Monday Morning Quarterback Part II
By BOP Staff
June 28, 2011
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Kim Hollis: Reviews of Cars 2 are negative and occasionally even hostile. Do you believe critics are fairly judging the film on its own merits or holding it up against the entire Pixar catalog and finding it lacking? If it's the latter, do you think this behavior is fair?
Matthew Huntley: I'd say a little from column A and a little from column B. What's interesting is Cars 2 replaced the original Cars as the lowest-rated Pixar movie to date, at least critically, so the franchise wasn't the most well-liked from the start.
I saw the movie yesterday and it is, simply, not very good. It has cheap jokes, a derivative plot and an exhausted moral tale, all of which meander and don't really give audiences a whole lot to get excited about. Did I have other Pixar films in mind when I made these judgments? Yes and no (it's sort of inevitable not to), but I try to keep in mind that Cars 2 does not have the same writer and director as, say, Ratatouille, so it must be reviewed independently of its Pixar brethren. If critics are being overly critical because they're constantly comparing it to the studio's true gems, then yes, that's not fair practice.
In a way, I'm glad the critical reception for Cars 2 was not very strong. We all know now that Pixar is not flawless and maybe this will give them the humility to strive higher with their next project (not that they don't always strive high; Cars 2 just happened to be a misfire).
Bruce Hall: I think that there's a natural tendency to compare every Pixar film with every other Pixar film ever released, and I suppose that's not totally unwarranted. Cars 2 had a bigger opening weekend than its predecessor (dollar for dollar, anyway), but it was never going to put a dent in Toy Story 3's numbers. And it's never been as well loved a property anyway, so it's hard for me to accept a direct financial comparison. It would be more fair to consider this movie quality wise - not dollar wise -against the remaining Pixar catalogue. So allow me to say that next to the average Pixar offering, Cars 2 was tedious and utterly lacking in humanity. It's about ten minutes longer than Toy Story 3 but by the time the credits hit I felt like I'd been sitting there since LAST Sunday. And if that needlessly convoluted James Bond meets Le Mans meets Jumping Jack Flash story was supposed to be for my benefit as an adult, count me unimpressed. Chaos can't replace genuine momentum and a tacked on "just be yourself" message at the end is no substitute for the kind of emotional resonance we usually get from Pixar. What's worse is that Cars 2 commits a cardinal sin for a kids' film - it bores kids to death. The ones I was with nearly fell asleep halfway through. Thank God for candy.
Edwin Davies: It may not be fair to compare it to Ratatouille, The Incredibles or Up, since John Lasseter didn't write or direct any of those films, but since he did write and direct Toy Story 1 and 2, A Bug's Life and the original Cars, (and that's discounting the considerable creative imput he has into pretty much every Pixar project) it is far to compare it to those films. If it doesn't measure up to the Toy Story films, probably the best animated films ever made, then that's holding it to too high of a standard. But if it doesn't measure up to the original Cars, which wasn't up to Pixar's usual standard anyway, then comparison is a fair method.
Shalimar Sahota: Everyone expects great things from Pixar. From what I hear, Cars 2 is a film tailored more towards children than adults this time. Most of the critics aren't children... well, maybe a few of them are. However, when you're eating the store branded ice cream, you can't help but compare it to the Ben & Jerry's you used to have. I hope it's not a sign of things to come. I would just be wary of their upcoming films, for I dread to imagine that right now, someone at Pixar is thinking, "Even if we don't build it right, they'll still come!"
Tom Houseman: People have come to expect Pixar to make movies that appeal to adults just as much as they do to children. It seems like they didn't do that this time, and the reviews have attacked it for that. Cars was, for me, Pixar's least compelling and least complex film, and it seems like the sequel will be even worse. It doesn't look "bad for Pixar" as much as it looks "just bad."
Although, to be fair, I don't drink nearly as much Pixar Kool-Aid as the rest of the BOP staff, as I wasn't a big fan of Nemo or The Incredibles, so my opinion may need to be disregarded. Still, it's worth noting that this will be the first Pixar film I won't see in theaters since Toy Story 2.
