Turtles and Wisdom

Rating: Null/10 (15 June 2008)

Dreamworks has finally made a cartoon I can stand. It has finally outgrown the limits of its founders, three men an the attitude of good enough. They've for the first time put more money into one of these than in the promotion of it. They've finally weaned themselves from the contracts with Microsoft.
Three things impressed me. One was the attention to the characters, at least the top three. This really was world class. You can see it both in the writing and in the subtle way their faces are rendered. No expression is direct or static. Every expression fleets through a number of emotions. Its what good actors do, but animators aren't limited by the human instrument, so can make the expression of expressions more theatrical and therefore more effective. They did well here, wisely focusing on mouths and not eyes. (They still do poorly with teeth.)
The third thing was the use of vertical space. They are catching up, and its only notable because it isn't Pixar/Disney. But it means that now even the dullest of animation shops has adopted the rule that when you can, use that third dimension in a way that physical cameras cannot. What they do here is not remarkable compared to what others are doing. But it is remarkable when the fat kid in the class gets interested in aerobics, the laggard thinks being smart is finally cool
This has one well engineered fold. It starts with a highly abstract cartoon. We know it is a cartoon, because it advertises itself this way. Then we are told it was only a dream, essentially the movie within the movie. This is at the same time the real cartoon starts, but we register it as reality. Its a good trick.
Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.