It was just a wonderful film, one of the best animated films in awhile. Loved the story, the humor, and the mix of animation styles. It was both extremely funny and very emotionally real and was filled with nice twists.
But was it a dog, a pig, or a loaf of bread?
I think I laughed harder at this than any comedy in recent memory. When I saw the trailer, and the kid crossing off names in the phone book—I knew this was going to be good and it didn’t disappoint.
Wonderful film! It had more than the normal share of plot holes, even for a kids’ film, but “extremely funny and very emotionally real” is apt.
I enjoyed the mix of CG, flat drawings, and “real” photos/video. The story I concider mid-level Pixar quality. (Not an insult.)
It was fine, I guess. I laughed at bits of it.
But I really feel like I’m ageing out of these kinds of films now. It was way too frenetic, I found it visually exhausting. The convenient plot turns felt very deliberate and artificial instead of organic. The characters were just annoying as much as they were funny.
I want to come away from a family adventure film feeling happy and fulfilled, but instead I felt dizzy and irritated. This is the signature style of Lord-and-Miller films now, and I think I have to accept I’m not their audience.
I’m partially with @GuanoLad. I thought it was fine, I thought some bits were really funny. I didn’t find it irritatingly frenetic, but I didn’t like the mix of animation styles. I think I’m also not the target audience, since I can’t stand the kind of weird-for-the-sake-of-weird surrealist videos the movie was referencing. And I agree, a lot of the plot elements seemed artificial and deliberate.
I watched this last night, and while the first 15 minutes had me a little teary-eyed, that was the only big emotional beat for me. I was getting a little bored during the last third of the movie. Someone on a letterboxd review says that this film has a ton of old-school film references, which I totally missed, so I’d like to see a list.
I actually really loved the visual style with all of the doodles (I freakin’ loved Spiderverse for this - but I’ve seen it done so frenetically in Promare where I thought it ruined the movie, so I’m not always for it). I am really glad people are trying to experiment a little more with animation instead of getting stuck in weird, terrible-looking CGI world. Katie looks like half of my students, so they got that part right.
My boyfriend loved it and was losing his mind over it, but he also had a practical dad that didn’t want him to go to art school, so I think he was over-identifying hard. He said it was the first time he had seen “meme” humor in a major animated film, but I agree that style of meme already seems dated to me. The internet churns through fads in a blink.
My wife and I both really enjoyed it, particularly Monchi, and laughed out loud quite a few times. The message/moral is definitely not subtle and the plot, as mentioned, much too convenient for my taste, even considering this is an animated family movie. But I was easily able to put those issues aside and go with the ride, because it was fun and funny. Not a perfect film, but well worth a watch for some good laughs.
I think that’s function of the way people watch movies today. They often watch them over and over, so they’re designed to be chock full of things you might get past you on first viewing but which will be new to you if you see it again.
For instance, I hadn’t realized that Katie was gay. It’s established with a single line that was easy to miss and has no importance in the plot. I’m sure if I watched it again, I’d see other things that went by too fast the first time.
I wish I could find/remember the line about “who knew that letting an unregulated monopoly use our data to build an AI was a bad idea”. A lot of the humor was definitely over kids’ heads.
Definitely. When the first couple of robots landed, one of them assumed the pose of Arnold Schwarzenegger at the beginning of Terminator 2 and I’m sure the film was full of such references. (Much easier to insert such stuff in an animated film.)
Mark comes from Zuckerberg, and Bowman comes from 2001.
Enjoyed it, though the Achilles’ Heel of the machines was pushing it. Least believable thing - that the car was in good enough shape to drive to Washington at the end.
“The resale value of this car is going to be nil” - WC Fields in “The Bank Dick.”
I loved it and so did my son(age 10).
When the Dad types “dot” for .com, my son rolled on the floor laughing. It was amazing watching him try to use a computer. “The lavender one has found us!” was great, too.
Honestly, a solid movie all the way through.
And I thought Lego Movie 2 was a massive letdown and only somewhat enjoyed the Spider-Man movie these people made. This was as good as Lego Movie 1.
Loved it, best 2021 release I’ve seen so far.