In the fine animation tradition, Wall-E is a children’s movie featuring a protagonist on screen who refuses to wear pants throughout the film’s running time.

Oh, Donald Duck. What have you wrought?

I’m pretty pumped by the cinematic choices this weekend. Although, admittedly, I’m more excited about Wall-E than I am Wanted. I’m a huge animation nerd and all of Wall-E’s previews have been hitting the right mix of emotion, humor and wonder. There’s no doubt in my mind that it’s going to be excellent and well worth seeing multiple times on the big screen.

That said, I still think Wanted looks very good. In fact, I’m kind of surprised that I’m anticipating it. I didn’t read the original graphic novel written by Mark Millar (who is, incidentally, one of my favorite comic book writers). I guess the movie has very little in common with the comics, so maybe that’s a good thing. And, despite my grand disinterest in the heartthrob status of James MacAvoy (The Last King of Scotland excluded) and Morgan Freeman in what appears to be his fourteenth consecutive “wise man leading the guileless white boy” role) the effects and the action sequences I’ve seen so far look promising.

Oh, yeah. And you see Angelina Jolie’s backside for, like, two seconds.

Probably from the waste up.

The few advanced reviews I’ve read suggest that the plot device of an unassuming nobody who becomes a secretly-powered somebody should be enough to tweak The Wachowski’s and their set up for The Matrix – especially during a cubicle-exiting freak out on behalf of MacAvoy’s character. The main idea of the film being “do you accept complacency or do you reach for something greater?”

I’ve also read that Russian director Timur Bekmambetov comes from the more-is-more Michael Bay school of film and that Wanted is positively dripping in burly, chest-thumping Russian machismo. That can either be a good or a bad thing depending on your proclivities. But the point is that the movie does not let up.

As I mentioned last Friday, I will be at Wizard World Chicago this weekend – At Artist Alley table #4308! – and with the friends I attend the convention with, part of our tradition every year is to go out and see a movie together. We have two great films to choose from, but I kind of hope we see Wanted just so I don’t get in trouble with Cami back home. She’s as big of a Pixar nerd as I am and I know she’d be disappointed if we couldn’t see the movie together.

Wanted, on the other hand. She will never want to see. So we’ll have to see how that one shakes out.

In the meantime, be sure to listen To The Triple Feature podcast tonight at 9:00 PM CST over at TalkShoe.com. We’ll be talking about Get Smart and the savage beating The Love Guru took at the box office this weekend. How bad was it? People are already predicting the end of Mike Myers career. Ouch! Wasn’t this guy supposedly invincible 6 year ago?

Call in live and share your two cents! See you then!