FilmEdge.net reviews Disney/Pixar's UP

Disney/Pixar's UP Rated PG for some peril and action Running Time: 96 minutes Review by Scott Weitz May 28, 2009 (5 stars)

This film took me quite by surprise: having seen the trailers, frankly I wasn't eager to see this new animated collaboration, UP, because I couldn't imagine the story.  And old man ties a thousand balloons to his house and floats away with a boy scout stowaway on his high-flying front porch.  Where could this tale go, besides in the title's unmistakably obvious direction? UP will ascend to the heights of Disney and Pixar's combined masterpieces, that's where it will go . . . and that's some rarified air in classic animation! Indeed UP's poster is truth in advertising: this is an elevating, exuberant, inspiring, touching and laugh-filled adventure.  Filmmakers Pete Docter and Bob Peterson have launched the most heartwarming and humorous animated film since TOY STORY 2, a true family film that will delight children just as much as it engages parents and adults. The film will catch you off guard from its opening moments of romance and adventure, and before you know it you're off sailing away to distant and exotic shores with the best defined and surprising characters in any recent animated film. UP soars to new heights by telling a very down-to-earth story of life and love, and raises the bar of animation's artform once again, illustrating why these partner studios still do it best.

The Spirit of Adventure is not only the name of explorer Charles Muntz's 1930s blimp bound for the wildest frontiers on Earth, but it's also the storytelling heart of UP. Watching Muntz on a movie newsreel, young Carl Frederickson emulates his hero's wardrobe and quest for exotic lands and strange beasts. Yet as a bespectacled, chubby child, Carl's adventures mostly exist in his immediate neighborhood and unlimited imagination. In the former he meets young Ellie, a tomboyish girl with an equal if not surpassing passion for adventure. Dumbstruck by her kinetic joy, Carl is quickly enlisted into Ellie's just-invented club formed to explore the world like their idol. In fact, Ellie has bound her own life adventure scrapbook, vowing to live at the top of Paradise Falls recently discovered by Muntz himself, despite his expedition's claims of a mysterious bird so fantastic that he's disgraced as a fraud.

Ellie and Carl's journey from youth to maturity plays out in a wordless montage that inspires belly laughs and wistful tears as their lives unfold in the greatest techniques of classic silent films. This is where Docter and Peterson's brilliance shines, tapping into the funny bones and emotions of all audiences in a seemingly effortless sequence of courtship and marriage confronting life's mundane setbacks and difficult realities. No visual pyrotechnics or whirlwind cinematography is needed to engage attention, since these would only distract from the simple, elegant and truthful storytelling at hand. As Ellie and Carl's lifelong love affair blossoms, audiences may be unprepared to fall just as hard for this couple so quickly. And this is only five minutes into the movie.

The tale that ensues is an equally imaginative take on Carl (Edward Asner) in later years and his cross-his-heart promise to live out the far flung adventure which an ordinary balloon salesman and his wife never got around to accomplishing. Carl's horizons have shrunken considerably living alone in his house, kept as a live-in comforting scrapbook of its own to Ellie's unrealized dreams while skyscraper construction towers around his tiny property. If there's one thing old codgers hate, it's change — so naturally change arrives in the shape of a rather balloonish Junior Wilderness Explorer, Russell (enthusiastically voiced by newcomer Jordan Nagai), who is desperate to earn his Assisting the Elderly badge. As evidenced from his merit sash, this is the only badge Russell is missing, but soon their interplay reveal that both have an empty spot near their hearts which, of course, only the other can fill. Alas, crusty Carl refuses Russell's help and interference, planning to make his escape from society rather than live with its destructive disappointments.

A movie review can discuss all it wants about cinematic metaphor and never make the point as effectively as a thousand frames of expert animation, and likewise I cannot sufficiently describe the sensation so just take my word for it until you see UP: you will believe a house can fly. As improbable, impractical as the real-world concept is, when Carl unfurls a thousand giant balloons to hoist his humble home above the construction zone and glides over the city, you not only believe it but you cheer for it. Taking a literal leap above the setbacks which have held him down for decades, Carl steers his floating house through the clouds, aimed at South America to discover Paradise Falls and rediscover his own spirit of adventure. But he's not alone as UP pairs the very at-odds couple of Carl and Russell for this journey.

As the hurdles and dangers of Carl's adventure unfold, especially after the reunion with his aged hero Muntz (voiced with devilish flair by Christopher Plummer), the quest for protection and exploitation of Kevin the bird provides the simplest in comedy and drama, yet speaks deeply about what a life's true adventure really means. Carl's promise to Ellie in this regard takes on quite different meaning in the film's latter act than it did in the first, and likewise does Muntz's heroic quest to discover the unexplored and return to the world with his results. The spirit of adventure, as with life, can have its lighter and darker, heroic and ignoble sides with both being equitable choices to be made. It's which choice we make and how we pursue it which determines our path in life.

The remainder of UP I leave for readers to discover, as it should be. Suffice it to say that Docter and Peterson's journey gives back far more than it requires to take: one of Disney/Pixar's simplest computer animated films in concept design and technical prowess, UP is all the more emotionally involving and satisfying for it. Likewise kudos to composer Michael Giacchino for his subtle yet resonant original score, which deliciously exploits the mirth, comic silliness and occasionally dramatic darkness of the tale. Like WALL-E before it but with more sheer delight in each frame, UP reduces this grand adventure to the heart of good storytelling, silently eliciting laughs as did Keaton and Chaplin with the subtlest and most skilled gesture or look, yet never holding back on the grandeur found in this exotic journey. You will never suspect where this film takes you, and you'll never regret stepping into the theater to discover the wonders barely hinted at in UP's trailers and TV spots.

A quick word about the film's 3D release: my review results from a 2D screening and I'm glad for it, since I think the third-dimensional aspect might — just might! — have been one moviegoing layer between me and the story I'd have to overcome. I'm happy to report that, unlike other CG animated features, UP's use of 3D is not an audience-grabbing gimmick, but rather an enhancement of an already brilliant tale lovingly told in two dimensions. Ideally, I recommend seeing UP in a standard 2D viewing first, then return (as no doubt you will want to return) to enjoy it all over again with the bonus of 3D presentation. Yet in either format, prepare for the most uplifting movie experience this summer — Disney and Pixar have discovered new animation heights with UP.