This Friday brings the release of Toy Story 4, the twenty-first feature film from PIXAR Animation Studios, a studio whose output has been a topic of fascination for me ever since I was born just a month after the first Toy Story was released! Like any PIXAR devotee, I've given some thought to just how I would rank the twenty PIXAR titles from worst to best and in honor of the newest PIXAR title hitting theaters, I thought it'd be time to reveal my ranking through a two-part In Laman's Term column, the first of which you're reading right now and the second part of which will debut on Thursday. Today, we'll look at the ten weakest PIXAR films, a collection that has its fair share of misses but also its fair share of noteworthy winners as well.
Let us begin with the weakest PIXAR film of them all...
There was no other choice for the bottom of the pack. Water is wet, sky is blue, Cars 2 is the worst PIXAR movie. Why is that, exactly? Shoving Mater to the forefront as a main character, for one thing, that was a colossal mistake. If the world learned everything from his time as a health inspector, Larry the Cable Guy doesn't work as a leading man. Doing yet another spy movie parody with gags so tired they feel cribbed from Johnny English rather than Austin Powers also lent the film a kind of derivativeness you don't associate with the best PIXAR movies. The best of these films really take you by surprise, but Cars 2 just went through the motions and became the worst PIXAR movie ever in the process.
And now we come to two original PIXAR movies that both fit the mold of having standalone standout sequences but not working as whole movies. For Brave, it's at its best when focusing on its central mother/daughter relationship. Scenes like the one contrasting Merida and her mother individually talking about their problems with one another have a sense of authenticity to them and are realized in creative means. Unfortunately, the second half of the plot introduces a Brother Bear 2.0 storyline that never quite gels with the mother/daughter material properly while the humor of the whole movie relies too heavily on cheap bathroom humor gags that rarely work. The best parts of Brave hit the bullseye, but its weakest elements drag it towards the bottom of the studio's filmography.
Brave and The Good Dinosaur share a lot in common beyond just suffering from famously troubled productions. As said earlier, they're both original PIXAR movies with great scenes but as overall films, just fall short of their potential. For The Good Dinosaur, its best scenes tend to be dialogue-free sequences focusing on the friendship between Arlo and his pet boy Spot. Potent poignancy is found in these intimate moments while the rest of the movie settles for being serviceable but rarely exceptional. This vision of a dinosaur world that never got wiped by a meteor just isn't all that imaginatively realized, it feels too reminiscent of prior animated dinosaur and/or prehistoric movies like The Land Before Time or The Croods. Juxtaposing cartoon dinosaurs with ultra-realistic backgrounds is a bold animation choice, but it doesn't end up factoring much into the characters on a thematic level. Lots of pretty pictures are found in The Good Dinosaur, it's a pity the characters inhabiting those pictures could stand to have some extra personality.
You know what the problem with the Cars movies is? They lack that extra spice of depth you typically find in PIXAR movies. Think of how snooty food critic Anton Ego is revealed to have had a formative childhood experience with food as a child in Ratatouille, that's what lends that character and the film as a whole an extra dimension that makes it so special. But the Cars movies tend to be surface-level films with surface-level characters (do any of the Radiator Springs inhabitants have any personality beyond just generic stereotypes?), and unfortunately, that surface tends to be grating. Cars 3's baddie, Jackson Storm, is a prime example of this as he's a character who seems poised to get some kind of Anton Ego-esque extra layer of depth in the story but instead, he just remains a pretty disposable foe for Lightning McQueen and new protege Cruz Ramirez to face off against. It'd be nice to have more dimensions in the character of Jackson Storm and in the story of Cars 3 as a whole, though this one at least learned plenty of lessons from Cars 2 (whose existence Cars 3 amusingly never acknowledges) by keeping the story scope more intimate this go-around. It helps that wringing pathos out of Paul Newman's Doc Hudson character is much easier than wringing pathos out of Larry the Cable Guy's Mater. It's all still a toy commercial that runs too long and relies too heavily on shallow characters, but Cars 3 is solid enough and (hopefully) closed out the Cars saga on a decent note.
Ka-chow! Here's the last Cars movie on this list! The one that started a massive toy empire is also the best of the Cars movies, even if it's still on the lower end of PIXAR features overall. That lack of depth problem that plagues the whole series really drags down the character of Lightning McQueen, an unlikable fellow that makes the far more entertaining Kuzco from Emperor's New Groove look like a Boy Scout by comparison. In spite of Lighting and the other Radiator Springs denizens not being all that interesting as characters, Cars as a movie works almost in spite of itself, especially in a climactic race that's surprisingly engaging on an emotional level. Don't ask me why the pivotal "It's just an empty cup" emotional beat in the final race actually works on me, I really don't know, but it does work. Cars is certainly one of the weaker PIXAR films, we all know that, but it's not without its charms and effective emotional moments.
