Presto

To go with Pixar's most perfect movie, we're treated to a 5 minute short before the picture starts. Presto is beautifully animated, looking just as good as a full length animated picture would, and also, like the movie it was shown with, Wall-E, it has no dialogue, yet still comes off brilliantly. It induced more laughs than any other full length film I've seen this year.

Presto is a magician. He's late to work and forgets to feed his rabbit who he's about to use for a trick. Presto has a hat where anything that goes into the hat comes out of another hat. Rebelling against Presto, the rabbit refuses to be pulled from the hat and tries to make the magician look bad. Chaos ensues, as do many belly laughs, which have never been produced in me to this magnitude from a cartoon.

This was one of Pixar's best shorts. It was the perfect length with the perfect amount of jokes, mostly slapstick, which caused some real laughter from me, and the entire audience. The animation was vibrant and colorful, and the way it had a nice glow to it, similar to the way Ratatouille looks (I don't know how to explain it). Never has a crotch hit been more expertly thought out, and never have I laughed harder at an animation as I did with this little gem.

My rating: **** out of ****. 6 mins.

As any fan of Pixar's animated films know, when they send a new feature out, they include a short cartoon with it. PRESTO is the film that accompanies WALL-E and it is a silent picture.

A good part of the publicity surrounding WALL-E is that it is largely a silent film. But PRESTO is wholly one, concerning a stage magician, his carrot-hungry rabbit and a piece of real magic: a top-hot that is connected to a dunce cap. The magician can put his hand into the top hat and draw out things from the dunce cap. And, as is traditional, he intends to pull out the rabbit, but the rabbit, who resembles the rabbit in the TRIX cereal commercials, is upset that he is not getting any carrot, and sabotages the act in various amusing ways using the logic of the set-up.

A very amusing cartoon, and Pixar is to be commended for continuing to develop animation talent in its short subjects.

For the theatrical release of 'WALL•E (2008),' Pixar Studios continues that lovely time-honoured tradition of preceding the main feature with an amusing animated short. Not only that, but they've developed one of their best, second only to the mini-masterpiece that is 'Geri's Game (1997).' A hilarious throw-back to the classic Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons – such that we can almost envision Bugs in a starring role – 'Presto (2008)' concerns itself with the art of magic. When an uptight stage magician, Presto DiGiotagione, neglects to feed his hungry rabbit, Alec Azam, the malnourished pet mischievously decides to exact revenge on his owner, with the help of two magic hats and no shortage of dangerous backstage implements. Each time Presto attempts to pull the rabbit from his top hat, his hand emerges clutching all sorts of painful contraptions, from mouse traps to live electrical wires to an entire ladder. His performance already in tatters, the red-faced magician tries even harder to convince the rabbit to cooperate, his every action only making matters worse.

'Presto' was directed by Doug Sweetland, a long-serving animator at Pixar, in his directorial debut. Entirely wordless, as most of Pixar's shorts are, the film relies on terrific visuals and sound effects to provide the humour, though this effort is notably less reliant on sound effects than the previous 'Lifted (2006)' {which, appropriately, was directed by sound effects whiz Gary Rydstrom}. Working with a simple scenario, 'Presto' begins with relatively minor sight gags, gradually upping the ante until all hell breaks loose on-stage, and the hapless magician finds himself strung high above the ground. Obviously, the audience finds all this utterly magnificent, and Presto – however battered and bruised – is only too happy to accept this gracious applause. Some may find all this to be rather mean-spirited, but certainly no more so than Bugs Bunny when he got Elmer Fudd in his sights, and children will definitely find the rabbit's hilarious antics to be uproariously entertaining. This is a delicious cinematic appetiser from the best in the business.

Pixar shorts have long established themselves as not only gorgeous eye candy and funny but also clever and intelligent. I have always found it incredible how short films (whether they are animated or not) seek to tell a story in a short space of time. The very best do so in such a way that you have become connected with what you watch. In this sense I find short films to be much more remarkable than full length features as the most poignant of them have to overcome the limited time slot allocated to them. And Presto does just that. How can a magician and a little rabbit cause so much hilarity and mayhem in just a few minutes while also making you actually care for both characters? It is beyond me but that's what Pixar delivers. Presto lends homage to many of the classic Looney Tunes cartoons and is a roller coaster ride of enjoyment for both young and old. Following on from the equally magnificent "Lifted", "Bounding" and "One Man Band", Pixar has cemented themselves as not only the masters of creative story telling on the feature-length screen but also the short-length one. Combine that with the ever amazing (and now taken for granted) techniques used in their animation and you have an animated package that you will want to watch over and over again. Bugs would be so proud...

I didn't do my research. Had I come to IMDb before seeing Wall-E, I would have known that we would be seeing Presto. It's a great Looney Tunes style short that pits a rabbit against his magician, all for a carrot. It actually had me laughing. Not just chuckling, but laughing and since you can't see the original Looney Tunes I used to love, it was a refreshing change to have a short cartoon do that for me. I'd almost forgotten what it was like. The animation is much better than the old favourites, but not quite as detailed as something like Shrek or even Wall-E itself. They keep it simple and light on its feet. Works perfectly in my opinion. I would gladly sit through Presto again if I went to see Wall-E a second time.