A subjective objection

Rating: Null/10 (18 July 2003)

By any kind of objective standards, this is a great movie. It takes the live action/ animation combination to a new level, and does so with genuine hard work, rather than clever trickery.
In the first place, the animation was done by cartoonists who drew each frame by hand, just like in the old days. Furthermore, they worked without the benefit of the artificial restraints that are customarily placed on live-action footage to make the combination easier (for example, no camera movement of any kind in any shot that's going to include animated figures).
And there was hard work on the part of the actors too, all of whom were trained in mime, so that they could create a convincing illusion of picking up and throwing around cartoon object and animals that had some weight to them. The actors also took great pains with such matters as maintaining convincing eye contact with the animated characters, and being sure never to forget they were in the scene.
Furthermore, the movie had a fully-developed plot and three-dimensional characters. (Well, you know what I mean.) It would have been very easy to get caught up in technique and forget all the other elements that make a movie complete.
Alas, however, speaking from a purely subjective viewpoint, I didn't like this movie. Why? Because cartoons were a happy part of my childhood, and I hated to see these cartoon characters stripped of their innocence.
Let me qualify this, however, by saying that it wouldn't have bothered me in a movie that was supposed to be disturbing. For example, I found the twisted cartoon images in the `It's a Good Life' sequence from THE TWILIGHT ZONE MOVIE quite effective. But when this corruption is used as a vehicle for comedy, it leaves me feeling like somebody dumped mud all over something I hold dear.