A delight...plus it's in 3-D!!

Rating: 10/10 (29 May 2009)

As I am much more hesitant to give a movie a score of 10 than most reviewers, take my score of 9 as a ringing endorsement for this sweet CGI film from Pixar. In addition, the film is the first 3-D film by the studio and it looked lovely.
The film begins with a sweet but VERY emotionally draining prologue. You see Carl Fredricksen as a very young boy along with his first two loves--the adventures of the explorer, Charles Muntz, and his meeting and falling in love with Ellie. All this is done with a minimum of dialog and it is one of the sweetest segments I've seen in years--and is a first for something this deep and emotional from a computer generated film. Keep a few Kleenex nearby--you'll likely need it.
Then, the film jumps ahead to the present day. Carl is now elderly and alone. His life is quite sad and he dwells on the recent loss of Ellie. Fortunately, the film doesn't dwell on this too long or become maudlin--though it did come a bit close at times. Now, with nothing in his life other than memories AND the court pushing him into a retirement home against his will, Carl comes up with a crazy plan--to float his home away with a bazillion balloons and take it to South America!! Unfortunately, while the plan works, Carl also gets an unwelcome passenger (Russell). Now Russell is an absolutely adorable character--wonderfully rendered and with a fittingly cute voice. You cannot help but love him. But, since Carl is alone and childless and grumpy, he is less than enthralled with this hitchhiker.
Eventually, they arrive in South America and meet some new friends--a bizarre giant bird and Dug, the dog. But, being a family film, you KNOW that there must be some villain and sure enough, along comes a very, very, very elderly Muntz who seems a tad..."touched". This sets off some very hair-raising adventures and you'll just need to tune it to see what happens next.
Technically speaking, this film was incredible and shows that the same old software is NOT being used but a newer generation with greater clarity and richness. I loved how through the course of the film, for instance, Carl's beard stubble starts to slowly grow in as well as the lovely shading and colors. While I loved RATATOUILLE and WALL-E for their animation, this looked a lot better--plus came in 3-D. I just saw Dreamworks' latest film the week before (MONSTERS VS. ALIENS) and frankly UP looked immensely better--there was just no comparison.
As for the story, it was highly imaginative and strange--in a good way. I can only think of one other film that is like UP at all, and that is the wonderful French live action film, LE PAPILLON. It, too, is about an elderly single man who has an adorable child dumped in his lap and like UP, by the end of the film the old man has essentially been adopted by the kid. Both are rather predictable in that sense, but both also make it work due to brilliant writing, adorable kids and plot elements that are very unique and magical. Heck, in UP, the many dogs in the film can talk AND are excellent chefs--where have you ever seen that before?!
Overall, it's a great film for almost all ages. I did notice in the theater that one kid (about 4) got very, very, very upset when the cute bird was captured--and he screamed and cried for some time. Keep this in mind if you do take young kids to see it--it may elicit come tears though there is no dirty language and the violence is mostly mild. For Pixar, this is among their best.