April of the Apes: Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973)

Even if it weren’t the end of a franchise, Battle for the Planet of the Apes would be a strange beast. It’s a post-apocalyptic fable that seeks both to foreshadow an apocalypse to come and to assure the audience that the future is brighter than we think. That tension, between the planet of the apes to come and the planet the apes hope to create, gets brushed away in favor of a shoot-’em-up finale against uninspiring adversaries.

Battle picks up after the talking chimpanzee Caesar (Roddy McDowall) has successfully led apes to revolt against humankind, which has largely destroyed itself in an ensuing nuclear war. In search of guidance, Caesar follows the human MacDonald (Austin Stoker) and the orangutan philosopher Virgil (Paul Williams) into the ruins of the Forbidden City, where a recording of his parents exists. While the gorilla General Aldo (Claude Akins) foments unrest in Caesar’s absence, the ape king and his allies discover a band of irradiated humans living underground, led by Caesar’s old nemesis Kolp (Severn Darden).

 

I’ve said throughout this “April of the Apes” (and I hate to belabor the point) that the franchise is supposed to be a closed-loop time travel story, but Battle seems to hope that this inevitability won’t be the case. Virgil opines that the apes are blind travelers down a timestream with many paths, with no guarantee that the future will repeat itself this time around. Similarly, a framing sequence involving the Lawgiver (played by John Huston, who is quite plainly slumming it) rejects the ape supremacy of Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, positing instead a utopia in which the children of man and ape may commune in peace. Yet despite the film’s trajectory toward a happy ending – and not the dystopia Dr. Zaius invoked – Battle (and by extension the entire franchise) ends with a statue of Caesar, weeping. Is the future written, or can we change our destiny? The film isn’t saying, yet it hopes to have it both ways.

 

It might seem unfair to expect this franchise to take a stance on weighty philosophical issues, but let’s not forget Rod Serling was at the helm of the first (and still best) film. This sort of sci-fi fable was exactly in his wheelhouse, and I can’t help but feel Serling would have embraced the dysfunction of dystopia, discomfiting though it might have been for audiences. Indeed, Battle is practically a cop-out in the name of happily-ever-after, still attempting nonetheless to sneak a bite of its dystopian cake. Battle is confused about what it wants to be, beyond being an excuse to trot out those impressive simian special effects one last time.

 

Make no mistake, those effects still hold up (though some of the ape voices seem more muffled this time around; perhaps the bean-counters skimped on the ADR sessions). McDowall continues to do masterful work under all those prosthetics, twitching and stooping his way to a very engaging protagonist. As Virgil, the apparent antecedent to Dr. Zaius, Paul Williams is fascinating, proving that vocal color is one of the keys to a good ape performance; fans of the blog may recall his impeccable turn as The Penguin on Batman: The Animated Series, and his film debut here is just as fun listening as his fowl fiendish felon. And as the film’s ape antagonist, Claude Akins is suitably gruff in the role of General Aldo, reminiscent of General Ursus from Beneath the Planet of the Apes but with a more revolutionary bent that makes him a fitting adversary for Caesar. The film’s chilling finale, in which the apes discover the violation of their central tenet – “ape shall never kill ape” – is grounds enough for an impressive franchise finale, with the assembled apes murmuring, “Ape has killed ape, ape has killed ape” over and over.

 

If the film had only focused on Aldo, it would have made for a very fascinating examination of ape society on the cusp of change. Aldo’s militant anti-human position puts him at compelling loggerheads with Caesar, and the political/military jousting therein is among the film’s best features. However, the film spends too much time on the human villains, who are creatively lifeless and without motivation beyond run-of-the-mill mustache twirling. As excited as a continuity wonk like myself ought to be at seeing Kolp, of all characters, return, Severn Darden’s performance isn’t exactly animated, and it’s very hard to be threatened by a militia that rides into battle in a dirty school bus. Mad Max: Fury Road, this isn’t. (But how much better might that George Miller film have been if Tom Hardy played an ape? Sound off in the comments: what movies would improve if they starred apes?)

 

Just about the only good reason to include the underground humans comes in the film’s extended edition. Where the unrated cut of Conquest completely changed that film’s ending – and, I’d argue, the tenor of the entire franchise – the extended cut of Battle only embellishes here and there, but it does close the loop on one of the most baffling elements of the Apes series. You may recall the psychic bomb-worshipping mutants from Beneath the Planet of the Apes, and Battle explains how that death cult came to be, introducing the first Mendez (Beneath featured Mendez XXVI). This restored scene provides little more than a frisson of continuity, but I suppose it’s enough to justify this subplot’s existence. I’ve never felt that the mutants fit into the Apes cosmology, but Battle makes an effort to integrate them more deliberately, tying them more organically into the rise of the apes.

 

Despite concluding on a battlefield, Battle is more than a bit boring. Its visual spectacle is a bit of a letdown after the more visceral ape riot of Conquest, and its plot never quite goes anywhere. For all the magnificent ape characters in the film, it’s not unwatchable, but nor would I say it’s highly rewatchable. It is, I might argue, the Godfather III of the series, essential only as an epilogue after the franchise has long since said its piece. Perhaps it is better to remember Caesar for his thousand-yard stare, gazing over the ape insurgence of Conquest, much like Michael Corleone watching Lake Tahoe eddy before him when all his enemies are defeated; apes and mobsters alike do not age well. Put another way, this is a Battle that need not have been fought, and it is hard to imagine anyone winning.

 

Battle for the Planet of the Apes is rated G. Directed by J. Lee Thompson. Written by Paul Dehn, John William Corrington, and Joyce Hooper Corrington. Starring Roddy McDowall, Claude Akins, Natalie Trundy, Severn Darden, Lew Ayres, Paul Williams, and John Huston.

April of the Apes: Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971)

After a disappointing outing that dared to venture Beneath the Planet of the Apes – to say nothing of the sequel-proof ending to that film – the Apes franchise manages to strike silver, if not outright gold, with Escape from the Planet of the Apes. It might be the second-best of the franchise, at once advancing the narrative while self-reflexively examining its central conceits about human nature and destiny.

