Review: Up

Why is it that Disney-Pixar is able to make every summer just that much better with their nearly-annual feature films and shorts? With the exception of Cars, I have never seen a Pixar film that I didn't enjoy, starting where the magic began with Toy Story as a child in 1995.

On Saturday night I went to see Up in Disney Digital 3D and I have to say... Bravo. First let me get the 3D stuff out of the way so I can actually get into discussing the film. Obviously this was a film made for 2D viewing adapted for 3D, not the other way around, so there wasn't really anything overwhelming about objects jumping out at you--actually I can only think of one instance where this happened. Still, while it was an extra 3 bucks per ticket, it was actually worth it because it really enhanced the standard 2D visuals to a point where you would really have to pay attention to notice the difference, but when you focused on it, it was a huge benefit.

I don't want to get into too many details about the story line because I've really noticed traffic picking up on the blog lately and I don't wanna give away any real spoilers, but I'll give a basic overview.

The movie follows the life of Carl Fredickson (Edward Asner) from a child and his love of adventure thanks to his hero Charles Muntz (Christopher Plummer), but we soon find out that while Carl thinks he wants to be adventurous, his lack of athleticism and just flat out fear of so many elementary things prevents him from doing anything extreme. He soon meets a young girl named Ellie who is also a fan of Muntz and seeks adventure, except she actually partakes in seizing the day rather than dreaming about it. As the cliche moves on, they eventually get married and both promise to each other that they will one day travel to Paradise Falls in South America (Where Muntz once took his infamous expedition), but for the time being Ellie works with exotic birds in the local zoo while Carl owns a balloon stand. Sadly, and as expected by Disney, Ellie gets ill and passes away which turns Carl into a grumpy recluse, gets forced to move to a retirement home, but instead inflates a 1,000 balloons with helium and makes his house fly all the way to South America with hopes of finding Paradise Falls. That's all I'm going to say about the story right now, but there's your basic outline.

I don't know what it was about this film, but you just couldn't help but smile and enjoy the entire thing. I mean it had everything from romance to adventure to comedy to a great overall message. It was just amazingly fun.

Two things I really enjoyed about Up was both the voice acting and how dynamic the character of Carl was.

With the voice acting, I wanna give a shout out to young Jordan Nagai who did the voice of Russell (the fat kid in the previews). According to IMDB, this is the first film Nagai has ever worked on, but with how well he plays his character, you wouldn't believe that he's new to the business. He does a great job of mixing naivety with both humor and love. All of his lines are perfectly written AND carried out.

Then of course you have the lead role with Carl who, like I said earlier, is voiced by Edward Asner. Throughout the entire film he has such "generic" one-liners that make you think of a stereotypical grumpy old man, but they're simply hilarious. But that's what Asner does, in my opinion he's the best voice actor of all time. He doesn't do a lot of live-action, but that's OK, because we still recognize his voice when we hear it on television or in film.

This also helps add to how dynamic Carl's character was and Disney needed a veteran voice actor to pull this off. Now the way he changes was expected from the audience, but at the same time there was never a part of the film where Carl's character upset us, he's just lovable guy even when he is miserable His main change is him going from smart-ass recluse (not so much unlike myself) to a man who loves everyone and just likes being with people--a way of life he never imagined he'd enjoy.

Something else that I really enjoyed was the cinematography, which is something a lot of people don't give enough credit to in animated films. It's really hard to explain what I mean, but if you go see Up, definitely pay attention to shot angles, especially the wide ones.

The thing that is going to make me give this film 5 movie reels versus 4.5 is the fact that writer / director Pete Doctor is OBVIOUSLY a fan of science fiction and he worked three Star Wars references into Up. The two main references were during one scene where the dogs started piloting their air planes in attempt to shoot down Carl's house. When they begin to commence their attack the dogs use the lines "Red Leader, checking in," "Red Two checking in," "Red three, checking in," which as anyone should know is the opening dialogue to the Trench Run scene in A New Hope. I was the only one in the entire theater who laughed at that, but I literally fell out of my seat I was cracking up so hard. The next came at the end of the same scene when the dogs crash their planes... While they're all 3 flying in a V formation, two crash into each other while the third gets nicked and is sent spinning out into "space," which was obviously taken from the end of the Trench Run when Han comes back to clear Luke so he can fire the torpedo's into the Death Star, sending Vader's tie flying out of control. All of these references are pretty much confirmed at the end of the film when Carl and Russell have their picture taken outside of a movie theater showing Star Wars.

In the end what I really enjoyed was meaning of Up. Obviously "adventure" was a theme throughout, but with that version of adventure we think of the outdoors and big, exciting, events, but that was just the theme of the film, not the the meaning. The real message was that life is not only an adventure, life is the true adventure. Not the safaris or scuba diving trips, but the little things that make life the amazing thing that it is.

Rating: 5/5