after. i feel that the movie is too weak (opinion made without seeing it) and won't see it any week of the month or year.
my post was made in response to Raven's response and partly in response to the review's author. pixar is the superior film maker and everyone else should just stop making movies (and people with weak vocabulary should stop posting).
Posted by: jason at March 13, 2005 06:22 PM
funny you should "compare" Robots to Pixar, because in the first 15 minutes of Robots, I was actually thinking that Pixar had finally met it's match (in terms of a movie that is comparable to a Pixar film). But then the movie didn't go much higher than that, and I took back my thoughts. ;-)
entertaining film. Better than Ice Age and Shrek 2, I think. The models and animation is truly amazing. I was quite impressed with the dinged and rusty metal on the characters.
Posted by: Mike at March 13, 2005 07:19 PM
"(and people with weak vocabulary should stop posting)"
Huh? Who is this pointed at?
If at me, then sorry, but English is not my first language... I try to improve. :-/
Posted by: Raven at March 13, 2005 08:17 PM
i apologize to RAVEN, i was drunk and had just lost an ebay auction i had been working on for 6 days. i'm sorry for taking it out on you.
Posted by: jason at March 14, 2005 09:40 AM
Ok. The plot was very weak. But, to give the film its credit, the animation was amazing as always. I think that Shrek and Ice Age were much better, but that is plotwise. Animationwise, Shrek, along with Toy Story, is the daddy of this kind of animation. I, personally, am looking forward to Ice Age II. Hopefully it will be as good as the first.
Posted by: kelly at March 14, 2005 03:02 PM
blue sky's previous, ice age, was never going to be a highlight in the history of cgi, but it did show that they could play with the established big boys, and produce an entertaining, fun movie.
i quite liked ice age, but then i'm a sucker for the cute innocent baby, which is also why i loved monster's inc. In monsters inc, billy and john seemed to be perfectly cast, with robots, i'm getting more of a sense of shark's tale, whereby big name stars should attract the people to the cinema.
Ihe trailer seemed to be focused on robin william's character a lot, even though he isn't a main character in the actual film?
On the other hand, the fact that he chose this film to star in seems promising (or the influence of an obscene paycheck)
Posted by: psych at March 14, 2005 04:57 PM
There is Ice Age II??? Oh wow...
Jason I think that was very nice of you.
Posted by: Simone at March 14, 2005 06:24 PM
Where's your source for ice age 2?
Posted by: shane addison at April 10, 2005 12:14 AM
Well, I blogged about it at Movieslog... :)
Basically I said the same as you do... :D It's a nice movie, but it has some really week moments when it feels like nothing is happening and also the story is a bit week.
But Robin Williams was great... :)
BTW I think it wasn't even in the same category as Shrek or Ice Age, it was more for kids than those two...