Human-Sized Pixar Adventure Impressively Balances Character Depth and Genuine Thrills

Rating: 9/10 (17 December 2009)

I have to admit there are two reasons I took an immediate personal liking to Pixar's 2009 sure-fire contribution to the box office, the Emeryville studio's impressive computer-generated artistry reflecting the most dependable cash cow in the industry. The first is the unique casting of an Asian lead character, a cherubic, hyper-curious nine-year-old Japanese-American Wilderness Explorer stowaway named Russell. The second is the reference to Fenton's Creamery, which is a two-minute walk from my former home in Oakland. Beyond those two points is a surprisingly mature, sometimes melancholy comedy adventure that focuses on a 78-year-old protagonist whose self-proclaimed destiny is to visit a mythical place that he and his wife have dreamed about ever since they first met. Before the kids start moaning, you should also be aware that there are more than enough exotic animals, talking dogs, acts of aerial derring-do, and miscellaneous Indiana Jones-type thrills to counterbalance the film's more sentimental moments.
Co-directed and scripted by Bob Peterson and Pete Docter, the movie opens during the Great Depression when a young, shy boy named Carl Fredricksen meets tomboyish Ellie in an abandoned house that she has turned into a clubhouse. They discover they are both aspiring adventurers who dream of meeting intrepid explorer Charles F. Muntz and going to Paradise Falls in South America. An impressively executed montage follows as we watch Carl and Ellie grow up, get married, and grow old together. When Ellie passes away, Carl becomes a solitary curmudgeon unwilling to sell his home, which is the same house where he met Ellie, amid the high-rises being built all around him. An unexpected altercation occurs after a construction worker accidentally knocks over Carl's mailbox. Forced to move into a retirement home, he hatches a plan to tie thousands of helium-filled balloons (a dazzling effect) to his house and float away to Paradise Falls. What he doesn't count on is the appearance of Russell on his porch early in the flight, and together, they face a series of adventures involving a large flightless bird in iridescent colors searching for her chicks, a lovable golden retriever named Dug who expresses his thoughts by way of a voice-activating collar, and Muntz himself, who has become a Captain Nemo-like figure deep in the jungle with his massive zeppelin.
There is a refreshing emotional economy to the story. That's why the 96-minute film doesn't feel as ambitious as "Ratatouille" or last year's "WALL-E", but at the same time, there is a deeper emotional resonance in the dilemmas presented since they feel so human-sized. Even as the film becomes more formulaic in the second half, it maintains the limited perspective of its main character as the rudder. I feel that's the key difference between this and other more populated Pixar confections. The vocal work is terrific, especially since Ed Asner ("The Mary Tyler Moore Show") perfectly captures Carl's gruff exterior without resorting to cheap sentiment to reveal his vulnerability. Nine-year-old Jordan Nagai provides the right energetic bounce for Russell, while Christopher Plummer has a field day playing all the various shades of Muntz. Peterson himself does stellar vocal work as both Dug and the squeaky-voiced Alpha, the German shepherd leader of the dog pack. Younger children may be bored by the film's more deliberate pacing and even at the idea of cheering a septuagenarian, but the more patient ones will be well rewarded.
The 2009 DVD is chock full of extras beginning with the obligatory short that that preceded screenings of the movie, "Partly Cloudy", a charming concoction in which clouds fancifully give birth to animals. Another five-minute short focuses on Dug's misadventures. Several pieces deal with individual components of the film, for instance, each character's development from inception to on screen character, how Carl and Ellie's house evolved, and how all the balloons and Muntz's zeppelin came to being. There are alternate endings dealing with what to do with Muntz at the end, as well as one that expands on Carl and Ellie's backstory. Also included are an interesting making-of featurette, a documentary of the filmmakers' visit to the Tepuis Mountains in South America to research the film's overall design and storyline, a piece about composer Michael Giacchino's score, and the various trailers for the film.