When Colonel Taylor’s spaceship washes up in 1973, the world is stunned to see three apes emerge from the craft. Cornelius (Roddy McDowall), Zira (Kim Hunter), and Dr. Milo (Sal Mineo) convince the astonished Dr. Lewis Dixon (Bradford Dillman) that they come from the distant future, but Dr. Otto Hasslein (Eric Braeden) fears that the apes have come to bring about that same dystopian future. Dr. Hasslein’s theories are all the more troubling given the ticking clock of Zira’s pregnancy. Will her baby be the future of man’s relation to ape, or will that infant ape bring about the ruin of human civilization?

 

Make no mistake, Escape from the Planet of the Apes is bonkers. Three talking apes step out of a spacecraft and into a groovy fish-out-of-water farce with all of the unmistakable window dressing of the 1970s. Despite Taylor’s perpetual disbelief in the original film, the rest of the world seems to take to the apes rather well, all things considered. This angle allows the film to focus less on the fact of the apes than on their significance; as humanity oohs and ahhs over the ooh-ooh ahh-ahh crowd, we get to see humanity’s absurdity reflected back at them. Cornelius observes a human boxing match and its attendant throng of exuberant spectators. “Beastly!” he murmurs to himself.

 

The real fun of Escape is watching Roddy McDowall and Kim Hunter perfect their ape schtick, with the film’s full attention this time. (As Dr. Milo, Sal Mineo’s performance is punishingly brief, and it’s a frustrating tease to read production notes that describe him as the ape Leonardo da Vinci.) As a pair, the two are surprisingly touching, doting and romantic as the best screen couples can be. Despite the unusual make-up effects, these performers are so graceful and deft that one almost forgets we’re not watching talented chimpanzees at play. Indeed, I couldn’t help but wonder whether Cornelius could have had a long career appearing as, say, Hamlet or Willy Loman, with Zira doing the talk show circuit. The franchise’s greatest strength remains, then, the ability of its very talented ape performers to sell a ludicrous concept with limited makeup effects. (The Serkis trilogy, meanwhile, similarly succeeded best when it allowed us to forget that those apes were the product of pixels and computer code.)

 

Though Rod Serling had nothing to do with this film, you can’t help but feel his brand of cynical allegory at work. I’m reminded especially of an episode of The Twilight Zone, “The Gift,” in which a messianic alien is met with fear and hostility until the humans kill him and destroy the gift he brings – not black magic or a dangerous weapon, but a cure for cancer. In much the same way, our pacifist apes are greeted with suspicion from the moment of their arrival. It’s great fun to watch Zira in particular flip the script on the scientists who suppose her to be mute and mindless, while the humans never quite realize they are the butt of Cornelius’s droll observations. In this satirical vein, as in the montage where human fashion has never looked more preposterous than on a chimp, Escape strikes all the right notes when it comes to dark humor. 

 

Escape is also a grimly successful satire when it comes to the subject of American politics and the corrupting influence of power. On the one hand, you have William Windom as a willfully ineffectual President, slave to an upcoming election and his own refusal to take a stance on the ape issue. He delegates his rational mind to the will of a committee, agreeing to be their puppet in exchange for taking no responsibility. (He’s almost a Randian caricature of a politician, a surprising polar opposite to contemporary portrayals of then-sitting President Richard Nixon.) His counterpart Dr. Hasslein, who takes advantage of his committee seat to wield undue power in the Oval Office. Though Braeden reportedly did not care for this role, dubbing it stereotypical, Hasslein is the classic science-fiction archetype of a power-hungry philosopher, dictating military policy in judging the fate of the apes. 

 

In fact, though Escape is a suitable title given the film’s opening, Fate of the Planet of the Apes might have been equally apt. While the apes are attempting to escape the fate of their planet, the humans are likewise afraid that their fate will be that of the apes. Similarly, the film poses the question of whether this is a closed-loop time travel story, whether the future can be changed, or whether – as Ricardo Montalbán postulates in a memorable cameo – all this is in fact decided by the will of God. It’s heady stuff, the kind of intense sci-fi subject matter that made the original film such a watchable experience. Though dolled up in the trappings of the 1970s – and make no mistake, this film lacks only a disco dance montage – Escape is a worthy successor to the franchise, and it’s intriguing for once to see an Apes film with a clear-cut tease for a sequel. Who knew the word “mama” could be so potent?

 

Escape from the Planet of the Apes is rated G. Directed by Don Taylor. Written by Paul Dehn. Starring Roddy McDowall, Kim Hunter, Bradford Dillman, Natalie Trundy, Eric Braeden, Sal Mineo, and Ricardo Montalbán.

April of the Apes: Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970)

I mentioned last week that Planet of the Apes felt like a spiritual successor to the Universal Classic Monsters, with prodigious makeup effects and a weighty morality fable. Imagine my surprise, then, to cue up Beneath the Planet of the Apes and find the film begins with a five-minute recap, reairing the least forgettable moment of the original film – the ending. The recap reel was a feature in too many of the Universal Monsters features to count, and that feeling of déjà vu persists into the film itself, which repeats so much of what we have already seen; as Pink Floyd once said, isn’t this where we came in?

Beneath the Planet of the Apes picks up moments after Taylor (Charlton Heston) and Nova (Linda Harrison) make their fateful discovery in the Forbidden Zone. Just as Taylor disappears, a second spacecraft lands, bringing astronaut Brent (James Franciscus) to the planet of the apes. While Brent sets off in search of Taylor, aided by the chimpanzee scientists Cornelius and Zira (David Watson, Kim Hunter), Dr. Zaius (Maurice Evans) and General Ursus (James Gregory) mount an expedition into the Forbidden Zone in search of food. What they find in the Forbidden Zone, though, is worse than starvation – a horrible reminder of what created this planet in the first place.

 

Devising a sequel to Planet of the Apes would have been an unwelcome challenge for nearly anyone. Rod Serling and original novelist Pierre Boulle both took a stab at it, their pitches ultimately rejected by the studio. (Serling made several pitches, some involving a second crew of astronauts and a second time/space voyage for Taylor, while Boulle wrote a screenplay called Planet of the Men, in which Taylor led an uprising of humans against the apes.) Equally challenging was Charlton Heston’s disinterest in doing a sequel and the story limitations he required for his participation (prefiguring, in a way, Harrison Ford’s love/hate relationship with reprising his role as Han Solo on three separate occasions). One senses, then, the herculean task of extending the Ape Saga, and the forces who bring us Beneath do not appear to have risen to the undertaking.

