Up - 2009

Carl Fredrickson (Edward Asner) is an adventurous, young boy, who meets a girl named Ellie who shares his same passion. Once they are older they fall in love, and get married. They had once planned to travel to a lost land in South America; however, when Ellie dies Carl becomes a grouchy old man with a hard heart. He is being forced to stay in a retirement home for hitting a construction worker, so he comes up with the plan of tying hundreds of balloons to his house and flying away to the lost land he had always dreamed of going to. But soon after Carl departs on his journey he realizes that he has accidentaly picked up a partner. An eight year old boy named Russell (Jordan Nagai) who is innocently trying to earn his assisting the elderly badge. Together they will embark on a great adventure, as they learn more and more about each others lives, and they discover how much they really need each other.


Pixar is hands down one of the most brilliant movie making businesses in film history. If you look up some of the great animation makers, and great film makers in general. Pixar is possibly one of the most consistent, if not the most consistent, to be good at what they do than any other film makers in history. As far as animation goes Walt Disney was as fine of a producer as there ever has been. Him and his crew have accomplished what almost no film makers can do, and that is almost always make a good movie, without ever really making a bad one. And I am not at all trying to take anything away from the great Walt Disney, but as of now I believe that Pixar has passed him as far as how consistent they are in making every single film great. For the most part everyone has at least one or two Pixar films they feel are a let down, but after eleven critically acclaimed films, I would say Pixar has still done an unbelievable job. I recently watched the documentary "The Pixar Story", which inspired me to write this review of my favorite Pixar film, Up.


Many people love films for many different reasons, and because of this is why we have critics, so that they can tell us if a movie is good or bad, and we can get different opinions from different critics. But Up is one of those special films where almost everyone who sees it loves it, and I am one of those people. Pixar is more known for doing films not involving that much to humans, such as toys, cars, fish, rats, bugs and so on. But here they just take a basic story about an old man and a young boy. Which is one of the reasons I like the film so much. Pixar does a great job of keeping everything unique and not at all like any of the other films made. The story is slightly predictable I suppose, but it does not really matter because it was fantastic at the same time. The character developement was perfect beyond belief. I do not know if I have ever in my life cared so much for animated characters. We start the film off learning about one of our main characters Carl, and as the film goes on and the relationship between Carl and Russell progresses, we learn more about the life of Russell. No one in this world could have done a better job at the developement of those two characters lives.


The vocal talent was amazing, as Pixar films always are. Ed Asner was a surprise to play Carl Fredrickson, but it worked out great. I had never heard of Jordan Nagai before this film, but his job with Russell was as good as they come. I can pretty much promise anyone he will make you laugh at least once in this film. And my favorite was of course Christopher Plummer to play the idolized Charles Muntz in the film. Also Bob Peterson was hilarious as Dug, the dog our characters pick up along their journey. It isn't everyday I laugh out loud at a dog, but in Up I sure did. The writing in this film was brilliant as well, which did help bring out the laughs in the film, along with the cast. But the best thing about this film was not the fantastic characters, or the vocal talent, it was how the writers here not only made everything in the film come together perfectly, but they actually wrote a story that truly means something in today's world. And a story with a strong meaning is about as much as I can ask for in a film.


Overall, Up is not your everday animated film. This is one that kids will laugh at, and adults will laugh and cry at. The character developement was so brilliant along with the story, I cannot help but tear up at times in this film. The voices were superb, some of my all time favorite from Pixar, and the animation was jaw dropping. The musical score will bring tears to your eyes as this amazing story unfolds. Up is not just an animation mastpiece, it is a masterpiece of the art of film making.

Rating: 10/10