Monsters Inc. was the fourth feature film to be released by animation giant Pixar. A critical and commercial success, it has taken over 10 years for the follow-up to be released in the form of a prequel Monsters University. Reuniting the original cast along with newcomer Dan Scanlon as director it is the fourteenth film released by Pixar. … [Read more...]
Monsters, Inc. (2001) review by The Documentalist
The fourth feature from Pixar marked the second departure from the Toy Story franchise and the first time that John Lasseter had relinquished the director's chair. Despite having the biggest budget to date for Pixar, Monsters, Inc. was another huge commercial success proving once again that the kings of animation were not a one trick pony and paving the way for more unique … [Read more...]
Brave (2012) review by That Film Guy
Following on from the commercially successful, but critically derided Cars 2, animation house Pixar have created another original film entitled Brave. Wanting to create even more ground-breaking graphic design, Pixar stripped away their old animation software and built it anew for the first time in 25 years and Brave stands as the first film to use the Dolby Atmos sound format. … [Read more...]
Review: Toy Story 3 (2010)
When Pixar launched their first feature length animated film, Toy Story in 1995 they introduced the world to set of full-realised toy characters, loosely based on their award-winning short, Tin Toy After the original was heralded with critical praise and a very successful run at the box office, the decision was made to release a sequel in 1999. Cleverly titled Toy Story 2, the … [Read more...]
Review: WALL·E (2008)
It is suggested that WALL·E, Pixar's 9th feature film, was developed from an idea by writer Andrew Stanton that was mentioned during the post-Toy Story brain-storming session between him and John Lasseter. Pitched as a Robinson Crusoe style story of loneliness and isolation, but set on an evacuated Earth bears more than a passing similarity to Doug Trumball's now iconic Silent … [Read more...]
Review: Ratatouille (2007)
As part of Pixar's move away from the early childish topics for their films, their 8th feature, Ratatouille, focused on the broad topics of ˜family vs. career' and the need to improve, move forward and change. The budget for the film was $150m, which showed an increase in production costs necessary to improve the computer animation and it took over $620m at the box office. … [Read more...]
Review: Up (2009)
Up was something of a landmark movie for Pixar “ it marked the studio's 10th feature film, was the first animated movie to open the Cannes film festival and was the studio's first film to be presented in 3D (but try not to hold that against it). Directed by Pete Docter, his second time in the director's chair, after Monsters, Inc., it was also a huge commercial success grossing … [Read more...]
Review: Cars (2006)
The John Lasseter-directed Cars is the seventh feature film created and released by Pixar. Following on from the huge box office successes of Finding Nemo and The Incredibles, Cars took a respectable $461m from a budget of $120m. Inspired by a road trip taken by Lasseter and his family in 2000, Cars is the last Pixar film to star the voice talent of Joe Ranft who tragically … [Read more...]
Review: The Incredibles (2004)
Pixar's sixth feature film release, The Incredibles, looked to repackage the super-hero and crime-thriller genres into a family friendly offering. Riding high on the exceptional success, commercially and critically, of Finding Nemo, Pixar were obviously hoping that along with their own family fan base, they could engage the superhero demographic and have another monster hit on … [Read more...]
Review: Finding Nemo (2003)
Finding Nemo is the fifth feature film created and released by Pixar in association with Disney Studios. It is the first Pixar film not to be directed by John Lasseter, with Andrew Stanton taking over the helm as well as writing it. Like all Pixar films, the cast and crew researched the topic of Finding Nemo in great depth, including learning to scuba dive so as to better … [Read more...]