Film Review: Pixar’s Up
June 30, 2009 • written by Samantha Hartfiel
For the past ten years, Pixar Animation Studios have been bringing adorable touching stories into the homes and hearts of millions of families. These critically acclaimed films, including Toy Story and Finding Nemo, are illustrious for their tender storylines and comical characters. However, with Pixar’s latest installments of Cars, Ratatouille, and WALL-E, it appears that Pixar has been moving away from the comedy and cuteness that older films such as The Incredibles contained and have been becoming increasingly serious, focusing on spreading an obvious message rather than inducing a laugh. While this transition has impressed some of the adult critics, several of the younger fans are not as thrilled to endure a film with a dull message as opposed to laughing whilst learning. While Pixar must be applauded for keeping their movies clean and kid friendly, keeping out the rap music and raunchy not entirely subtle sexual innuendos, the movies are slowly losing some of their entertaining magic.
Nevertheless, Pixar Studios seems to be crawling out of their lengthy rut with their newest animated installment, Up, a film about an elderly man who attaches thousands of helium balloons onto the roof of his home in order to travel to Paradise Falls in South America. The immediate reaction from some of the Pixar fans is “Oh, looks like we have another Ratatouille on our hands,” which is not really that great of a compliment, usually meaning that the film does not appear to look appealing to the funny bone. However, if people look past the advertisements featuring the lead Carl Fredrickson as a displeasing grumpy elder who seems to find life a bitter disappointment, they will discover that Carl is in fact not acrid at all, but actually a compassionate gentleman with a great heart who is simply grieving over the loss of the love of his life Ellie. From his wife’s death, the plot of the film turns to his attempt to complete his wife’s lifelong aspiration and move their home to Paradise Falls, as they were both explorers at heart. While attempting to complete this unselfish act of endearment for the late Ellie, Carl meets new friends including the hyperactive Wilderness Explorer Russel, the talking dog Dug, and a large colorful bird that Russels deems Kevin, who each teach Carl a lesson.
This 96 minute film, which opened in late May, is a pleasant change of pace for the Pixar gang. Even though the movie starts off at a slow pace, the humor that made Pixar so adored seems to have returned. Laughter rang through the theater when an evil dog talks in a squeaky squirrel voice and each time poor Russel got into another predicament. Yet, there are some heartwrenching scenes that could make some audience members misty eyed. Even as some might have argued that the plot was tragic for the sake of putting one into a bad mood; others found the movie to be charmingly heartwarming, spreading a delightful message while including some humor and aspects of real life.
Overall, with the film Up, it looks as if Pixar is slowly returning to its old self, creating classic after timeless classic. Moviegoers looking for a light adventure will surely enjoy this animated masterpiece.
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