Incredibles 2 never reaches the heights of its predecessor but could it ever do that? Coming out at the tail end of PIXAR's peculiar obsession with sequels in the 2010s, Incredibles 2 doesn't really deliver all that much in the way of pathos, a strange sight given how much the recent PIXAR output has leaned on the studio's ability to make people cry like there's no tomorrow. Luckily, the lack of emotional depth is made up for in the amount of fun the feature brings to the table, there are some utterly delightful set pieces here, like a train chase sequence, that make great use of noteworthy editing & direction as well as the superpowers of superhero characters like Elastigirl. Bob Parr's experiences with being a stay-at-home Dad aren't quite as inspired but this portion of the plot does deliver its fair share of memorable humor, including any gag involving Jack-Jack while Brad Bird's writing that never feels like he's talking down to children remains as welcome as ever. Incredibles 2 is one of the lightest PIXAR films in terms of substantive storytelling but at least it has the decency to pair that facet with plenty of super duper entertainment.
Man, I remember when PIXAR's catalog of films was small enough that it was widely accepted that A Bug's Life was the weakest PIXAR movie. Ah, how times change. Twenty-one years later, A Bug's Life stands as a good example of a middle-of-the-road PIXAR film, neither a Cars 2 wreck nor a WALL-E level gem. It's a film that doesn't leave a lasting impact but it's a mighty good time while it lasts. The story, a variation on The Ant and the Grasshopper as well as Seven Samurai, is adequate but predictable while the main characters of Flick and Princess Atta aren't especially noteworthy creations, they're one-note archetypes from start to finish. However, the supporting characters are mostly a delight. While the various circus bugs Flik encounters are just as thinly sketched as the Radiator Springs gang, the likes of Heimlich the caterpillar or David Hyde Pierce's insecure stick bug Slim are way funnier than Mater or Ramone ever were. Plus, there's plenty of fun vocal turns in the stacked voice cast, the colorful character designs for the various bugs are mighty nifty and the filmmaking used in the more intense sequences (like anything involving a bird) is well-done. It's easy to see why A Bug's Life isn't one of the more beloved PIXAR titles but it's still a fine film on its own merits and the fact that it was the first PIXAR movie to do humorous end credits outtakes has to count for something!
Dory ended up making the transition from sidekick to protagonist much more smoothly than Mater did and that helps to make Finding Dory as pleasantly enjoyable as it is. Whereas Cars 2 never could find a reason for audiences to become invested in Mater, Finding Dory writers Andrew Stanton and Victoria Strouse actually made Dory's quest to find her parents something one could become emotionally engaged with thanks surprisingly poignant flashback sequences showing young Dory interacting with her parents. Beyond the fact that it actually lent gravitas to the plight of Dory, Finding Dory also succeeded by being surprisingly reliant on new elements instead of just rehashing beloved facets of the first movie. A whole bunch of new characters, some more interesting than others (I'm still not sure if Hank the octopus totally worked), get the spotlight while chances to revisit, say, Bruce and his "Fish are friends" shark buddies or the school of Tuna fish are eschewed. Finding Dory does have its share of script issues, including a car chase climax that feels like a noisy departure from the better more intimate portions of the proceeding movie. Though I'm still not sure if Finding Nemo needed a sequel, at least the follow-up we did get was more enjoyable and emotionally affecting than one would expect.
Yet another 2010s PIXAR follow-up that doesn't reach the heights of its predecessor but still managed to be solid in its own right. This time, PIXAR did their one foray into prequels with Monsters University, which spends much of its runtime doing a college comedy but with monsters in a decently humorous fashion, even if animation and character designs are a little too clean-looking for my taste (young Mike still looks too much like a polished toy to me). Then the third act begins and a surprisingly thoughtful story detour is taken involving Mike Wazowski coming to terms how he'll never achieve his lifelong dream of being a master scarer. It's a part of the movie executed with remarkable grace and the scene of Mike and Sulley sitting by the lake and talking about how their lives aren't measuring up to expectations is shockingly raw for an animated kids movie from Disney. For the first 2/3 of its runtime, Monsters University is a fun but lightweight return to the world of Monsters Inc., but in its home stretch, it takes on a new layer that kicks it all up a notch.
It took me a long time to come around to The Incredibles, I remember intensely disliking this movie as a kid when I first watched it. But fifteen years later, adult me is able to fully what a special creation Brad Bird delivered with The Incredibles, particularly on a character level. Bob Parr and the other members of the Incredibles family may have powers especially divorced from reality but their personalities and struggles as everyday people feel truly ripped from reality, a part of the movie aided by how Brad Bird never dumbs down his writing for children. Characters drink alcohol, reference grisly demises of cape-wearing superheroes and Bob Parr even observes an on-screen mugging. The Incredibles feels truly different from the majority of the other films in the PIXAR canon and that's to its benefit, its blend of tangible reality with dazzling superheroics is still an (here comes the obvious pun) incredible feat all these years later.
Come back on Thursday for the second part in this series where I'll look at my ten favorite PIXAR films of all-time!
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