UP
You be Pixar.
So far, your movies, full of vibrant colors and fascinating animation, have captured the imaginations of millions of children worldwide. Those kids’ parents have all but come along for the Disney ride with glee and abandon. Critics comb through thesauruses, searching for words to describe your storytelling, your style, your elegance, and your knack for knowing that, no matter the subject, we will all be eating out of the palm of your talented hands.
Critics are easy. You sucker us in with your fancy qualities, sure. And, long ago, parents clearly gave up having a say in what their children watch when Dr. Doolittle 2 made over a $100 million.
Still, you have a new movie where you have to convince those children, kiddos who bounce from one shiny object to the next with near reckless abandon, to watch a movie about an old man strapping enough balloons to his house to make it airborne and bound for South America.
Just how in the hell do you get them to sit still and care about that?
Easy. You create a brilliant and poignant opening sequence that shows that old man as a young man, nay, a young lad. Make him a tad shy, a bit socially awkward, and make him fall in love with a young girl.
Then, you tell their beautiful, timeless story, a story about a couple kids in love, who manage to walk down the aisle years later and grow old together. And, you do it in the first ten minutes, the animation just as lush as in your earlier triumphs, and maybe a bit more so—but, more on those colorful balloons in a bit.
There. You have done it. In no less than ten minutes, you have set up the plot of your lovely new film, “UP.” And, at my screening, I seemed to get in the occasional laugh-off with the youngsters and toddlers around me. But, then again, you knew you had me, the critic, at “Hello, we’re Pixar and we have a new film we’d like you to see.”
Yes, you are a sneaky bunch.
“Wall-e” remains your masterpiece, your most realized film to date. That, of course, is less a commentary on “UP” than a testament to just how well that earlier film holds, well, up on repeated viewings. Yes, that film is a marvel, a nod to the yesteryear of silent cinema. It is just as easy to imagine Charlie Chaplin in the Wall-e role (Robot Chaplin?) as it is to believe that you can lift your entire house off the ground and fly away to South America.
Oh, yes, but we were discussing your new film, not the past. The past is something Carl Fredrickson (voice of Ed Asner) can’t seem to let go of either. He lives alone now in the home he once shared with his wife. The homes around him were long ago sold off in the service of creating a new urban space for city dwellers who love things like sushi.
The plan is to put Carl, who has grown comfortably into the role of the curmudgeon over the years, into a new home, a nursing home. But, as Carl looks around his house, he begins to realize that he owes the love of his life something, that he has a promise to keep, and that he has a house to relocate to South America.
Thankfully, Carl knows a thing or two about balloons and, well, “UP” really takes off from there. Carl gets an unexpected visitor aboard his floating home in the form of Russell, a pudgy young lad intent on securing a badge for helping the elderly.
From there, things get considerably more adventurous and I do not want to spoil all the fun. Still, it ruins little to say that the pair encounter a dog with a collar around its neck that allows it to “speak” its thoughts and tell delightfully wicked jokes about dead squirrels in trees. And, I am sure it raises more questions than it answers to say that Carl and Russell discover much more exotic animals than overzealous puppies.
It almost seems too easy to mention how beautiful your colors are here, Pixar. Going underwater in “Finding Nemo” was a clever way to explore the different hues found on the ocean floor. Having a old man use balloons, rich, multi-colored balloons, to fly off to South America is really an inspired yet simple move. And, the decision to use the latest in 3D technology seems less like an attempt to make us go “oh” and “aw” as things fly off the screen at us than a smart way to make the backgrounds richer, the depth of field deeper.
But, making sure that we care about where those balloons take us is your smartest move. Tears filled my young adult eyes no less than three times and that is the result of thoughtful writing and an understanding of how not to talk down to your audience. Stories like the one here in “UP” are timeless, and arguably, universal. You kids at Pixar seem to get that better than any other major Hollywood studios forcing what passes for children’s films down our throats.
So, here we are again. You did it kid, another impressive animated tale, another glowing review by a gushing critic. Maybe next time, instead of handing out letter grades for your films, we should stamp them with a better, more accurate description of the quality of your work. I was thinking the stamp should read something like: Pixar.
Grade: A
