Today’s Calvin and Hobbes:
Calvin in one of his roles, as a 6-year-old boy in love with the clash of titans and destruction on a massive scale (he also has his moments of knowledge and opinion beyond his years, about art, for instance), and Hobbes in one of his roles, as an affectionate older-brother figure (he also has his moments as a tiger with tigerish instincts and as a playmate for Calvin). But what is Hobbes’s gently mocking speech act here.
Not irony or sarcasm: Hobbes isn’t saying something he believes to be false. But he is (gently) critiquing Calvin’s point of view, finding it to be deficient. Not stupid, exactly, but limited in assessing the film (something on the order of Gojira / Godzilla vs. Roldan or Mothra) only for its clash/crash value — like satire, but gentler. People do say that foreign film is inaccessible, but Calvin finds this one accessible, because it provides not much beyond clashes and crashes.
