UP is the latest film from Pixar, that collossas of animation studios that have spawned such great works of art as Toy Story, Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo, Ratatouille, and Wall-e. Pixar’s reputation is second to none. They are the most consistent creator of not just great-animated features great movies in general. And to say one of their movies lives up to the Pixar reputation doesn’t merely infer that the movie is good. It infers that the movie is great. That it contains warmth, humor, creativity, a wealth of imagination, images that will dazzle the eyes, and a story that will delight audiences both young and old. UP, a story of adventure about an elderly man and his floating house lives up to Pixar’s reputation.
UP starts with a love story between two young adventurers, Carl and Ellie. Their dream is to fly to South America and explore the rain forest. They grow up and get married. Ellie is a zookeeper and Carl is a balloon salesman. They save up for the trip but life gets in the way and eventually Ellie gets cancer and passes away. All of this is played without dialogue and accompanied by one of the happiest/saddest melody I’ve heard in a movie in some time. At 78 Carl has turned into an old grump threatened by developers and being coerced into a nursing home. What does he do? He attaches a mountain of balloons onto his home and takes off in his flying house toward the jungles of South America. An over-enthusiastic boy scout who was attempting to earn his merit badge for assisting the elderly unexpectedly joins him. Together they have adventures in the brightly colored rain forests of South America encountering a rare bird and a truly evil long forgotten explorer who lives in his very own museum/blimp catered to by his army of masterly trained talking dogs. Adventures ensue that include much slapstick comedy, sight gags, and elderly combat that surpasses anything seen in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the last film about old people adventuring in South America. Plenty of the daredevil antics take place in very high places. People afraid of heights should beware. Up is definitely up there for most of the time.
The only drawback this had was the 3-D aspect of it. Now this is the best 3-D movie I have ever seen, but that in it is not saying much. Traditionally 3-D doesn’t so much help in telling a story as it directly provokes the audience. In this movie, Pixar has done a lot of good work in all the close shots, adding some impressive depth and detail to the picture. But in faraway shots, the 3-D looks distorted and blurry (especially with the 3-D pigeons and clouds). Quite frankly, it distracts from the picture. 3-D is a good gag in Disneyland amusement rides but it doesn’t help when one is trying to suspend one’s reality. 3-D has a tendency to take the viewer out of the picture and point out to the viewer that he is not in South America but in a movie theater wearing silly glasses. Another thing that 3-D does is unintentionally make the screen darker. The sunglasses that need to be worn diminish some of the brightness that is associated with animation. The rainforest in UP are not as stimulating as they should be. Having said all of this, I recommend that people see UP on the biggest screen possible without 3-D. I bet the movie will be brighter, more involving, and, dare I say, better.
UP concludes a trio of films by Pixar (started by Ratatouille and Wall-e) that are based on almost unmarketable ideas (rats that cook, robots that love, and now old adventurers). Their next films are said to be Toy Story 3 and Cars 2. Perhaps we will look back on these three years and proclaim it as Pixar’s golden age, the time when they were so on the top of their game that they could turn weird quirky ideas into not just great insightful animation but also crowd-pleasing blockbusters. Could it get any better than this? It’s hard to believe, but with Pixar anything seems possible.
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