Jim Van Nest: I posted this on another board the other day in defense of Cars and Cars 2. I still feel that it fits: "Ya know, I liked Cars well enough, but I really don't think it was made for me. I mean, Pixar's made 12 films now. What's so bad about them making a cartoon that's actually for kids? Sure, we can go with the 'it's just an ad for the toys' or 'it's just a money grab.' But why not see it for what it is? While Cars was the worst reviewed of the Pixar films, those reviews were done by adults. Go out and ask a group of five to ten-year-olds what their favorite Pixar film is, and you'll probably see at least a 95% fresh rating for Cars. Kids LOVE Lightning McQueen. They LOVE Mater. I just don't see the problem in making the occasional film that's really just for the kids. Sure, for us (and all the critics/reviewers out there) we appreciate the beauty and art that is Up and WALL-E...but when you ask a room full of six-year-olds what movie they want to watch...it's freakin' Mater and Lightning time."
I still see absolutely NOTHING wrong with that. And let's be honest...even Pixar's worst (if that's what this is) is better than the Ice Age series.
Brett Beach: Even more than the commercialism aspect (which let's face it, was just as upfront in the Toy Story films), the critics seem to have seized on making Mater the star of the film as a major complaint, followed closely by the tries to shoehorn in a lesson at the end after all the commercialism.
Having just recently seen Cars, and finding it disappointing, with too much false sentimentality, I don't mind, in theory, that Pixar did a complete about face genre/plot-wise. I also think that elevating Mater to the lead was probably brilliant, if only because - and here is my armchair attempt at being a child psychologist - while the kids may love Lightning more because he's "cool," they probably identify with Mater on a much closer level (he's goofy/goofy-looking, isn't into icky romantic subplots) and feel a stronger bond.
To come back to Kim's second question, I think a lot of critics have weighed this against Pixar's back catalog and found it wanting, and that is totally fair. The masses can go on and on about how the nebulous "critics" have a stick up their ass, hate everything, "their" opinion is worthless, and so forth, and that is their right, but it's always a bullshit claim. In this instance, it would be safe to say, not one reviewer was rooting for Pixar to make a film that fell far short of the perceived quality of their back catalog. BOP gets called out for asskissing for selecting Pixar films as the best many years running. Will we get called out now for being "critics" and "haters" if we don't like it? Rock and a hard place.
David Mumpower: I have a contrarian opinion here in that I think the glowing praise heaped on Toy Story 3 was wholly unwarranted; it was a sweet film that fell short in the laughs department. I frequently state that the way I can tell how much I enjoy a movie is by how much I re-watch it. Toy Story 3 is one that makes me change the channel when it comes on. I am actively bored by it, which makes me feel guilty since my wife went to high school with the director's wife and considers her a friend and a very good person. Conversely, for all of the criticism directed at Cars, I find that movie to be visually stimulating and very well intended. I watch it as much as anything from the Pixar library other than The Incredibles. I know it's a Doc Hollywood ripoff but it's so well done that this doesn't matter tomorrow. The movie is a celebration of enjoying the journey in life, a message that resonates with me, somehow who almost died a few years ago.
With regards to Cars 2, the movie has that one thing that Toy Story 3 lacked: a sense of humor. If we take out the Ken modeling scene from Pixar's most triumphant project, I'd be hard pressed to name any other laughs from that movie. For a Pixar movie, that's unconscionable to me. While Cars 2 is nowhere near as good as most of the other titles in their catalog, it did make me laugh many times and I am grateful for that. I was worried that Pixar is starting to take itself too seriously as a movie-making operation. Cars 2 is getting a bad rap for just this reason.
Pixar has taken a page from their Disney overlords and started training kids at a young age on which products to love. This movie directly targets them rather than adults, which is an astute business practice and one that will pay dividends over the next five years as the kids age and ask for more expensive birthday presents. In other to get them hooked, Cars 2 is created with a focus upon appealing to kids, and adults seem to resent this since Pixar movies are the one time they can take their children to the movies without having to be bored to death by an insipid story. Theoretically. Over the past 18 months, we've seen a historic run of quality family films that negates this premise somewhat yet I'm still seeing mega-harsh criticism of Cars 2 for being un-Pixar-ian.
I think Matthew is correct when he points out that some critics are able to judge the film on its own merits while many others are not. I simply disagree with the former ones, because it's hard for me to say that Cars 2 is a bad film. It's not. I see bad films all the time. I just watched The Rite and Due Date. I know what a bad film is. Cars 2 is a genial exercise in giving kids what they want and it works well enough for adults who like spy films. It's a passable summer popcorn movie. Many critics are not describing it as such due to the fact that it has fallen victim to unreasonable expectations based upon previous Pixar titles. Oddly, the reverse was true last year with Toy Story 3 in that it was overrated due to its being placed on a pedestal because of the characters involved. Hopefully, Brave will fall in the middle and be judged based upon its own merits.
I got it bad, got it bad, got it bad.
