Some thoughts on why I think this is a near perfect film but one I like but didn't love

Rating: 7/10 (6 June 2009)

The newest Pixar movie is infuriatingly near perfect. Don't get me wrong, its a good movie, but its one of those movies where if you can work out the perfect way the story should go- thats what you'll see. The opening montage of the life of Ed Asner's character with his wife is as damn near a perfect arc of a life as you'll likely to see...and the tears come exactly on cue. through much of the film when you see certain visual images or verbal references, you realize that you'll see them later on. Its a perfectly constructed film, possibly the most perfectly constructed film that Pixar's made, but at the same time it's the most artificial. Pete Docter has fashioned the most perfect of animated, nay, of any films from all of the best stuff in the world and he forgot one key thing, heart and emotion, real heart and deep emotion. Yes I was moved and yes I was carried along, but at the same time I didn't feel completely part of it. I didn't really feel the real emotion. I didn't feel the emotional connection of Wall-e and Eva, I didn't feel the joy of Peter O'Toole's food critic at the end of Ratatouille. the "Claw is our Master" in Toy Story is still better then "look a squirrel". I know I've complained about almost every Pixar feature, but even in the bitching there was real emotion and not manipulated emotion.
I'm annoyed, I wanted to cry at the end, I didn't.
It is one of the best of the Pixar movies, but I liked it I didn't love it.
(And yes while the casting of Christopher Plummer is choice, they shouldn't have made him look like Kirk Douglas unless they were going to use Douglas. I know Douglas has medical problems but, damn it would have been nice to hear him leaping into action.) (and perhaps the one real flaw...too many dogs)