Look at these Pixar posters. What do you notice?
They're colorful, they show the title, they show the characters, in small letters there's the company name. So what? Now look at these Dreamworks posters. What do you see?
They're colorful, there's the characters, there's the company name, and in big letters there's the name of the voice actors. In the Shrek poster the names are bigger than the title.
This tells you something about the priorities of the studio. Pixar places the importance on the story. This is something Disney forgot how to do which is why Disney finally paid Pixar to take over Disney animation. They paid the owner of Pixar to become the majority stockholder in Disney. Pixar IS the star.
Dreamworks places the importance on the actors. Their movies aren't really bad, but they can't compete with Pixar. They need the famous actors as a crutch.
Barry goes on about it. Go read his post at http://www.inktank.com/blogarchive/2005_08_01_archive.html
Be sure to read his now defunct comics at http://www.inktank.com/toon_archives.cfm.
This brings me to my review of "Jerry Seinfeld: The Movie" also featuring Renée Zellweger, Matthew Broderick, Jerry Seinfeld, Patrick Warburton, John Goodman, Chris Rock, Kathy Bates, Jerry Seinfeld, Barry Levinson, Larry King, Ray Liotta, Jerry Seinfeld, Sting, Oprah Winfrey, Megan Mullally, Rip Torn, Michael Richards, Carol Leifer, and Jerry Seinfeld.
The hype behind this movie makes you think they're trying to start a religion, not pitch a movie. Most of the commercials were based around Jerry instead of the movie. Going in you knew that there was a bee that talks to humans and that Jerry Seinfeld was the voice of the bee. Other than that you knew almost nothing. Not even the other voice actors.
"Bee Movie" seems to be an attempt to get back some of the success they had with "A Bug's Life"... er, that was Pixar, I meant "Antz". You remember "Antz", don't you?
A bee is getting ready to enter the working life but can't pick a job. One thing leads to another and he gets the chance to see the outside world. There he discovers that humans are stealing massive quantities of honey from the bees. The bee sues humans and wins. This ruins bee society and endangers the planet as a whole.
The whole thing is amusing, but there's only a few laugh out loud points. It's very colorful.
I seem rather scornful of the movie but it's not as bad as I'm making it. It's a good story about someone trying to find their place in the world. A different director would have made the exact same script funnier where it should be funny and more horrific where it should be horrific. Even the environmental slant is really only visible if you're already aware of it.
It's not worth all the hype they put into it. I won't get it on DVD. But if you really miss "Seinfeld" or have kids then go see it.
In related news, Pixar's "Ratatouille" comes out on DVD today.
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