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Our next movie is Disney Pixar's "UP" also brand new on DVD this week - originally released
May 29th of this year, it went on to gross over 650 million world-wide - Pixar's second
most successful movie behind Finding Nemo.
The heartwarming family computer-generated family film is about how an old man, Carl
Fredricksen, voiced by Ed Asner, heads the dying wish of his late wife to travel to South
America in a floating house suspended by thousands of helium balloons. Along the journey, he
teams up with an overeager Wilderness Explorer, Russel, hoping to get his "Helping the elderly"
merit badge. They run in some strange and funny creatures along the way, and of course
- a villain or two. Really though, this movie isn't about any of that - the real focus of
this movie is the emotional development of the protagonist Carl. In the opening minutes
of the film we're presented with a very moving almost tear-jerk montage of Carl's life with
his wife Ellie - from their first meeting, to her eventual passing. This is undeniably
the strongest part of the film, and sadly, it does go down slightly from here.
The animation in this movie, as can be expected is absolutely phenomenal. From the way Carl's
pants fold and fall when he sits down, to the shadows and light on some 20,000 balloons.
It also helps that I got a chance to see this movie in Blu-Ray, where the detail is stunning...
it makes "Ice Age 3" effort look like a children's drawing by comparison. It was the middle of
this film that I wasn't particularly crazy about. After the sobering and touching first
20 minutes, the film starts to get a bit silly, introducing talking animals, crazy landscapes,
and some villains that just seem misplaced and over-ambitious. Throughout it all though,
I really enjoyed the character duo of Carl and Russell - with a fun-to-watch father/son
development happening over the course of the movie. This movie's missteps, although few,
are hard to overlook. For one, the glaring difference in tone and mode throughout the
film made it difficult to figure out what Director Pete Doctor wanted to do. I felt
the of label of "family comedy" was also very poorly chosen - as this movie dealt with some
very serious non-children themes like infertility and abandonment, and because a lot of the
movie just wasn't funny. Just because you have a talking dogs flying fighter-planes
in the film, doesn't automatically make it a family comedy. I think the film would have
been better off, had it been marketed as an animated drama. Inconsistencies and mislabeling
aside, this was an enjoyable film, with a moving ending that'll stick with you long
after the credits role.
But let's see what you guys thought about "Up"
13dragon000 Up is one of the best Pixar movies ever made... It has excitement, comedy, adventure,
and even a really sad part.
Tjechi UP was probably the least funny movie that Pixar has made so far, not a lot of funny
moments in there and that's a shame.
Bobaheej I am a guy. I teared at the beginning of UP. That’s how good it was.
Well, that's what you thought - lets see what the Rate-O-Matic says!
An eight!