Falls

Rating: Null/10 (15 June 2009)

Pixar has its first truly Disney project.
It has all the hallmarks of the Pixal manual: it is obsessed with exploring the third dimension and it has an extremely refined engineering of story. It touches on thoroughly conventional family values in a slightly new way. And it has a strangely relevant short that precedes it.
In this case, the three dimensional explorations that Pixar mastered are rendered in visual three D because Disney's corporate strategy requires it. Its a massive shame. That's because of the unintuitive fact that of all the exploration and innovation that Pixar has done has to do with novelties of the projection into a 2-d screen with a frame. The frame , usually constrained by the physics of the camera, has a broader physics in Pixar-land. But to get audiences to "read" the 3D, these extended physics are taken away and what we have is ordinary camera movement and framing.
I may have a different experience when I see this in 2D, but I think not. All the cinematic fun, the adventure of the Pixar spirit, is missing here.
The one thing that is outside the normal Pixar range is the color palette. It much richer here than usual. I think that may have also to do with Disney strategies for dealing with technology threats.
The child here is Asian. That's also a market driven decision.
Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.