Verdict: Weird and Wonderful, one of the best films of the year 5/5
Story
The story of “Up” revolves around a 78 year widower Carl Fredrickson (voiced by Edward Aisner), who decides to attach 1,000 balloons to his house and fly away to South America to escape the clutches of retirement. He is unwilling accompanied by a wilderness explorer called Russell (voiced by Jordan Nagai).
Review
The latest film to come out of Pixar Animation Studios is a very mature film to conceive of, because it deals which life and death and how life can pass you by. Which is demonstrated in a brilliant and heartbreaking montage that shows the relationship between Carl and his wife Ellie, which is beautifully created and directed by Pete Doctor, and scored by Michael Giacchino, a masterful piece of storytelling. You meet them at an earlier age, they are so full of life and adventure, and inspired by the disgraced explorer Charles Muntz (voiced by Christopher Plummer), they made it their ambition to take their house to Paradise Falls which is in South America and to live there, but they never achieve it. They go through life together as a married couple, always in love each other, even through the toughest times, and then when Carl decides to go Paradise Falls, Ellie passes away. After this sequence, there will not be a dry eye left in the cinema, and it is only 10 minutes in.
After the death of his wife, Carl is still suffering, knowing that his wife has passed away. You see Carl living through his daily routine at the beginning but there is always an empty space either in front of him or next him. You still feel Carl’s pain, which makes it even harder to watch in some ways, because the life he had with his wife is still fresh inside the audience’s mind, and it may cover ground which could be too much for the viewer to handle, it is pain which is familiar to us. This is also made evident, because in this film, when ever someone gets bitten or hit, they will bleed, which makes the point, that everyone is human, and questions everyone’s morality. But isn’t the least of Carl’s problems, there are people trying to put him into a retirement home and trying to kick him out of his house, so they can demolish it and build over it, and to finish it off, he is disrupted by a 8 year wilderness explorer Russell, who only wants his helping the elderly badge so he can become a senior wilderness explorer. So Carl has had enough and decides to attach 1,00 balloons to his house and float away to Paradise Falls. I have never been so mesmerized by balloons, it is a weird and a majestic site, and the little boy inside of you is jumping up and down wanting to do the same thing.
But it is only when the story moves to Paradise Falls, where the animation is really hits it stride. It really is a testament to the people at Pixar, because Paradise Falls is a full of colours, various landscapes and exotic creatures such as Kevin, a Road Runner style creature evading capture, it is coloured in blue, purple, yellow and many others and you cant take your eyes of it. The colour gives the film its energy, because it is such a visual treat, but they create other places in Paradise Falls which is just a foreboding, such as Charles Muntz hideout in the rock, it is dark, grimy and but still quite beautiful. Again, it is a testament to Pixar, because they have always been able to create engrossing landscapes in their films. I haven’t been this caught up, visually with a film since their 2003 film “Finding Nemo”.
But the film, thankfully hasn’t forgotten its sense of humour, but this film isn’t a laugh out loud a minute film. The jokes in this film are smart and sophisticated, which suits this film more because, it doesn’t take away any of the serious themes of the story. Although most of the jokes come from the chemistry of Carl and Russell, but most of the funnier jokes belong to a talking dog named Doug (voiced by co-director Bob Paterson), who has an electronic dog collar, which enables him to talk to Carl and Russell, along with the other dogs in the film.
The film also features some memorable chase sequences, such as Kevin’s chase through the jungle. But my favourite is a aerial dogfight between the house and dog’s airplanes, is has so much wit and invention to it, which I enjoyed so much, but I still prefer the aerial dogfight in “Wallace and Gromit: The Curse Of The Were Rabbit”, because it is quintessentially British.
Even though I have heaped lots of praise for this film already, there are still some minor errors, but most of them rely on one character, which is Charles Muntz. At the beginning, in a newsreel, Charles Munz has been disgraced, because scientists claim that the skeleton he brought back was a fake, and he claimed he would not return until he has found the bird. This is at the beginning of the film, the next time we see him, is towards the end when the action picks up. We don’t see any sort of edginess to his character or any lunacy because he has been chasing the bird for a long time, but he did build collars for his dogs, for them to talk and taught them how to cook dinner, maybe so.
Overall
I will admit, that after I watched Monsters Vs Aliens, I claimed that Dreamworks were better than Pixar. Well now, I can take that comment back because Pixar have achieved something amazing, in what I what I think is the perfect family. Funny, sad, interesting characters, visually arresting and themes which aren’t made obvious, ignored nor watered down for the children, this is certainly ranks up with Toy Story 1 and 2, Monsters Inc. and Ratatouille as one of Pixar’s very best films.
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