So, in spite of all the wedding planning, barbecue ribs, NBA playoffs and mojitos, I was able to spare an hour and a half this weekend to watch Pixar’s latest film “Up”. “Up” is helmed by “Monsters Inc.” director Pete Doctor, and is scored by “The Incredibles” music magician Michael Giacchino, but be not fooled: “Up” is a sequel to neither of these movies. In fact… it’s not a sequel at all! I know! After their deal with the devil greenlighting a sequel to “Cars” (which is, in fact, the worst Pixar movie to date), I figured that all of their films would now be sequels to their previous animated features. This is not only not the case, but “Up” continues Pixar’s tradition of somehow being able to tell an original story with a unique moral lesson, in spite of Disney’s long-held tradition of exploiting every single moral ever conceived (right down to the somewhat confusing moral of “Home on the Range”, which was, I believe “don’t be hatin’ on hip hop cows”). The following review is not spoiler-full, but if you’re any sort of fan of Pixar films and don’t want anything ruined for you before going into this movie (as I would be) then you can just skip down to the last paragraph which I PROMISE will be completely spoiler-free. I will of course omit much of the plot from my review anyway, even though I’m leaving out all of the best parts. Sacrifice: c’est la vie.
If only I had THIS, my weekend would've been so much easier. It even comes with DVD's!
First things first, a brief synopsis. “Up” is about an elderly fellow shut off from the world, who engineers his house to take-off via thousands of balloons and fly to South America in hopes of truly retiring, but by mistake ends up stealing an annoying neighborhood boy scout who must accompany him on his trip. What follows (the bulk of the movie) are their exploits in South America, making friends with rare birds, evading an army of talking dogs, and all around just trying to stay alive. It’s a lovely little story that, while being pure fantasy, still ends up seeming more grounded in reality than pretty much any other Pixar movie (with the exception of “WALL-E”, which WILL happen). And maybe it’s along this dangerous line that they tread that I begin to notice why I had a small problem with the film. The most part of this movie does feel very real (in spite of the giant floating house), so when they focus on something outright silly, it ends up feeling a bit like they’re putting this in the movie because they’re forced to remember that small children are indeed watching this movie too, and they are Pixar’s future demographic.
Not really an "action" figure... per se...
The last PG movie Pixar put out was “The Incredibles”, and it’s also a film that I don’t think suffers from any inclusion of silly or transparently childish elements, which is what “Up” nearly does. Where “Up” does succeed over that movie, though, is in its touching sentimentality. Thanks in large part to composer Giacchino, there are some scenes that are pretty hard to not get caught up in emotionally, and hit even harder than the sentimental scenes in “WALL-E”. Of course I can’t give anything away, which makes this particularly hard, but I think the balance is struck because while adults will ignore the more silly scenes, kids will have no idea why some of the more sentimental scenes are indeed very sad.
Aside from that, the only other tragic thing about “Up” is that the marketing of the movie did indeed give most of the plot away. Naturally there’s plenty of surprises in the movie even if you’ve seen the trailer, but there’s not a ton of stuff plot-wise that you don’t see coming, again, mostly due to months and months of watching trailers (I guess).
Enough about that, though. There are many, many scenes in the movie that are really great, there’s a lot of solid action, and enough scenes that made me laugh where I can easily call this a very good film. Really, it is a beautifully told story with a genuine moral lesson to share, that combines action, comedy, and tragedy in good fashion. If it weren’t for a few relatively minor things, I’d give it an A, but I’d still be pressed to not put it on the level of “WALL-E” or “The Incredibles”. So, yeah. A-.
Really is a beautiful movie, though.
LAST PARAGRAPH. E3 is still going on, and I feel compelled to talk more about it, but that will have to wait until my Friday post, or tomorrow at the earliest. Friday will also be the day that “Land of the Lost” is released, so I hereby declare Friday “Will Ferrell Day”! Or, wait, wasn’t Ferrell just on “Man vs. Wild” with Bear Grylls last night? Geez, what’s with all the Will Ferrell this week? Fine, Friday is no longer “Will Ferrell Day”, and will hereby be known as “Thursday”. Wait.
(PS: Did you check out the IMDb page for the new “Land of the Lost”? I can’t actually find Will Ferrell in the cast anywhere… weird…)
The Glass City 