 

Beneath the Planet of the Apes was, after the Star Wars films, among the first sequels I ever saw, and it taught me a valuable lesson – sequels are almost never as good as the original. (More shared territory, it seems, from Monster March.) I said last week that there was nothing about Planet of the Apes that demanded a sequel, especially given the film’s game-changer ending that makes the final statement on the planet. Planet of the Apes was a totality, tied in a bow by its Rod Serling ending; it had much in common with an extended episode of The Twilight Zone, and I can think of very few Twilight Zone episodes that would have been much improved by a sequel.

 

Still, there was room to grow. There was the looming question of what would happen to Zira and Cornelius once Dr. Zaius returned to Ape City, though disappointingly the film never quite explores that. Instead, it’s monkey business as usual, and there’s no mention of the trio’s experience in the Forbidden Zone (which is, perhaps, how Dr. Zaius would want things, anyway). Unfortunately for Beneath, Zira and Cornelius are shunted to the side rather quickly. With McDowall away directing his own film, the brief recasting of Cornelius is distracting, especially given the inclusion of recap footage featuring McDowall, and David Watson, though competent, lacks the vocal color McDowall brought to Cornelius. However, we welcome seeing Zira, who becomes a kind of franchise den mother, but she’s given nothing much to do besides perform cursory assistance to newcomer Brent.

 

When it comes to the subject of Brent, he is lamentably little more than a bargain basement version of Taylor – a fair-haired bearded human who comes from the stars and is mystified by the planet he’s discovered. After losing his crew, he meets up with Nova, journeys to Ape City, befriends our chimpanzee scientists, and makes his way into the Forbidden Zone, where he learns the dark secret of the planet of the apes. It reads familiar because it is familiar: it is exactly the journey Taylor undergoes in Planet of the Apes, but James Franciscus lacks the screen presence of Charlton Heston, to say nothing of how unengaging it is to see a new protagonist tread the same boards one more time.

 

Beneath the Planet of the Apes is not exactly a remake, though, for it adds something substantially new to the franchise. I’m not speaking merely of the gorilla General Ursus, who is an intriguing foil for Dr. Zaius and for the humans (“The only good human,” he growls, “is a dead human!”). Ursus is good hammy fun, and I do wish we’d seen more of him in the franchise beyond this one film. But I’m speaking particularly of the answer to the question posited by the film’s title – what really is beneath the planet of the apes? The answer is a gang of mutated humans with psychic powers, grotesque scarring, and a church of death which worships the last atomic bomb in existence. I have never liked these characters, and I still feel they’re out of place in this franchise. For one, the morality fable is even more on the nose with their inclusion; yes, we know atomic weaponry is no good, very bad, don’t do. This allegorical unsubtlety, coupled with the low-budget sci-fi makeup and set decorations, would seem to belong more properly to something like the original Star Trek series. Moreover, every moment we spend with the mutants is a moment we don’t get to spend with the apes, and that’s a criminal offense in my book. 

 

Planet of the Apes is ultimately a franchise that zags when you think it will zig – not because the story merits a zag but often because the zag is more cost-effective and will extend the life of the franchise into a strange new direction. I promised not to spoil the ending of the first Planet, and I certainly won’t give away the ending to Beneath, which almost feels like a sporting challenge to the writers of any possible third film. “Let’s see you get out of this one!” scripter Paul Dehn seems to say. It’s an anti-cliffhanger from which there seems to be no escape, and yet a scant year later, we would see exactly that – an Escape from the Planet of the Apes, scavenged from the literal detritus of the preceding two films.

 

Beneath the Planet of the Apes is rated G. Directed by Ted Post. Written by Paul Dehn and Mort Abrahams. Starring James Franciscus, Kim Hunter, Maurice Evans, Linda Harrison, James Gregory, David Watson, and Charlton Heston.

April of the Apes: Planet of the Apes (1968)

I can’t believe it took me five years and a Blu-Ray box set to remember that Planet of the Apes is one of my all-time favorite movies. Maybe it’s just that I’ve been spending more time of late with my Cinema King crown atop my regal head, but when I assembled The Personal Canon in 2016, I left Apes off the list. A year later, I reviewed War for the Planet of the Apes, the third/final in the Andy Serkis trilogy, but still the original Apes skipped my mind. Well, no more – one of the reasons we’re doing “April of the Apes” is to remind me how much I love Planet of the Apes.

George Taylor (Charlton Heston) leads a deep-space exploration that loses its way during two thousand years of cryosleep, stranding Taylor and his comrades (Robert Gunner, Jeff Burton) on a distant world with no way to communicate with their home. To their horror, the astronauts discover that they have landed on a planet where evolution seems to have run in reverse – humans are little better than mute domesticated animals, while apes have mastered civilization. Betrothed chimpanzee scientists Zira and Cornelius (Kim Hunter, Roddy McDowall) are fascinated by Taylor, but the orangutan Dr. Zaius (Maurice Evans) fears that the astronaut’s arrival will be the undoing of ape society.

 

For a movie that is more than 50 years old (I know, right?), Planet of the Apes has a surprisingly modern pace that keeps the movie clipping along briskly. At just shy of two hours, it’s also delightfully well-balanced, with the first ape appearing 30 minutes in; at sixty minutes, the plot turns when the apes discover that Taylor can talk. The final quarter of the film takes an even stranger turn as ape allies with human to investigate the Forbidden Zone – it’s a very methodical and deliberate construction, deploying the underrated four-act structure to craft a narrative that hums like an engine.

 

Though his script was largely rewritten, one senses the steady hand of Rod Serling in the tight plotting, punchy rhythm, and (naturally) the shocking final frames of the film. That ending, which has probably saturated into cultural osmosis by this point, is the sort of tragic allegory that made Serling’s Twilight Zone a television masterpiece. Little of Serling’s dialogue persisted into the finished film, though the bits that remain smack of his brand of cautionary cynicism – as when Taylor opines to his fellow space voyagers, “I’m a seeker, too. But my dreams aren’t like yours. I can’t help thinking that somewhere in the universe there has to be something better than man. Has to be.” Indeed, one almost expects, as the film zooms out from its final tableau, to see Rod Serling standing just out of sight, fingers perched around a smoldering cigarette as he delivers an equally incendiary soliloquy about what man (to borrow a phrase from Serling’s best teleplay, “Time Enough at Last”) has deeded to himself.

