Much to admire

Rating: 7/10 (19 March 2008)

This is a movie especially for boys. As a kid, it's just fine to have friends your own age, but younger kids know that hanging out with cooler, older teens is what you really want. The last thing my teen brother wanted was a kid pestering him. But I did have an older cousin who hung around with me one summer. That was a great summer. Here Dean McCoppin (Harry Connick Jr) is the human friend that hangs out with adolescent Hogarth, much as Connick did in Little Man Tate. Already that's a fine idea for a movie. As in other Brad Bird movies, the value of friendship is the whole show here. I'm completely open to that message. But bigger than any big brother, is the 100 foot tall Robot. Before there was Michael Bay's Transformers, there was this giant, retro, CGI robot. The giant is a simple soul who is perfectly sweet until hidden wires are tripped. The giant doesn't even learn why he does it, much as in human personalities. To say any more would be to crush this movies slight story.
When I first saw this, I liked a lot of it but had some minor qualms about the ending. I really wish there was a moratorium on bombs launched in the final ten minutes of a movie (for the next 20 years). Fresh endings would then have to be devised. I really wanted this imaginative movie to also be as clever in it's major conflict and resolution as it had been everywhere else. I still like it, but it seems like the middle is lacking stronger scenes. As it turns out, scenes were cut from the film. I thought I'd never say this about a film, but it really craves a one minute montage showing some silly moments where the robot-Hogarth friendship intensifies.
The smooth-moving CGI robot is inserted into more typical animation. Animators know that any object without a hard outline is difficult to animate conventionally, and so they take advantage of the CGI to make the giant's eyes two big hazy, expressive floodlights. All the voice talent provides good work, which results in the closest I've seen to acting in an animated movie. But even the largely silent giant has very nicely-observed behavior that contributes to his character. Disney's much more conventional attempts to get 2-D characters to act have been downright awful and d.o.a. (Hunchback, Pochahontas). The "be whoever you want to be" message here, while a cliché, is such a soft-sell that a single word ("Superman...") at a pivotal moment, may make your eyes well up. It's really nice to see an animated movie that hasn't been overcapitalized and upsold like Disney's cynical 90-minute product launches; and one without their self-inflated need for instant classics; an urge that neuters any decision that might result in a unique or creative moment. This movie also spares audiences the obnoxious post-Genie hyperactivity and movie-ruining--freneticism that has made other Disney movies after Aladdin obnoxious and desperate (Hercules, Tarzan). I'm not a big fan of Bird's Disney work, though Monsters Inc (friendship again!) was very nice.
I'm glad I re-rented this.