Review: ‘Up’

When you think about it, it has to be a difficult challenge to move your audience with animated characters.  The emotional distance created by not using live action character is something animators have worked to bridge for decades.  Judging from the genres that have come out of the animated world in this span of time, it seems it is easiest to make someone laugh with an animated character.

Evidently, it is very difficult to move someone to tears with an animated film.  ‘Grave of the Fireflies’ was able to do it, but that story was designed to tugg at the heartstrings.  Miyazaki is a master at emitting a certain level of emotion withi his animated characters, but I wouldn’t say any of them would move the viewer to tears.

Picture perfect PIXAR.  That’s really what they should change the name of their company to, because, with ‘Up,’ they do something seemingly effortlessly that has never been done before.  They project an emotion based on their characters alone that has, to my knowledge, never been topped or even matched before.

With 78-year-old Carl Fredericksen, PIXAR has a central character who can elicit emotional responses that range from one end of the spectrum (laughter) to the other (tears).  And, with Pete Docter (‘Monsters, Inc.’) and Bob Peterson (‘Finding Nemo’) at the helm, the film isn’t satisfied with just telling you about Carl.  They show you.

When we are introduced to Carl, he is a child sitting in a 1930s movie theater, watching news reels about famed explorer Charles Muntz who is venturing to South America to discover an elusive, giant bird.  As a child, Carl is a lover of all things adventure, and he finds his lifemate in Ellie, a slightly older girl who also has a passion for adventure.  The two quickly fall in love, and, in an opening montage that ranks up there with the very best, we witness their life together.  They are dreamers, and they desire to run off to South America to be adventurers, as well.  Unfortunately, as is often the case, life intervenes.  Before they can go off on the adventures they had always dreamed of, the couple find themselves aged, and their dreams have fallen behind.  Before too long, Carl finds himself alone.

As an aged widower, Carl becomes a recluse.  City planners are building office buildings around the home he and Ellie made for themselves.  Just as the retirement home is coming to take Carl away, he decides it is time to make his and Ellie’s dreams a reality.  Tying thousands of helium balloons to his house, he lifts off the ground and sets sail for South America.  Of course, nothing ever goes as planned, and Carl soon realizes he is not alone.  An 8-year-old wilderness explorer named Russell is also on board.  The two quickly find themselves in the middle of the adventure Carl had always dream of.

After ‘Up’s emotionally moving opening sequences, the thought of a man tying thousands of helium balloons to his home in order to lift it off the ground takes you aback a little bit.  It is a pretty major change in emotional and logical direction the film takes.  The early moments featuring Carl and Russell in the floating house are, no pun intended, the low points of ‘Up.’  Fortunately, this film isn’t all about the two in the house as they float towards South America.  There are a few moments aboard the house, but, for the post part, ‘Up’ is about the adventure the duo gets into after they find themselves in South America.

‘Up’ is a film that, through and through, is the perfect Summer movie.  It truly has everything you might want.  There is drama.  There is comedy.  There is a grand sense of adventure.  Docter and Peterson, as well as the top-notch animators at PIXAR, truly outdo themselves in every department imaginable.

And, not only does ‘Up’ have all of these elements, it pulls every one of them off brilliantly.  The comedy in ‘Up’ is amazing.  Even certain moments that, on the surface, seem cheap and easy turn ingenious by unpredictable out comes.  There is a pack of guard dogs Carl and Russell come across who are all wearing bark-to-English translators around their necks.  The leader of the dogs is a Doberman Pinscher whose translator is malfunctioning, and the effects on the dogs voice are hilarious, even if you know where the joke is going long before it shows up.

The level of adventure found in ‘Up’ is off the chart, and this is a combination of everything.  The story is such that you care about every character.  The voice acting (Ed Asner as Carl was an inspired choice) solidifies the embodied nature the animators began with the characters.  The lush environment the PIXAR animators put these characters in is breathtaking, oftentimes more beautiful than anything found in the real world.  Docter and Peterson’s direction of the action is superb, never allowing the film to rest for one moment.  Even in the scenes where there is no action, when Carl and Russell are merely trudging through the South American jungle, there is an intensity that is often missing from such, animated features.

PIXAR has always been know for mixing heart and comedy into their films with immaculate results, but this combination has never reached the level found in ‘Up.’  It may not be PIXAR’s best film, and there are, indeed, moments early in Carl’s adventure that don’t quite work as well as others.  Regardless, ‘Up’ is yet another glowing example of the level of work going on at PIXAR.  What’s more, they appear to be doing it with a minimal amount of effort.

Overall: 4.5 out of 5