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Topic: Meet The Robinsons
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Mark Lensenmayer
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1605
From: Upper Arlington, OH
Registered: Sep 1999
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posted 04-03-2007 09:24 AM
The Movie --
This film isn't funny, cute, charming, memorable, lovable or really much of anything. It just is there, and it's not very good.
The plot is convoluted and silly. Time Travel movies really have to be very careful, and this one isn't careful at all. They didn't even try to keep this part of the story straight. If you think about it (and I hope you don't), it makes no sense at all.
The characters are strange. The main character and the "bad guy" look like they were designed by two different companies. There also seem to be a limited mouth movement...the mouth didn't move as well as I've seen in other computer animated films. There are a lot of characters in the picture, but we don't get to learn much about many of them. Some of their stories might have been more interesting than the story told here.
And can anyone explain that section where the sound goes quasi-mono and we go to "kung-fu" mode?
I was surprised to see a 3-D cartoon on the front of the picture. This is a 1953 Donald Duck short subject called "Working for Peanuts". This is a typical cartoon from the era, with very layered animation. Some of the images didn't coverge completely, but that is not surprising for the time. Image was properly framed. The action seemed to take place about 3-5 feet behind the frame window, also common for the time. A nice surprise, but I would have liked to seen "MELODY" as the cartoon instead of this.
THE 3-D ---
Nothing exceptional here. Not much pops out or goes back. Robot head is the most effective, especially on the Disney 3-D "Put On Your Glasses" piece. Depth is typically pretty shallow.
As I've noted before about the Real-D process, I see a gauze-like stationary "veil" on the image. It sits right at the screen line and is always there. I'm guessing this is an artifact of the Real-D process, as I've seen it on different films at different locations. The effect is very subtle, but it is very apparent to me.
Certainly not the best 3-D film I've ever seen. More in line with CHICKEN LITTLE then MONSTER HOUSE. 3-D is totally forgettable after the first few minutes.
Best 3-D of current crop is still POLAR EXPRESS. ROBINSONS is nowhere near that quality.
Glasses were very disappointing. They were black, generic 3-D Real-D glasses with a very uncomfortable ridge that hit my nose in front of my glasses. Very very uncomfortable.
THE PRESENTATION --
This is the local AMC theatre's first venture with Digital Projection. They used theatre 23, which is a medium sized room after the four large rooms off the lobby. It appeared that the 35mm projector had been removed. Projector was a Christie. Screen is approximately 36'. This room has a Torus screen.
Image was very bright and very clear on the 2-D trailers. I was especially impressed with the sound quality on the MARTIAN CHILD trailer...extremely clear and sweet.
Pixelization is only noticeable from about the 5th row forward, and even that was slight. Certainly much less than the pre-show!
The Pre-Show was excellent, as it was aimed at children with much content from the Animal Planet and howstuffworks.com. Very few commercials. Nice to see they weren't just hawking Coke or cell phones. Nice work here, AMC.
My special thanks to the ticket seller who sold me a ticket for the wrong film, saving me the 3-D service charge. Sorry, Disney, my money went to BLADES OF GLORY instead of you.
[ 04-05-2007, 07:01 AM: Message edited by: Mark Lensenmayer ]
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 04-03-2007 06:44 PM
Yeah, there's lots of mannequins in Los Angeles area stores!
![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
Anyway, I checked out the RealD version of Meet the Robinsons at the Carmike 8 here in town this past weekend.
The movie itself was decent, but not great. It's certainly not on the same level in terms of story and animation quality as the typical Pixar release, but I think it's worth a look. Young kids will probably like the movie quite a bit.
"The Bowler Hat Guy," voiced by Steven J. Anderson, was the most interesting character in the movie. His combination of being both a flamboyantly nasty villain and a doofus saved the movie from being as dull as preschool toys. The long teeth from advanced periodontal disease gave him enough of a creepy factor. The only thing I felt was a bit contrived was the revelation of his true identity near the movie's end. It just didn't seem to fit quite right. Doris, the Bowler Hat Guy's robotic enhanced hat works as the comedic "straight man" for the villain-idiot's antics.
The movie's fairly dark turn late in the storyline was also interesting. In fact, I really wish the movie had jumped to that point earlier and worked with that more dramatic situation further. But I'm willing to concede that, along with some really funky treatment of time travel rules, since this is essentially a kid's movie.
The loose play with the time travel rules reminded me of something from a South Park episode that dealt with time traveling illegal immigrants from the future. "They follow Terminator rules of time travel where they go one way, as opposed to Back to the Future rules where 2-way travel is possible. Timecop rules don't apply because they're just stupid." They took yer jawb! I want a burger and fries you Goddamn Gooback!
I digress.
About the 3D, I thought it worked really well. It looked great on the screen at the Carmike 8. Bright picture with no hot spots. You could see just a tiny bit of light fall off at the corners, but hardly enough to make it objectionable at all. House #4 isn't huge (around 200 seats). Not sure about the screen size, but it's big enough in relation to the auditorium size.
Meet the Robinsons didn't pound the viewer with a lot of in-you-face 3D sight gags during the movie. The snipe with the robot character telling you to put on your 3D glasses has the most forward extending 3D effects. Everything else is fairly subtle.
The audio on Meet the Robinsons also felt a little restrained. Or maybe it just stood in stark contrast to the very loud "Disney Digital 3D" trailer. That little snipe could blow some sub-bass drivers.
The Working for Peanuts short, featuring Donald Duck and the Chipmunks (Chip & Dale), was interesting, but also not great. The 3D was interesting from the historical perspective for what Disney was able to accomplish with hand drawn animation in the 1950's. But I've laughed a lot harder at many Looney Tunes cartoons.
I really enjoyed the U23D trailer. But, man, was that a loud trailer or what!? At first I was a bit thrown with the beginning of the trailer being in 2D and then jumping to 3D. Can't wait to see the actual concert movie. Perhaps some parents might be put off by a concert movie like this being promoted during a G-rated movie for kids. But where else are you going to see it in 3D before the show hits theaters? As it stands, we may go through the entire summer without seeing anything else released in RealD.
I think RealD will gain more popularity as more movies are made to utilize the format. And it can't all be just animated CGI movies for kids either. The U23D movie could be effective at promoting the technology to adults. As I said in another thread, RealD would seem to be a very obvious natural for horror movies.
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