Wall-E and Wanted

I went and saw both Wall-E and Wanted over the past few days. (I've been on a regular movie going binge lately! Iron Man, Hulk, Kung Fu Panda and Speed Racer in the past 2 months after having gone to the movies only 3 times last year) The bottom line on both of these movies is...

Meh.

They are by no means bad movies but neither are they as good as they could have been.

Of the two, Wall-E is getting the better reviews from movie goers. Several people have come into the shop and said not only is it the best film that Pixar has ever done, it's the best film this year. To those people I ask, "Did we see the same movie?"

Wall-E is, more often than not, to heavy handed with its "go green" message. I applaud the sentiment but I really don't want to watch an animated version of An Inconvenient Truth. There is no subtlety in the movie. And, honestly, after blatantly ripping off Doc Hollywood with Cars I had a lot of problems watching Short Circuit's Johnny 5 starring as Wall-E. The same goes for H.A.L. as the ships navigator. Yeah, yeah. I know. They are suppose to be "homages". I say that the folks at Pixar are suppose to be more creative than that. I hope Pixar's next, Up, doesn't use Geri as the old guy. (Geri is the old man that has been seen in the Pixar short Geri's Game and as the toy repair guy in Toy Story 2)

I'm not saying that Wall-E was a bad movie. Quite the opposite! It's good. It's just not as great as it's being made out to be.

Wanted also falls into the "could have been great" category. As a fan of the book, I was eager to see the movie. I knew going into it that many of the particulars of the story had been changed and I was fine with that. So long as the overall social commentary was still there I thought it would be ok. And it is there, to some degree. It's just not as blatant as it was in the graphic novel. Which is too bad because while the movie was visually stunning,(And I'm not just talking about Angelina Jolie), it fails to actually say anything. It's ultimately a standard summer action movie, albeit with a little bit of a dark humor edge. Had the filmmakers embraced that dark humor whole heartedly, I think this could have been a really classic action film.

Either of these is a fine choice to see if you are looking for a movie this July 4th weekend but if you haven't already done it, go see The Incredible Hulk over either of them.