 

No one does outrage on the edge of madness like Charlton Heston, and so he’s a perfect audience surrogate for a film that turns the world topsy-turvy as Planet of the Apes does. I’d forgotten how fallible, how cynical Taylor is in this film, even before he falls headlong into the monkey madhouse, but Taylor is that late 60s archetype of the disillusioned older generation, suspicious of the future but guardedly optimistic about his own ability to thrive. His colonial impulses and self-aggrandizement are slowly stripped away throughout the film, and he becomes the hero not because of any traits he possesses – but because he’s the best we have, and he refuses to acquiesce, the reluctant hero whose hesitation is only overridden by his own self-preservation. He comes not as a savior but as a seeker of truth, which is perhaps the higher calling. (Twelve years earlier, Heston had played Moses in the Easter classic The Ten Commandments, though Taylor is a far cry from the divine inspiration of a leader of men.)

 

Of course, no Planet would be complete without its apes, and even though the make-up lacks the technical precision of the 2001 remake or the photorealism of the Serkis trilogy’s CGI effects, there is something very charming about the ape prosthetics as designed by John Chambers. Having just spent a month going through the Universal Classic Monsters franchise and all those lurid make-up effects, jumping into Planet of the Apes almost feels natural. Chambers creates an illusion that never looks phony – hokey, perhaps, compared to its successors, but the film proceeds with such level-headed sincerity that there’s scarcely a chance to question the simian verisimilitude.

Inside of the film’s larger allegory, there’s a sub-allegory about ape society, with the gorillas serving as the ape army, chimpanzees as their workers and scientists, and orangutans as the theocratic governing body. The slippery blur between religion, science, and government feels like another Twilight Zone parable, and nowhere is that tension more acutely rendered than in the character of Dr. Zaius, played brilliantly by Maurice Evans. One of the all-time great screen villains, Dr. Zaius is the venal and desperate orangutan deputy who knows better than any other ape how precariously their society sits atop a mountain of lies, and so his increasing anxiety motivates his every action as he strives to keep Taylor from dismantling his house of cards – not just out of some philosophical drive for truth but also, one senses, out of the escalating spite that exists between the two enemies. Dr. Zaius is so beautifully characterized, his motivations so deftly clear, that he makes a fitting rival for both Taylor and for the very idea of the good; his final scene and his fateful decision therein remind us that there is nothing more dangerous than an authoritarian afraid of losing his power. Put another way, when one man – or ape – controls multiple institutions, those selfsame institutions lose their epistemological power.

 

Let’s not forget Roddy McDowall and Kim Hunter as Cornelius and Zira, on whom the unlikely franchise would eventually be built. McDowall especially does a fine job emoting behind his heavy prosthetics, his snout twitching whenever he’s irritated – which is, to be fair, quite often in this film. McDowall would go on to appear in four of the five Apes films (Cornelius was briefly recast while McDowall was away directing his own film), but I was struck by how human Kim Hunter manages to be as Zira, arguably the deuteragonist of the film. Though her fiancé has been beaten down by Dr. Zaius and his refusal to endorse true science, Zira remains open-minded in her pursuit of the truth, captive only to her fascination with Taylor, whom she dubs “Bright Eyes” when she realizes there’s something special about this human. That instinctive and irrepressible curiosity – even more than Taylor’s brutish cynicism – is as compelling a portrait of humanity as anything the film offers.

 

The film’s final statement on humanity is, however, something I can’t spoil here. On the off chance that someone in fifty-three years hasn’t seen the ending or one of its myriad riffs in pop culture, I’ll simply say that it fulfills Aristotle’s definition of an ending – it is both surprising and inevitable, and it is to the film’s great strength that it’s not a mere “twist.” It is the natural conclusion to a dynamite story, and the film only becomes more watchable with each viewing. It’s the sort of film that I’d happily rewatch with anyone who hasn’t seen it before. But it’s also not a film that would demand a sequel, let alone four – unless you’re looking at box office receipts. In its initial release, Planet of the Apes grossed nearly $21 million on a $6 million budget; even in 1968, studio heads went bananas for numbers like that.

 

Planet of the Apes is rated G. Directed by Franklin J. Schaffner. Written by Michael Wilson and Rod Serling. Based on the novel by Pierre Boulle. Starring Charlton Heston, Roddy McDowall, Maurice Evans, Kim Hunter, James Whitmore, James Daly, and Linda Harrison.

Monster March: Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)

With only three movies under his fishy belt, and coming to the party more than ten years too late, the Gill-Man – the eponymous star of Creature from the Black Lagoon – had some rather large shoes to fill, following as he did in the footsteps of five giants in the Universal Classic Monsters cinematic universe. Thirteen years after the debut of Lon Chaney Jr.’s Wolf Man and a full twenty-three years after Dracula, the Gill-Man might best be seen as the spiritual successor to Chaney’s other monster, Kharis the Mummy. Fortunately for filmgoers, Creature from the Black Lagoon finally got that formula right.

After Dr. Carl Maia (Antonio Moreno) finds the fossilized hand of an amphibious humanoid, he invites a pair of Californian scientists, David Reed and Mark Williams (Richard Carlson and Richard Denning), to Brazil to help corroborate his finding. Another colleague, Kay Lawrence (Julie Adams), joins the expedition, but their arrival is disrupted by the discovery that some of Carl’s assistants have been brutally murdered by the Gill-Man (Ben Chapman and Ricou Browning), who’s become smitten with the hapless Kay.

 

At the risk of spoiling the rest of Monster March for you, the Universal Monsters movies tend to start strong, with diminishing returns for each sequel added to the canon. (That means that the first half of the month will be lots of good feelings, while the second half will leave many of us in cinematic despair.) For the first half of that statement, Creature from the Black Lagoon is no exception – it’s a fantastically strong debut for Universal’s latest and last original monster. Recalling the rhythm of a slasher film, Creature finds its titular antagonist swimming through the plot, surfacing only to commit homicide before retreating into the murky Black Lagoon. While the blaring trumpet score feels a little dated – we get it, the Gill-Man is scary! – there’s something timeless about the pacing and structure of the film, particularly the way that the film doles out brief sightings of the Gill-Man until his full appearance is revealed, almost as though he’s Godzilla being sighted piece by slimy piece.

