by John Calvin | January 6th, 2010
My review of Disney/Pixar’s Up appeared in the July 2009 issue of Carolina Journal. I recently realized I never got around to reposting it here. Enjoy!
Ever wanted to tie yourself to a bunch of balloons and fly away? Carl Fredricksen does just that this summer in Pixar’s newest animated blockbuster, Up (directed by Pete Docter). Seventy-eight-year-old widower Carl (voiced by Ed Asner), grieving his recently deceased wife, decides to fulfill a childhood dream to go to the fabled Paradise Falls by mooring thousands of balloons to his house and flying it to South America. In the process, cantankerous Carl collects a giant bird, a talking dog, and 8-year-old stowaway Russell (Jordan Nagai), all of whom demand more love, loyalty, and leadership than Carl’s tired heart can supply. Climb aboard as Carl Fredricksen finally finds his adventure — which may be a little … wilder … than either he or Russell anticipated.
The film opens with a look back into Carl’s childhood, as he watches newsreels of his hero, intrepid explorer Charles Muntz (Christopher Plummer) set off in his airship, the Spirit of Adventure, seeking the legendary giant bird of South America’s Paradise Falls. The youthful Carl soon meets Ellie, a girl even more obsessed with Muntz than himself, if possible, and their shared dream makes them fast friends. In the course of time, they grow up, fall in love, marry, and grow old together, always promising each other they would someday make it to Paradise Falls like their hero.
We return to the present to find a fiercely independent Carl, widowed and alone for the first time in 50 years. With his cottage threatened by urban development, the retired balloon salesman devises a plan to tie thousands of balloons to his house and sail it to South America, inadvertently taking along Russell, a Wilderness Explorer. Carl and Russell face far more than the simple difficulty of getting to the falls, however. Charles Muntz is still searching for his giant bird, and he has become rather territorial about the falls and the birds that live there, complicating matters when one of the rare birds attaches itself to their convoy. The explorer is convinced the man and boy are out to get him, and sends his trained dog packs out to find and stop them. Russell must learn courage and Carl patience if they are to survive this blue-yonder adventure in one piece.
Up continues Pixar’s long tradition of breathtakingly beautiful cinematic panoramas of computer-generated imagery. The setting of the main part of the movie — the ground and skies of Paradise Falls — is richly, wonderfully detailed. With Up, however, for the first time Pixar experimented with wide-release 3D in its films. While I did not see it in 3D (3D showings are dependent on the theater and are typically $3 to $5 more expensive), I have heard that, as usual, Pixar hit the 3D version out of the ballpark. In my own experience, though, the 3D version of a film may be distracting or confusing and can even cause some people headaches; your mileage may vary.
The true theme of the movie isn’t about helping the elderly, or never forgetting your dreams, or anything else. Russell needs leadership, needs to learn how to be a man. Carl needs to remember who he is. You can’t forget a dream, yet dreams are not enough — sometimes you have to leave them behind. In short, it’s “If” in cinematic form — Rudyard Kipling’s challenge to courageous manhood:
If you can dream — and not make dreams your master,
If you can think — and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same.Be advised: the emotional intensity of Up may be a little too much for some kids. The family in front of me in the theater had to take their little girls out three times, as the suspense got to be too much for them. Unlike some of Pixar’s previous films, this time the heroes in danger are near and dear to us — a vulnerable old man and a little boy rather than a talking car, a clownfish, or a teenage chef. The film is hardly all seriousness, though. The explorer’s trained dog pack is fitted with collars that allow them to talk … until their attention is interrupted by a passing squirrel. Ever wondered how a dog thinks? Pixar’s nailed it — “Sir, I have just met you but I LOVE you. … ” Talking dogs, a giant bird that loves chocolate, and the escapades of an irrepressible 8-year-old Wilderness Explorer do a lot to relieve the tension of the film.
Carl regains the sense of adventure, of youthfulness, he lost when Ellie died. And Russell learns how to be a man at last. Carl’s childhood hero failed the test, but Carl and Russell have come a long way together, and it shows. Pixar has done it again and created a beautiful, wonderful, heroic tearjerker of a movie. In today’s culture, we can do far worse for our kids and for ourselves.