Just for the heck of it I decided I’d put up my ranking of Pixar‘s films to-date (they’ve done 10 so far):
1. Finding Nemo
2. Toy Story
3. Ratatouille
4. Up
5. Toy Story 2
6. WALL-E
7. The Incredibles
8. Monsters, Inc.
9. A Bug’s Life
10. Cars
It’s hard to not put Toy Story at the top of the list but if I did it would be mainly out of a sense of nostalgia. It moved the bar so much higher for animation that it’s hard to put it anywhere else but, then again, Finding Nemo was nearly as revolutionary and, in ways, more complete of a film.
Ratatouille worked for me in almost every way. The love story is great and any film that can make rats lovable deserves praise.
At the bottom of the list Cars did almost nothing for me. They’re hunks of metal and I didn’t buy the premise at all. It was cute and Pixar did all they could with it but it seemed more like a sell-out to merchandising to me.
A Bug’s Life was interesting and the imagery was incredible in its day but the story still fell flat. You’d think that since it features a character named Heimlich that I’d have a tighter bond with this film and that says even more about it being on the bottom of my list.
Monsters, Inc. was funny but it was just too strange for me overall.
