UP (****)

Directed by: Pete Docter
Starring (voices): Edward Asner, Christopher Plummer, Jordan Nagai, Bob Peterson, Jeremy Leary
Seen: September 13th 2009

**** Out of ****

Pixar is surely a cut above, and with Up they prove it yet again. The humour, the tugging of the heartstrings, the well-developed characters, the beautifully rendered world, the great story, everything is here. Like other studios, Pixar also always give away some of the funny moments in their films in the trailers, but unlike most other studios, the majority of funny moments are in the film, left unspoilt for the viewer. As Pixar did previously with great films like Monsters Inc., Wall-E, The Incredibles, and more, they yet again provide brilliance distilled, and everyone is better off for seeing it.

In what is probably the most beautiful animated sequence I’ve ever seen on screen, you are introduced to Carl Fredricksen as a young boy (Leary), as he sits in a 1930’s cinema, wide-eyed at the globetrotting exploits of explorer Charles Muntz (Plummer), and the story of his life up to the present day. Young Carl wears the same headdress and goggles, and has a balloon doubling as his Spirit of Adventure, Muntz’s huge and very luxurious blimp. Young Carl walks by another Spirit of Adventure on his way home, this time an old house, from which he hears commands cracking forth, uttered by Ellie, a young adventurer herself, and she welcomes him as a friend. The two grow up together and eventually get married, and restore the old house. Ellie has ideas of adventure, and as a kid Carl promised he would take her to Paradise Falls in South America, but they never did go, and the small but beautiful vignette ends with Carl as an old man, alone in his home, surrounded by big city development.

As Carl (Asner) is about to be (forcibly) removed from him and Ellie’s beloved house, he reveals a surprise – thousands of helium balloons tied to his house helps him take-off, en route for Paradise Falls. A few minutes into the trip though, Carl is startled by a knock on his door – it turns out to be Russel (Nagai), a Wilderness Explorer stubbornly intent on assisting Carl to earn his last necessary badge to become a Senior Wilderness Explorer, and he is stuck on the porch…

This all happens in the first 20 minutes of the film, and it’s a glorious setup for action and adventure and laughter and bittersweet remembrance, and Pixar does what they do best, they draw each and every viewer into the story, so rich and involving that you cannot resist. Carl is adamant on reaching Paradise Falls, with Russel more actively pursuing helping whoever comes across their path. There’s Kevin, the endangered bird that loves chocolate, Dug (Peterson, also the assistant director), the adorable Labrador who wears a collar that translates his thoughts to words – not always intelligent, but every time entertaining, Alpha, Beta and Gamma - the three ‘watchdogs’, and Muntz himself, in an adventure that has you on the edge of your seat right up until the conclusion.

Up is a delightfully fantastic animated feature that further cements Pixar’s reputation as the best animation studio in the world. They have a philosophy of a tear for every laugh, and while they live up to that, they also never let down on anything else that can make a movie even better. Up is glorious.