Kim Hollis: Bad Teacher opened to $31.6 million. How did Sony pull off such a solid result? Do you think Cameron Diaz's presence was key to the opening?
Joshua Pasch: I think the biggest factor here is that Bad Santa Teacher, is a comedy. It's been a full month since an adult comedy hit theaters and the summer is a time for comedy almost just as much as it is for big action movies. It had a marketplace to itself and frankly, it looked fairly funny.
I'm still very impressed by a $30 million+ opening weekend, and that's a good deal more than anything else Diaz anchors on her own. It'll give her quote a nice bump since she was clearly betting top billing in the marketing here, but at the end of the day, I think you have to consider it an outlier more than any indication of an uptick in her overall popularity.
Bruce Hall: I definitely think Joshua is on to something. But although the reviews I've seen for Bad Teacher are well into the lukewarm range, we can't deny that this movie over-performed. Is there more at work here? Cameron Diaz puts out a definite naughty girlfriend vibe, and she is rarely allowed to run with it to the degree a lot of people would like to see. I think there's something to be said for that. Also, call me crazy but Justin Timberlake is an incredibly versatile talent who's far better in front of a camera than anyone has a right to expect. I'll admit it, I've enjoyed watching him develop as an actor and I don't think I'm alone. My analysis is unscientific, but this movie grossed anywhere from $6-10 million more than most people figured, and it currently is tracking best with females under 18. You can't tell me all those girls were just trying to get into an R-Rated comedy to see Cameron Diaz shake her tush and pout. Maybe I'm wrong; just throwing spaghetti here.
Matthew Huntley: Like Josh suggested, Sony saw a golden opportunity for counter-programming and it paid off handsomely. The studio must have known that The Hangover Part II and, to a lesser degree, Bridesmaids (no one expected this would be such a smash), would be waning right about now, and they took advantage of the open frame for the next raunchy comedy. It will have semi-direct competition next week when Larry Crowne arrives, but with a reported budget of only $20 million, Bad Teacher is sure to pay off. I don't think Cameron Diaz had as much to do with this as much as her type did. If you took any long-legged, sexy, blonde actress and put her in the same role, I think the opening would have been similar. Not to discount Diaz's talent or box-office appeal, but I don't think people were paying to see her necessarily. They were paying to see her type.
Edwin Davies: Even though no one could have known in advance that Bridesmaids was going to become the phenomenon that it has, I do think that its success may have helped Bad Teacher in an indirect way. With the sort of lukewarm reviews that it has received, and Cameron Diaz's less than stellar form at the box office recently, I could see this film opening $10 million less in a Bridesmaids-less summer. But in much the same way that we have argued that the success of a superhero film can have the knock on effect of creating excitement for future superhero films, I think that the success of Bridesmaids created excitement for the next female-led raunchy comedy to come out, which just so happened to be Bad Teacher.
Tom Houseman: I think this movie hit every right note in the marketing. Cameron Diaz has, when given the opportunity in films like There's Something About Mary and The Sweetest Thing, been able to be both incredibly sexy and incredibly funny. Here she seems to be given free reign, and as a result she looks awesome. Jason Segel's sweetness tempers Diaz's bitterness in the trailers, and his "Jordan vs. LeBron" argument netted probably the most laughs of any ad. And then, of course, there's Justin Timberlake. A number this big is unexpected, but that's what happens when counter-programming works effectively.
Jim Van Nest: I don't know that they could have marketed Bad Teacher any better than they did. They have some hilarious money shots and they were in all the trailers and commercials. I think Jason Segel is just getting bigger and bigger and, as mentioned, you cannot discount Timberlake's presence. I don't think Cameron Diaz hurts the film in any way, but I really don't think people rushed out to the theaters to see Bad Teacher because she was the lead. I think it was a mix of great marketing and even better timing.
David Mumpower: Since the moment I saw this trailer, I've known this was going to be a hit. As I said during a Trailer Hitch discussion a while ago, sometimes an actor stumbles into the perfect role for them. Cameron Diaz playing against her America's Sweetheart type is a casting masterstroke, one which I do not believe any other actress in the industry could have made so appealing. As Josh and Matthew suggest, summer is a great time for comedy and the fact that The Hangover II is a movie that gives its target audience what they want and Bridesmaids is a shockingly huge blockbuster, meaning that audiences have been positively reinforced by recent high profile comedies. That also aided Bad Teacher a bit. The end result is a very impressive opening weekend and a likely $100+ million finish.
So, with Bad Santa and Bad Teacher in the books, what's the next Bad project?