Purely Joyful Movie!

not horrible nor great

Boring

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

A very sweet, simple story about a blue umbrella falling in love with a red umbrella. The animation is gorgeous and the soundtrack is fittingly charming.Though giving the red umbrella (and the red umbrella alone, in a sea of umbrellas) extra long eyelashes and her human rain boots with 3" heels felt a bit unnecessary. Have you ever even seen rain boots with heels? It comes across as stupid rather than the "it's a straight couple" assurance I assume they were going for.

This is a Pixar animated film short, not quite 7 minutes long. It is contained as an "extra" on the DVD of the Pixar movie, "Monsters University." The animated setting is any large city, in the early evening, probably in winter as it is already dark and the crowds are off work and headed to their homes or other evening destinations. There are yellow taxicabs, street construction, and underground trains. It starts to rain.In a sea of black umbrellas we see a bright blue one, masculine with eyes and a smile. Soon it notices a bright red umbrella, feminine and also with eyes and a bit more glamour. They make eye contact, they are attracted to each other.As the sea of umbrellas movie, and the man carrying the blue umbrella enters an underground station, a gust of updraft strips the umbrella away, and it is carried aloft, some distance. With the help of gutters gushing water at the right time, or a street construction sign directing traffic away, the blue umbrella survives the traffic, barely. Then he is picked up, perhaps by his original owner, perhaps by someone else, it doesn't really matter. But as he is carried to a nearby café, he finds that the man is meeting a lady, the one with the red umbrella. The umbrellas are reunited.The only possible hint of location is the name of the café, "Parapluie", which sounds French. So maybe it was Paris. But maybe not, because "Parapluie" is simply the French word for "Umbrella."A clever and entertaining short film.

I know this is animation and we're supposed to be dazzled, but I had the opposite reaction. I did love it, I do marvel at it, but it's so well done I allowed myself to believe it was real. That's the goal, I think, of this kind of animation work, this advancement and it was so advanced beyond what we've come to expect I said YES and went along with it. Of course, I know the truth ... but my 7-year old nephew who watched it with me did not think it was animation. For him and for children, inanimate objects can come to life, they can have faces, they can have drama. So I watched from his perspective and it was marvelous.I hope this kind of work continues and becomes so accepted that audiences will stop talking about the technical and come back to the story. (Or as much.)I will note that in my opinion, the storytellers worked very hard to prevent any decision of male or female for their humans. There was only one moment when I thought "that's a woman" -- otherwise, it could have been two men, two women, one of each ... I wonder if people are assuming male/female because of the colors of the umbrellas and boots? Or because the umbrellas' faces have been rendered with choice of male/female? Then again, that's ME making an assumption, that long eyelashes and coy looks are female. And that's not necessarily so!As far as the idea of coupling it with MONSTERS UNIVERSITY, I think it's a great idea. As I said, I watched it with my nephew and he has watched it over and over and over again, making my purchase of the DVD even more worth its value than if he was just watching an obviously animated movie. I'm happy for him that he also got a smaller packaged gift of suspension of disbelief.

I saw this short at the cinema with my mum today before 'Monster's University' and while it's not as good as 'Knick Knack' and 'Day and Night,' it's better than 'Partly Cloudy' and has intelligent ideas.The plot is straightforward yet effective, which is helped by the realistic street, the simple yet cute facial expressions on the red and blue umbrellas and the humanistic features on the buildings, traffic lights, water spout and the manhole cover to name just a few - they made me laugh and reminded me of the Toyota Yaris Hybrid commercials where objects in the street come to life and the Zoopla adverts where the houses actually talk like human beings. I also liked how the first raindrops moved in time with the quirky yet harmonious music and the clever ending where the owners of the blue and red umbrellas are sitting outside a café called La Parapluie (French for umbrella). To conclude, this isn't Pixar's best short but it is still sweet, simple and amusing. 8/10.