Up

Rating

Director

Pete Docter, Bob Peterson

Screenplay

Pete Docter, Bob Peterson, Thomas McCarthy

Length

96 min.

Starring

Ed Asner, Christopher Plummer, Jordan Nagai, Bob Peterson, Delroy Lindo, Jerome Ranft, John Ratzenberger

MPAA Rating

PG for some peril and action.

Review

When you see the Pixar name associated with a film, you’re guaranteed first-rate entertainment. So, no one was really surprised when Up arrived and displayed a slick sense of style and story without the pandering crassness of so many other modern animated films.

In discussing Pixar films, you really cannot compare them with any other films except other Pixar features. But, with Up, there are a few extra comparisons that can be made and it mostly applies to the use of 3-D technology, allowing it to be compared with both the ‘80s heyday and recent animated effort Monsters vs. Aliens.

First, though, let’s discuss the story. With its unusual choice of a rat as a lead character in Ratatouille and a robot in WALL-E, Pixar has proven that it likes to bring audiences unusual leads that aren’t buff hunks or pretty damsels. With Up, Pixar continues this trend giving us a hero who was “born” long before the majority of the people that make up the audience for the film.

The elderly Carl Fredricksen (voiced wonderfully by legendary television veteran Ed Asner) longs for an adventure. Growing up as a fan of explorer Charles Muntz (Christopher Plummer), Carl dreamed, but never accomplished a grand adventure even while married to his beloved Ellie, a fellow fan of Muntz who one day hoped to build a house next to tropical falls in South America.

After the courts determine he can no longer live in his house alone and must move into a retirement community, Carl finally decides to launch his adventure and fulfill Ellie’s dream. Launching his house into the stratosphere with a huge bundle of helium balloons, Carl soon discovers adventure has never been closer, although he must share it with an unlikely castaway, a Wilderness Scout named Russell (Jordan Nagai).

He is later joined by a strange bird creature and a dog named Dug (Bob Peterson) who possesses the ability to speak through a mechanical collar designed for him by Muntz in order to understand his canine companions as he seek the elusive bird that has made friends with Carl and company.

Up blends pathos and humor to such successful ends that you feel instantly as if you were watching a live action film. It’s one of Pixar’s greatest abilities to create such realism in a fantasy world that you are easily drawn into it. Although there are some fairly predictable moments, such as the final scene, you still have tons of fun getting to that point.

But, the real achievement here is the 3-D effects. Unlike Monsters vs. Aliens which used the medium entirely for gimmicks and oooh-aaah moments, the folks at Pixar decided to let the tri-dimensionality speak for itself. Instead of constantly throwing things at the screen or bringing characters out into the audience they instead focus on creating a series of detailed scenes of immense depth that give the audience a truly realistic perspective on the environments being visited. There are a few at-the-camera elements, but mostly you are just bowled over by the grandeur of it all without being acutely and forcefully made aware of its existence. This is precisely where 3-D needs to go in order to move beyond gimmick and into mainstream permanence.

As for how the film stacks up against Pixar’s family of features. It ranks fairly high up there, leaving films like Cars and the original Toy Story (a film which I admire, but never exactly loved like so many others) in the dust, but failing to achieve the narrative and philosophical resonance of Ratatouille or WALL-E. As compared to the more farcical, comedy-oriented features, it’s hard to really rank it above or below A Bug’s Life or Finding Nemo and best to put it right on par, if not barely above those two films.

Although we have only Toy Story 3 on the horizon (for next year anyway), I will be quite interested in seeing where Pixar can take things from here. Their innovation and ability to entertain is nearly unparalleled and, that’s something to bring happiness and satisfaction to the hearts of the millions who have come to appreciate that about this legendary animation house.

Review Written

June 9, 2009