 

To continue to reveal where Monster March is headed (for those playing the home game, I’ve watched the films in chronological order but reviewed them in thematic sequence), Creature truly reminds me of the later Mummy sequels starring Tom Tyler and later Lon Chaney Jr. Those films too anticipated the slasher horror sub-genre, but they did so in ways that was, shall we say, less than compelling. There is not much to fear from a mummy whose shambolic gait reminds one of a lurching, limping zombie. The Gill-Man, on the other hand, is quick and nimble, darting through the lagoon with balletic poise. So too does the Gill-Man’s very appearance put Kharis the Mummy to shame; while the mummy looked wrinkled, sad, and fragile, the Gill-Man is downright weird, covered in scales and fins with expressionless eyes and a piscine mouth that flaps open. It’s the kind of riveting screen presence that turned the Gill-Man into an unconventional matinee idol – any time he’s on the screen, I defy you to look away.

 

Here’s the catch with Creature from the Black Lagoon, though – and it’s the same catch we have with most of the Universal Classic Monsters movies – the human cast is tragically white-bread to the point where the Gill-Man can’t help but emerge the standout star. The supporting cast is often the weak link in a Universal Monsters picture, and I have to confess that I frequently lost track of how many humans were aboard the exploratory vessel. Julie Adams gets all the attention for being carted away a few times in the Gill-Man’s arms, though I was more drawn to the performance of Nestor Paiva as Captain Lucas, who seems to be the only character with a personality aboard the Rita. Lucas cackles and cracks wise, apparently the only person having fun in the movie. The rest of the characters putter about the plot, largely without emotion, firing off dialogue so dry that you expect someone to dub a wisecrack over the film. 

 

In that sense, maybe one more comparison needs to be indulged. Like Bela Lugosi in Dracula, the Gill-Man elevates the entire picture. Any time he’s on, it’s riveting stuff, and you feel you’re in the presence of true greatness, a classic in the making. (If anyone had “treating Gill-Man like an Oscar winner” in Monster March bingo, stamp your cards now.) The rest of the film struggles in his shadow, even as you know that anyone not wearing gills may not be long for this world – and, honestly, the sooner the better. It’s not that these characters are actively offensive, but the best parts of the movie are the creeping tingles of expectancy as we wait for the Gill-Man to make his next move. Even though much of the film is clearly shot on a soundstage, occasionally with the use of hokey rear projection, Creature manages to drum up suspense with each movement of the Gill-Man’s murderous pursuit.

 

But like Dracula, the Gill-Man is surprisingly lusty, maybe even more lascivious than Dracula’s suave seduction. In sequences that must have inspired the opening to Spielberg’s Jaws, the Gill-Man creeps up on the swimming form of Kay Lawrence, grasping at her exposed ankles. We’ve all been there, felt the wayward tendrils of seaweed brush against our legs in the deep, and the Gill-Man’s slack-jawed and unblinking expression layers on a frightful new dimension to the quotidian. Dave Edmunds warned us that “all he wanted was a lady,” but the fact that he is only ever interested in the sole female scientist adds a creepy subtext. Both Dracula and Frankenstein’s monster wanted brides, but the Gill-Man wants a conquest. Even if none of the characters in the film knows it, the Gill-Man brings a weird erotic charge to a genre that often sublimates that element deep into the unconscious.

 

In terms of franchise development, Creature from the Black Lagoon is so reminiscent of The Wolf Man because it’s a creative shot in the arm. Finally, something new happens in the stagnating cinematic universe. Even though he would never meet the other Universal Classic Monsters – the closest he got was a television appearance with Abbott and Costello, before joining The Monster Squad – the Gill-Man is a fantastic and fun example of a franchise raging against the dying of its own light. If only I’d been able to see it in 3-D! 

Creature from the Black Lagoon is rated G. Directed by Jack Arnold. Written by Harry Essex, Arthur Ross, and Maurice Zimm. Starring Richard Carlson, Julie Adams, Richard Denning, Antonio Moreno, Nestor Paiva, Ben Chapman, and Ricou Browning. 

Tune in tomorrow for Silly Sunday, with Invisible Woman (1940) starring Virginia Bruce and John Barrymore.

Next week, the Gill-Man hits dry land in Revenge of the Creature (1955), starring John Agar, Lori Nelson, Tom Hennesy, and Ricou Browning.

Monsters University (2013)

Aside from Cars 2 (which, if we’re being honest, felt a little like a cash grab), Pixar’s made a name for itself for high quality original material, only dipping a second time into the well when the story merits it.  We go all the way back to (before) 2001’s Monsters, Inc., which gets the prequel treatment with Monsters University.  And like a matriculating monster, Monsters U stumbles at first but finds itself and recovers by film’s end.

Set to fulfill his lifetime dream of becoming a professional scarer, Mike Wazowski (Billy Crystal) heads to top college Monsters University.  There, studious Mike meets James P. Sullivan (John Goodman), son of a top scarer and more party-hearty than study-buddy.  Antagonized by the stern Dean Hardscrabble (Helen Mirren), the two enter into the college’s olympian Scare Games, with their reputations and their standing at the college on the line.

Entering prequel territory for a buddy picture like Monsters, Inc. verges on predictable in the sense that the film has to cover the “adversaries turn amigos” plot beat in order to feel narratively fulfilling.  Monsters U hits those moments without feeling too forced; remember, Mike and Sulley were hardly birds of a feather in Inc.  Monsters U does not, however, spend too much time making Mike and Sulley polar opposites that meet in the middle, casting them more as contrasting types who begrudgingly work together.  (More interesting for the prequel enthusiast:  the way that Monsters U recasts the tension between Mike and in-crowd wannabe Randall [Steve Buscemi], now college roommates divided by fraternity loyalties.)

There are lots of very interesting things going on in the movie, which aren’t explored at much length in order to focus on the intramural Scare Games.  I see the value in concentrating on the Scare Games; the episodic nature of an event-based competition helps us to see how Oozma Kappa (Mike’s fraternity) improves, and it allows the filmmakers to expand the Monsters world by showing various other creatures (plus it boosts the toy line significantly).

But even in spite of the parts where Monsters U feels paint-by-numbers – which, in Pixar’s hands, is still plenty enjoyable if more generic than usual – there are moments of pure genius that remind us why Pixar movies are still the pinnacle of animated film (or, perhaps, even above most live-action storytelling).  I’ll pit the last twenty minutes of Monsters U against any of the other great Pixar moments for genre-bending imagination and exuberant pathos.  It’s almost too good to spoil where the movie goes, but the film quickly shirks that cliché you feel it’s embracing before contorting 180 degrees into a monster-inflected take on the “Play nice” scene from Toy Story. 

