As a long time Pixar and animation fan in my late thirties and with two kids under the age of ten I was keen to go and see the latest offering from these legends of storytelling. After the movie, as I left, I reflected on the last two hours in the cinema and found the most satisfying experience for me was the short film that came before the main feature, Night And Day.
I wanted to like the film, I really did, but in the end it wasn't satisfying and actually left me with a rather disconcerting feeling-not an experience I would like to have after seeing a film with my two kids. Not to give away the ending, but the story structure as a whole was ok. It affected me emotionally in the right ways, particularly the penultimate dramatic moment in the trash compactor scene.
What threw me was Pixar's reliance on the creepy factor. There are at least two characters in the film that are just plain creepy; one a money (yes I know Pixar staff's love for monkeys) and a baby doll. Another character was a lovable character turned bad who in the end could not redeem himself despite being given every reason to do so. To me, that is not the kind of message I want to send to my kids, this is not The Sopranos we are talking about.
And yes I know enough about Pixar to realise they make movies for themselves and don't start out making movies for kids. I guess I knew what that meant a few years ago. But over the last few films the creep factor has increased and there a certain level of innocence has been lost.
In the end it was the presence of Miyazaki's icon of innocence, Totoro (from his film My Neighbor Totoro) in Toy Story 3, which reminded me that you don't need to make kids films that sensationalise the loss of innocence to make a film great, especially not one that kids will come to see.
