 "Adventure is out there!"
In the past, Pixar have tackled talking cars, washed-up superheroes, a rat who cooks and a mute garbage robot in a post-apocalyptic environment. For Up, the revered animation pioneers deliver something unexpected: a melancholy action-adventure concerning a 78-year-old widower and an obese young boy. No doubt on paper this idea seemed impetuous, but the Pixar squad have hit the pay dirt once again; scoring over $400 million at the worldwide box office and garnering the sort of acclaim that Michael Bay and McG could only dream of for the idiotic blockbusters they create. For their 10th motion picture, Pixar have weaved together a strange and shrewd amalgam of comedy and heart-rending pathos in the form of a visually dazzling, high-flying marvel of an adventure.
At the centre of Up is aging, bespectacled curmudgeon Carl Fredricksen (Asner). Reeling from the death of his beloved wife Ellie, Carl is caught in a mournful stasis; maintaining his curmudgeonly senior citizen lifestyle while an encroaching development threatens his comfortable old house. When Carl is forced to move into a retirement home, he senses the opportunity to pursue the life of adventure that his wife had always dreamed of. Attaching hundreds of balloons to his house to lift it off the ground, Carl travels in the direction of South Africa in the hope of landing near the jungle stomping grounds of his boyhood hero - adventurer Charles Muntz (Plummer). Inconveniently, however, he has a stowaway onboard: pudgy, devout boy scout Russell (Nagal) who hopes Carl can help with the achievement of his "Assisting the Elderly" badge.
Up is vehemently an old man/young kid "buddy film" transplanted effectively into the animation format - on that note, it's practically James and the Giant Peach meets Gran Torino. Chief among the film's myriad pleasures is watching this unlikely inter-generational friendship take root. It's even more satisfying to watch the relationship blossom given its unpromising and highly amusing beginning. The vocal work is top-notch right across the board. Instead of seeking big names to fill roles purely for the novelty value, Pixar found the right voices. Edward Asner and Christopher Plummer are not unknowns, but neither are they A-list stars. They're perfect for their respective characters of Carl and Muntz, and viewers are not left with the afterimages of their real-life features burned onto the animated characters.
The brilliance of Pixar is their ability to say more in five wordless minutes than most other films can say in ten pages of dialogue. Pixar understands that this is a visual medium, and the team strongly believe in the old adage that a picture says a thousand words. From an emotional standpoint, the greatest thing about Up is its prologue - running at approximately 10 minutes, it's a masterpiece of economy and could stand on its own as a self-contained short. It tells the story of Carl and Ellie, whose childhood meeting (when they were both adventure-spirited kids) is charm personified. The episode that follows has a certain grace that's seldom seen in a motion picture - it's an emotionally resonant, beautiful montage that exquisitely captures the couple's young love, marriage, hopes, dreams and heartbreaks. But Ellie eventually dies and Carl is left alone in a house rich with memories where every floorboard is imbued with Ellie's presence. It brings a tear to the eye. Furthermore, this is all communicated brilliantly and mutely by the filmmakers who utilise the gift of elegant animation and well-lubed character expressions to lend the audience a glimpse into Carl's stubborn psychology. Through this, a viewer gets to know everything there is to know about Carl... We understand him, and feel with him. His decision to abandon the world and float away seems sensible and right. All the central characters are brilliantly developed; Pixar understands that the action set-pieces are far more nail-biting with likeable characters entangled in the perilous situations.
Every frame of Up is meticulously constructed to the finest detail, with every behaviour (be it dog or human) carefully observed and replicated. The film is constructed with all the required narrative elements in place, yet the functionality is rarely obvious. There's a villain in the film, as well as conflict, but that's all external. At surface level, Up is the story of an elderly man and his boy scout sidekick wandering through exotic jungles and fighting dastardly air pirates. But in truth, this is the story of Carl coming to grips with the loss of his beloved wife and struggling to find a way to move on. The rest is just window dressing. See, above all else, those who constructed the movie never forgot that entertainment is job one. The film itself is therefore a piece of entertainment which can also be appreciated for what it carries underneath its surface.
As always, the animation in Up (a marvellous blend of realism and caricature) is breathtaking - especially in 3-D, which is the best way to experience the movie. Pixar have become so excellent at what they do, it's almost no longer a requirement to stop and marvel their artistic efforts. The filmmakers' attention to detail borders on pathological, from the way Carl's beard subtly grows as the days roll by to the vivid candy colours of the beautiful mound of balloons. There are a number of images here that would be considered amazing in any film (animated or live-action). On top of all this, the stunning visual world is set to a wonderful musical score. Composer Michael Giacchino recalls the lushly orchestrated compositions of cinema's golden age; providing ebullient pieces of music perfectly suited to Carl and Russell's lofty adventure.
One thing's for sure: Up is very touching, but it's also hilarious. There are sequences included here with the inventiveness of a Charlie Chaplin comedy, not to mention an abundance of clever laugh lines with nary a pop-culture reference in sight. One of the greatest pleasures of Up is a bunch of talking dogs. Anyone who has ever spent time with a dog will find infinite pleasures in the spot-on approximations of what might be going through a lovable, slobbery mutt's mind at any given moment. It's comedy gold. Granted, some of the characters feel more like the product of a DreamWorks animation film, but they're grounded with a glorious Pixar sensibility (for instance, if this was a DreamWorks movie, the talking dogs would all carry iPhones and the giant bird would be voiced by Eddie Murphy). In a way, Up does succumb to screenwriting clichés towards the opening of its third act; hatching a break-up-to-make-up scenario that feels alien to the material. Yet this is only a small objection within a film of boundless beauty and gorgeous cartoon buoyancy.
A motion picture like Up makes it clear that Pixar has moved beyond the point where they need to pander children. Unlike DreamWorks, Pixar allows sophisticated themes and ideas to seep into their movies and they don't feel the need to oversimplify everything. That's not to say Pixar creates family unfriendly art films - Up includes plenty of jokes that kid will get, and its appeal is boundless. To describe the pleasures afforded by Up is ultimately an exercise in futility because it wins you over in so many ways - alternating between solid belly laughs to cliffhanger thrills to gorgeous imagery - that one is simply left wondering what they're smoking over at Pixar studios and why more filmmakers aren't smoking the same thing.
8.9/10
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