Movie Review: Up
Up: Whimsical Yet Touching
Co-written and co-directed by Bob Peterson and Pete Docter, Up is essentially the love story of Carl and Ellie Fredricksen, even though Ellie dies before the film's main plot about the house-and-balloons adventure that gives the movie its offbeat but effective title.
Up begins as an extended flashback in which we first meet Carl Fredricksen as a very shy young boy in a packed movie house watching an old newsreel; it's sometime in the 1930s or '40s and newsreels were the "windows to the world" in the same way that cable networks such as BBC World, CNN and MSNBC are today.
In this newsreel we're introduced to explorer Charles Muntz (Christopher Plummer), who's a cross between Howard Hughes and Indiana Jones. Muntz flies all over the world in The Spirit of Adventure, a Zeppelin-like airship with a veritable community of dogs as his companions, and in the newsreel he announces that in his latest voyage to Venezuela he has found the partial remains of a strange bird-like creature.
To Muntz's chagrin, however, his discovery is derided by the American scientific community as hogwash and a fraud; incensed, the explorer boards his airship and vows not to return to America until he finds proof that will prove his discovery is the genuine thing.
The entranced Carl, who hero-worships Muntz and even has a blue balloon with the aviator's motto Adventure is out there, leaves the theater and goes for a walk, eventually ending up in an abandoned house which happens to be the clubhouse of the tomboyish Ellie (Elie Docter).
Elilie takes a liking to Carl and, while showing him a scrapbook with a very ambitious TO DO list in it, she shares with him her dream: to someday, somehow take her clubhouse to Paradise Falls in Venezuela and go on adventures just like their shared hero, Charles Muntz.
In a bittersweet sequence titled "Married Life," we see Carl and Ellie go from young newlyweds who buy the abandoned house and restore it all the way to their "golden years" and - sadly - Ellie's death. This sequence is important for many reasons, but especially because it shows how Carl (Ed Asner) allowed life to "get in the way" of his and Ellie's youthful dreams of someday going to South America.
Carl Fredricksen: [Carl, with his house high in the air, opens his door to see who knocked on it. Looking around, he spots Russell and yells... ] Whaa!
Russell: Hi, Mr. Fredricksen! It's me, Russell!
Carl Fredricksen: What are you doing out here, kid?
Russell: I found a snipe, and I followed it under your porch, but this snipe had a long tail, and looked more like a large mouse.
[His flag then blows away in the wind, and he gasps]
Russell: [Turns to Mr. Fredricksen] Please let me in.
Carl Fredricksen: [pause] No.
[He slams the door shut]
Carl Fredricksen: [Russell waits uncertainly for a few seconds. The door opens again] Oh, all right...
[Russell runs inside]
The bulk of Up delves into how and why Carl Fredricksen, a now old and retired balloon vendor. ends up transforming the house he restored with his late wife into a whimsical airship and - unwittingly - accompanied by eight-year-old Wilderness Explorer Russell (Jordan Nagai), takes it upward on a South America-bound journey and a quest to keep a promise to Ellie.
My Take: Even though I'm not a big fan of "family-oriented" or "kid-friendly" movies (I often find them condescending, simplistic and, yes, boring), I do enjoy many of Pixar's offerings, including Up. No matter what they're about, Pixar films are family-oriented and kid-friendly, as well they should be, but they also have much to offer adults as well.
For instance, Up is a story about the love between Carl and Ellie. Yes, she is physically gone after the first 15 minutes or so of the movie, but Docter and Peterson infuse Up with her presence through visual cues (a bottlecap "badge" little Ellie gives Carl in their first meeting is prominent in several scenes) as well as in the use of a theme written by composer Michael Giacchino, who also wrote the score for 2009's Star Trek.
The love the lonely and crotchety Carl feels for Ellie is one of the story's main driving forces. Carl's guilt for not being able to take Ellie to South America while she was still healthy is one of the reasons why he's such a grouchy recluse, and his attachment to Ellie's memory is what drives him to resist selling their house even though his neighbors have all sold their properties to mall-building developers.
Are these themes and situations geared toward kids? Not for the very young ones, no, but Up does have enough whimsy, adventure and comedy in its 98 minutes of running time to entertain the younger set.
Kids will probably love the fantasy element of a balloon-borne house, the bonding between Carl and their peer Russell, the odd-looking bird Russell named Kevin, Dug and the other dogs who "talk" via special collars and the stunning vistas created by Pixar's animators.
As for grown-ups and film buffs, Up offers a great many delights, ranging from being the first animated film to feature a senior citizen as the lead character to featuring subtle and not-so-subtle visual and aural references to other Pixar films and classic movies such as King Kong, It's a Wonderful Life and Star Wars.
The 2009 Blu-ray/DVD/Digital Copy four-disc Combo pack is perhaps the sweetest deal Walt Disney Home Entertainment can offer for those of us who have Blu-ray players, DVD players and/or home computers. It contains the feature film in three formats (Blu-ray, DVD and digital copy) plus a Blu-ray disc full of extras, some of which also appear in the regular two-DVD set but some which are exclusive to the Blu-ray format.
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