It ends with a callback to a bit of Inc. you didn’t expect to see, but the real heart comes when Dean Hardscrabble – in a turn delivered strongly by Mirren – warms up ever so slightly to our heroes.  It’s comparable to Anton Ego’s change of heart in Ratatouille, and as with Peter O’Toole it’s a reminder that the film needs as much of these top thespians as we can get.  Otherwise, the voice cast is what you’d expect from Pixar – pitch-perfect and full of aural treats (like Aubrey Plaza’s laconic sorority president, though Nathan Fillion’s swagger is more distracting because of how larger-than-life his voice tends to be).

In the end, I find myself having written a more positive review than I anticipated, in part because there’s nothing about Monsters University that is entirely irredeemable; even when they’re not pulling out all the stops creatively, the Pixar team is still lightyears (pun intended) ahead of the competition.  But when they do, Monsters University is a real scream.

Monsters University is rated G.  A few monsters have tricks and skills that might scare the wee babies, but overall most kids can handle it.

Toy Story 3 (2010)

I'm starting to feel a little bit old, particularly because I can remember vividly standing in line for Toy Story 2 with bated breath, dying to see my favorite toys (well, except for my Batman action figures) back in town.

That was eleven years ago. Here I am, all grown up - like Andy - in a transitional state of my life, with a third installment of the Toy Story franchise in theaters. I admit to some trepidation preceding my experience with the theatrical run, in part due to the historically low track record for threequels - which I feared might put a damper on what might otherwise have been a successful series of films from the folks over at Pixar.

Oh, ye of little faith. Toy Story 3 is everything a moviegoer - and a franchise fan - could want: a delightful and fulfilling follow-up, a fresh and fun film, and escapism at its effervescent peak.

The toys are indeed back in town, but not for long; owner Andy's off to college, and the fate of the toys is in flux. Sheriff Woody (voice of Tom Hanks) is the odds-on favorite to accompany Andy as he moves out, leaving Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) and the others - including cowgirl Jessie (Joan Cusack) and trusty steed Bullseye, Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head (Don Rickles and Estelle Harris, respectively), piggy bank Hamm (John Ratzenberger), and dinosaur Rex (Wallace Shawn) - bound for the attic. A twist of fate, however, brings the toys first to the curb on garbage day and inevitably to be donated to Sunnyside Daycare. Though Sunnyside - and its feudal lord Lotso Huggin Bear (Ned Beatty) - welcome the toys with open arms, it seems all that glitters is indeed not gold, and perhaps there is no worse fate than being played with.

I've extensively praised the voice cast for both the first and second films, so suffice it to say that no one sleeps through their performance. Hanks is pitch-perfect overconfident as always, and Allen is exuberantly boisterous as ever. Rickles, of course, can do no wrong in my book, and I particularly loved the "Get a haircut" shoutout to his standup comedy routine. What's especially worthy of note in this one is the crop of new additions to the voice cast. Beatty is a knockout as Lotso, capturing the multifaceted nature of the character and even making us believe that he smells like strawberries. A new group of toys - belonging to a little girl named Bonnie, a near clone of Boo from Monsters, Inc. - is introduced here, and they're among the cuter ones of the bunch; lederhosen-garbed Mr. Pricklepants (Timothy Dalton), triceratops Trixie (Kristen Schaal, late of Flight of the Conchords), and unicorn Buttercup (Jeff Garlin) are all fun and interesting characters worthy of their own spinquel (a word I think I coined, meaning a spin-off/sequel), though I could do without the one-dimensional (pun intended) Dolly (Bonnie Hunt). But my favorite new character here is Michael Keaton as Ken, Barbie's on/off boyfriend who embodies the "It is better to look good than to feel [or even be] good." Keaton, with his signature comedic timing, brings Ken entirely to life here, capturing all the narcissism and simplicity of what is essentially an accessory to a girl's toy (though he objects to all of the above).

Director Lee Unkrich takes the helm from John Lasseter for the third outing, though the transition is seamless. The screenplay is first-rate, opening new ground on a series I had assumed was closed. Where the first and the second films shared plot points, the third one stands on its own fairly well, opening itself to a new generation while keeping the diehard fans (the "Andyites," as Pixar refers to the audience who grew up with Andy) satisfied and smiling. I was particularly pleased with how generic the film felt, in the most positive sense of the word; nothing seemed forced, but rather the daycare plotline felt like the next logical step in the narrative trajectory of the franchise (in a way that the rejected "Buzz gets recalled" plotline did not). The film has plenty of surprises, even for a seasoned filmgoer; I had a similar experience with Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, where characters in peril still put me on the edge of my seat even though I know the impending doom is an artificial threat. So kudos to Unkrich's team for making the certain destruction facing our characters actually seem threatening and not formulaic.

Kudos also for a great visual look to the film. With an attention to detail on minute features like Jessie's yarn hair and the mesh tutu worn by Bonnie, the effects are polished (representing Pixar at the top of their technical game), and the stylized look of the film has a sharp glow to it that is comforting on an unconscious level and attractive on a conscious one. The characters all have intricate designs that speak to their personalities, particularly with the new faces; I'm struck by the implicit irony in a lot of these characterizations, as with the dour-faced clown Chuckles and the lumbering Vader-esque Big Baby (who is perennially reliable for those uncomfortable "creeeeeeepy" laughs).

On one level, I feel silly writing about the technical merits and narrative accomplishments of the film; part of me wants to shout, "It's a kids' movie! Stop looking for opportunites to brandish some literary analysis!" But on another level, I'm conscious of the fact that this is a Pixar movie, made by people who absolutely love their job and put as much of their passion into the finished product as possible so that an audience can derive the greatest quantity of enjoyment from it. To overlook the minutiae bubbling beneath the surface, to decline the chance to open the veritable toy chest that is this film would be to do a disservice to the creators of the film. But it's also easy to lose sight of the forest for the trees. I can get caught up, for example, in the myriad Star Wars references (there's a particularly pointed reference to the climax of Return of the Jedi, though not as direct as Toy Story 2's shout-out to The Empire Strikes Back) or in the quiet message delivered by Sid's cameo as a garbageman. But by doing that, though, I might forget that this is a movie that is first and foremost meant to be enjoyed.

To borrow a page from Ken's book, then, Toy Story 3 is simply "cool and groovy."
Aww, look - Toy Story 3 is rated G, but without any qualifying statements like "mild peril."

