Once while I was in the 5th Grade, I wrote a story about a pair of kleptomaniacal chimpanzees who escape from the San Diego zoo and, after a series of adventures, end up flying around in a raft kept aloft by two parachutes filled with wind. When Pixar made Up, a tale of an old man flying to South America in a house lifted by tens of thousands of party balloons, I think they must have had my 10-year-old self in mind. I admit their effort has infinitely more maturity, elegance and beauty than my childish scrawl probably did, but it certainly triggered a part of my imagination that, while certainly not dead, is maybe sometimes not quite as bright and colorful as this wondrous film. At the same time, Up deals with very adult themes, sometimes heartbreaking ones, as exemplified by a magnificent sequence early in the movie in which we see Carl Fredricksen (Ed Asner) and his wife Ellie live an entire life together. I’ve seen it seven times now, and I haven’t made it through this scene with a dry eye yet.
But life goes on as the widowed Carl meets young Russell, a Wilderness Explorer (Boy Scout) determined to get his last merit badge for Assisting the Elderly. Meanwhile, faced with the prospect of eviction and being moved into a retirement home, Carl launches his house into the sky with the aforementioned balloon flotilla and sets course for Paradise Falls in Venezuela, where he and his wife always wanted to travel. Along the way, the two meet Kevin, a large mythical bird, Dug, a dog able to talk through the use of a mechanical collar, and Charles Muntz, a famous but embittered explorer seeking to capture Kevin and reclaim his fame.
As an adventure film, Up succeeds marvelously. It recalls 30′s matinee serials and pays homage to the great black-and-white trekking films, like the silent-era The Lost World and King Kong. It’s also probably the funniest Pixar film to date, mixing innocent goofiness with razor sharp wit the way only Pixar can. And I don’t think anybody else could bring a tear to my eye just by showing me a grape soda bottlecap. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]
Animation/Adventure/Family
Rated PG
DVD Release Date: 11/10/09
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