Moral message: "Birds are more important than people."

Rating: 10/10 (20 August 2009)

I went to see this dumb cartoon because everyone said it was awesome and it also opened the film festival in Cannes and so on... The first five minutes were the usual sentimental dead wife attempted character building Nemo-all-over-again Pixar stuff.
I don't mind sentimental, because it's just what they like to do in cartoons. What I do mind is the "South Africa" part of the movie - where they find the villain.
The villain is an explorer who found some bird bones and when the scientific committee accused him of fraud he went to South America and said he would not return until he finds a living specimen. And the old geezer is amazed by this. I am also amazed. Great character! But wait, because Pixar thinks otherwise. By the end of the film this explorer turns out to be the bad guy FOR Exactly THESE SAME REASONS - He gets punished for wanting to bring some dumb bird to a zoo after years of hard work and clean his name.
And why is this bad? Because the bird has some bird kids. So what? They could bring them all in a zoo, examine them, learn more about this mythical specimen. Is this wrong? Well, Pixar says it is.
So instead of getting the moral satisfaction of returning to America after 50 or more years in the gutter, no, he gets thrown off his own zeppelin by a senile guy and an obese kid because of a dumb bird.
Good work, Pixar! 10/10