Toy Story 2 (1999)

Cinema King to Star Command - come in, Star Command. I've uncovered evidence of a sequel being better than its antecedent, something I haven't said since The Dark Knight (okay, High School Musical 3 can count).

On my way to reviewing all the Pixar films, a head cold and a lack of enthusiasm led me to skip over A Bug's Life (coming soon, I promise) and hop right on over to Toy Story 2, which I fondly remembered as a fantastic film but hadn't seen since its theatrical release. Fortunately, the film is still as shiny as Buzz Lightyear's laser beam and genuinely touching, to boot.

Where the first film dealt with the basic rules of the Toy Story world (toys animating when their owners aren't looking) and Buzz Lightyear's identity crisis, the second film puts the dramatic onus on Sheriff Woody (Tom Hanks), who finds out he's a rare collectible toy with an exhibit in Tokyo just waiting for his presence. Buzz (Tim Allen, delightfully bombastic as ever) leads the rest of the toys on a rescue mission to save Woody from the thieving clutches of collector Al (a wonderfully skeevy Wayne "Newman" Knight) before it's too late.

The script here is positively brilliant, lifting visual cues and plot points from the first Toy Story and turning them on their respective heads. If Buzz did something in Toy Story, Woody does it in Toy Story 2. Now if that sounds like lazy writing, it very well could have been were it not for the clever and fun way in which the modestly familiar plot is delivered. In addition to revisiting territory covered in Toy Story, Toy Story 2 adds a great deal to the franchise's mythology, including a supporting cast for Woody - featuring Joan Cusack as yodeling cowgirl Jessie and an adorably Harpo Marxist trusty steed named Bullseye - as well as the introduction of the Evil Emperor Zurg, around whom are centered some of my favorite scenes of the film. (The film's opener, pittting Buzz against Zurg in the latter's stronghold, is spectacular but takes a backseat to Zurg's superb revelation: "No, Buzz, I am your father!")

With all of the same voice cast returning from the first film, there's little to cover that hasn't already been said in my previous review. Hanks and Allen are still fine choices (Allen still coming out on top, especially when drawing subtle distinctions between Buzz and Utility Belt Buzz), and the supporting cast - especially Don Rickles as Mr. Potato Head and Wallace Shawn as Rex - shines. I've praised Knight, and Cusack's all right (though Jessie tugs at every heartstring when Sarah McLachlan sings "When Somebody Loved Me," a moving piece about being forgotten by someone who loved you), but Kelsey Grammer and his gravitas-laden voice is solid as Stinky Pete the Prospector. And let's not forget a charming cameo by Robert Goulet, who sings "You've Got a Friend in Me."

But what makes the film positively glitter is the fact that the filmmakers love making movies - and it shows. Between loving allusions (Star Wars sounds pepper the effects library) and downright good filmmaking, the whole movie carries with it an atmosphere of self-enjoyment and nostalgic appreciation for "the good ole days." That, I suppose, is what makes the film most abundantly rewatchable - if you want to remember the good ole days, the best way to do that is with a film that does exactly that.

Ride like the wind, Bullseye! On to Toy Story 3 with no reservations!


Toy Story 2 is still rated G.

Toy Story (1995)

The great Pixar review experiment begins with a look back at 1995's Toy Story, which I'm glad to say held up a little better than Raiders of the Lost Ark did last season. That's not to comparatively evaluate the films, but Toy Story - seen by an older me - held more surprises and unremembered gems than the oft-viewed Indiana Jones picture did.


The plotline of toy rivalry competing for the affections of owner Andy is the stuff of the animated Hollywood bible by this point, but for those of you just tuning in: Sheriff Woody (Tom Hanks) is Andy's favorite toy... until birthday gift Buzz Lightyear of Star Command (Tim Allen) upsets the delicate balance in the playroom. When a plan to recoup Andy's affections goes awry, Woodyd finds himself and Buzz fighting for their toy lives - literally, if vicious neighbor Sid has anything to say about it.


The visuals aren't as polished as later Pixar ventures (see WALL-E if you want photorealism), but the fanciful nature of the animation helps give Toy Story that "toys come alive" feel that warms our hearts. What does an even better job at bringing the film to life is a stellar voice cast that perfectly matches each character's appearance and personality. American favorite Tom Hanks is a knockout as Woody, capturing all of the sheriff's emotions (running the gamut from beloved leader to childhood favorite to dawning jealousy) and good-ole-boy charm without missing a beat. And, though I've become a huge Don Rickles fan (he voices Mr. Potato Head) in the intervening years since '95, the real star in the voice cast is Tim Allen, who comfortably dons Buzz Lightyear like a spacesuit and takes risks by flirting with an overly bombastic performance in order to fully capture the mildly delusional toy's bravado.


Both Billy Crystal (turning down the part of Buzz, a move he'd later regret and atone for by voicing Mike in Monsters, Inc.) and Mattel (who withheld Barbie from the film, expecting a flop) didn't think Pixar could dream the impossible dream of a computer-animated film, instead believing the digital wunderkinds to be tilting at windmills. But what makes the film a first-rate success isn't just the pretty pictures and soothing sounds (including a downright touching soundtrack from Randy Newman). It's the story, a solid piece of writing that speaks to every generation who beholds it (well, except for Andy Rooney, I'd bet). There's enough in here for kids and adults to appreciate, and they'd better appreciate it because Toy Story is better crafted than a lot of other pictures out there today. The script is expansive, creating a new world with new rules (especially appertaining to when toys can and cannot animate themselves) in a brilliantly digestible manner. And it's touching, too, tugging at those heartstrings right before reawakening the kid you adults thought you'd put away with the rest of the bricabrac in your toybox.


Food for thought: where's Andy's father?

Toy Story, not surprisingly, is rated G, though a few younger viewers might be perturbed by discussion of toy homicide, particularly within Sid's yard. Sid is one of the creepiest characters ever animated, and his army of Frankensteinian toys may give the faint at heart the willies.

High School Musical 3: Senior Year (2008)

When it comes to the subject of High School Musical 3: Senior Year, I have two confessions.

First confession: I saw this movie of my own volition. I wasn’t dragged, and I wasn’t sitting in the fourth row for any reasons but my own.

Second confession: I actually liked HSM 3 (to use ‘Wildcat’ shorthand).Coming from a guy whose favorite movie of all time is Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight (followed closely by Martin Scorsese’s The Departed), that may come as a bit of a shock. So I suppose a third confession is in order: I’m actually a fan of the franchise.

