By Steven Zeitchik
Of all the notable things at a whirlwind few days spent at Comic-Con-- even more notable than the Star Troopers giving out free hugs -- was just how widely divergent the film fare on offer was.
There was plenty of live-blogging and tidbits from the many THR staffers at Comic-con -- you can catch all of it here -- but the two biggest Con-ish hits of this summer came from Warners ("Dark Knight") and Pixar ("Wall-E"), so we thought we'd take a look at what the two studios unveiled this year down San Diego way. (A third '08 biggie, Marvel, which rang up cherries across with "Iron Man" last year, didn't present because it doesn't have an '09 movie.)
As it turns out, both Warners and Pixar sought to make big splashes, but we're going to have to call it a split decision -- Pixar's "Up" deserves a thumb in the same direction, while Warners' "Terminator Salvation" could have used a little help from someone, anyone, even Skynet cyborgs. If only someone from the future had visited the planning meeting.
The action pic, a prequel which looks at the robot wars circa 2018 instead of a decade later, has always seemed a bit like a chancy bet, a reboot on a franchise that has only barely begun to power down. Saturday's presentation didn't do enough to dispel the doubts. Director McG gave it his grating best, with a call to a Japanside Christian Bale and an attempt to stir the crowd into dueling chants (and the most interesting bit of the whole panel, a little hint that Arnold may make a cameo).
But he also spent a lot of time talking about the variances between the T600, the T800 and the model in this movie as though the suit was the atomic bomb and McG was Robert Oppenheimer. And the footage itself, while loud and slick, had few things to distinguish itself from so many other action movies. Basically it looked like explosions and men in robot suits. Of course it's hard to get the mythology and narrative surprises into a panel of screaming fans. But here's hoping a trip to see Mcg's movie in the theater doesn't make us want to go back in time to catch the original.
Next came "Up," which couldn't have had a more different feel -- a unique film and effective presentation that showed how Pixar increasingly is less an animated studio than a studio making sophisticated adult fare that just happens to be animated. "Ratatouille" may have elevated the creativity by taking on adult themes like the subjectivity of taste, and "Wall-E" may have delighted critics because of its sweeping social commentary. But "Up," Pete Docter's film about a septuagenarian widower who ties balloons to his home to float away to a lost Venezuelan city instead of heading meekly to an old-age home, looks even stronger because it doesn't rely on themes to provide its adult shape. It simply functions like a finely-textured, whimsical take on one man's life, layering on melancholy in a manner pretty atypical to a studio animated feature (it actually has more in common with indie darlings like "Triplets of Belleville" and this fall's "Waltz with Bashir").
Docter, who helmed previous Pixar entry "Monsters, Inc." said he wanted to move away from established animated conventions -- the film, after all, does have a geriatric main character. "Our hope is we keep you guessing...(so) you don't know where we going," he said.
Less critically beloved on the Disney side likely will be "Bolt"--the movie about a cartoon dog who has lived his whole life as the star of a superhero show and so now believes he has powers in real life.
The show-within-a-movie came off as terrifically convincing, action scenes as tense and lifelike as "The Incredibles." Beyond those early moments, though, was the actual movie, and it was conventional, uninspiring stuff: animals leaving the nest to discover who they really are, wisecracking hamster sidekicks who of course give the protagonist animal a reason _to really believe_ in himself. Woof.