True, I don’t have posters of Zac Efron on my wall, nor do I own a single pink cap, but I do own the first movie on DVD, and I even know what a jazz square is.

Maybe I’m a little biased, then. But where the first two installments of the franchise were fluffy teeny-bopper schmaltz-fests, Senior Year is actually a movie in its own right.

Efron leads the ensemble cast (with six leads and scads of supporting characters) as the Wildcats are chugging through those last days of high school. There’s no senioritis here; Troy, Gabriella (Vanessa Hudgens), Sharpay (Ashley Tisdale) and Ryan (Lucas Grabeel, still my favorite) are all scrambling to stage their last musical at East High, a chronicle of their own experiences as they head off to college. Throw prom and separation anxiety - Gabriella’s moving to Stanford, exactly 1,053 miles away from her doe-eyed boyfriend - and three new sophomores into the mix, and you’ve got a $42 million opening weekend.

If the first two movies had catchy songs (who didn’t find themselves ready to “Bop to the Top” or ask “What Time Is It?” in the first two?), Senior Year plays the music to the hilt. I could walk through each of the film’s 12 musical sequences (two more than usual), but there’s really not a dud in the bunch.

“Now or Never” is a fun race against the clock as Troy and the basketball team have only 16 minutes to win a state championship. “I Want It All” will have you humming along as Sharpay and Ryan dream of star status. And “Just Wanna Be with You” is perhaps the most moving piece of the whole film, powerful in its simplicity.

Then there’s “Senior Year Spring Musical” itself, an eight minute track which features reprises of many of the movie’s most memorable tracks. This is unquestionably the best scene in the movie, in which all the characters get to shine, even the ridiculous show-off Jimmy “The Rocket” (newcomer Matt Prokop).

‘Ridiculous’ is probably a word I should use more frequently, both in relation to the movie itself and my enjoyment of it. Try to keep a straight face when Troy dances it out during “Scream” or when he and his best friend Chad inexplicably turn into little kids during “The Boys Are Back.”

Though the music is top notch here, catchy without being overtly bubblegum-ish, the acting isn’t slouching, either. Admittedly, the caliber of acting in a Disney movie isn’t something to analyze too closely, but there’s no question these six have graduated near-legitimacy. Grabeel’s got a part in Milk, the Sean Penn biopic of Harvey Milk, and Efron’s fronting a Footloose remake in 2010. [Alas, this has changed since I wrote this review. It seems Efron doppleganger Chace Crawford is now going to cut footloose.]

Here, the actors feel comfortable in their roles. Efron is all too believable as the confused Troy Bolton, torn between the basketball court and the stage. Hudgens will break your heart as she copes with leaving East High, and Tisdale is delightful as scheming queen bee Sharpay. Even Corbin Bleu fits perfectly as Chad, whose principal preoccupation is finding the perfect way to ask Taylor (Monique Coleman) to the prom.

I’m not a fan of the three newcomers - the aforementioned Jimmy “Rocketman” Zara, Tiara Gold (Jemma McKenzie-Brown) and Donny Dion (Justin Martin). I can understand Disney’s desire to spin these three off into a new trilogy, but it’s tough to get behind any of them. Instead of being interesting new characters, they seem only to be younger versions of Troy, Sharpay and Chad. Tiara is perhaps the worst offender, frustratingly uninspired and with little to no singing ability at all.

HSM 3 won’t win any awards - or hearts, for that matter - but I feel fairly confident I got my money’s worth here, an assertion I wouldn’t make for its box office competition, Saw V. In terms of pure (both unadulterated and innocent) fun, though, it’s difficult not to empathize with the movie’s cast. They’re clearly having a blast with this one.

I did, too.

High School Musical 3: Senior Year is rated G for being so gosh darn wholesome.

WALL·E (2008)

[It might come as a total surprise to loyal readers that, on July 18, WALL·E is the movie I chose to see. "With The Dark Knight next door?" you might ask. There are a myriad of reasons for this strange choice - not the least of which being the possession of IMAX tickets for Saturday that might be spoiled by seeing this spectacle on a comparatively small screen. So for now, enjoy some family entertainment.]

Andrew Stanton, along with the geniuses at PIXAR who collectively brought to the screen new classics like Toy Story and Finding Nemo, has done something completely remarkable. He and his cohorts have given life to a few robots and created some of the most humanly sympathetic characters I've ever seen.

To give away too much of a plot summary would be to take away some of the magic of the film, which relies almost exclusively on visuals (rather than dialogue, which is almost nonexistent in the first half of the movie) to tell a story. Suffice it to say that WALL·E is the last robot on an abandoned Earth who finds a new purpose in life when a strange visitor, a robot called EVE, arrives. This sci-fi fable is as grand as it is eloquent, sweeping as it is sentimental, and touching as it is terrific.

Can we say much about acting here, aside from Fred Willard's classically and beautifully hammy turn as the Global CEO (the only live-action role in a Pixar movie to date)? Almost all the voicework is done by Ben Burtt - the man who brought you R2-D2's signature bloops and be-doops -who uses tech sounds rather than human vocalizations to give "voice" to characters who have no vocal chords. No, the real stars here are the animators at PIXAR, who breathe life into these robots with a simple twitch of the "eyes."

There's so much power in anthropomorphization that I actually - for the first time in a long while at the cinema - got choked up. I'm more prone to that sort of thing in the home theater, so for a big screen motion picture to do that to me in a room of about fifty people is significant in itself. These robots emote, something most of today's actors seem tragically incapable of doing. (Keanu Reeves, anyone? No thanks? I don't blame you.) Working simply with the eyepieces of WALL·E and a few longing stares at the "hand" of EVE elicited more tear-jerking feeling from me than the entire last act of Brokeback Mountain.

Visually the human characters (Willard aside) are cartoonish, on a par more with The Incredibles than with Ratatouille. But again, the movie aptly relies more on the nonsentient photorealistic beings to drive the plot forward and destroy that fourth wall so that we're too attached to the characters. I didn't care, for example, if the humans ever came back to the earth they abandoned. I just wanted WALL·E to hold EVE's hand once.

There's a political message in here somewhere about consumerist man's ability to repair an earth he has destroyed, but perhaps I'm reading too far into it. What's important is the beauty of a film that relies on simplicity itself to create one of the more complex movies to come from the Disney castle.