Great film, but some of the more mature themes might fly over kids heads (in a balloon house nonetheless)

Rating: 8/10 (2 August 2009)

One day, Pixar might make a film that will just fail to be decent. Fortunately, Up is not that picture. While the story is a little fragmented, this still remains a marvel of animated storytelling that continues the Pixar legacy of releasing solid 3D animated films.
The story begins with Carl as a child and we quickly watch his relationship with Ellie, through its various phases, through its untimely end. And then we pick up again as Carl decides to make his late wife's dreams come true. He launches his house into the sky via a ton of balloons, but manages to pick up a young Wilderness Explorer named Russell and then his goal gets derailed from there. Along the way, we meet a few other kooky characters, hilarity ensues and we end on a nice note. First of all, I think Up contains some of the most mature themes and story elements of all of their films so far, especially as we watch Carl and Ellie's life together in fast forward. I don't know how much children will fully comprehend what was going on, but despite the brevity, I still found some of the moments to be borderline tearjerkers. One downside to the story is that it's essentially fragmented and requires that "life with Ellie" at the beginning, but overall, the "quest averted" concept works very well to help bring out Carl's character. Russell does cross into the land of affably annoying and at times it's difficult to retain sympathy for him due to all the trouble he causes, despite his innocence.
The art is pretty classic Pixar, clean with lots of attention to detail and the animators definitely display their considerable skill in getting the characters to display various degrees of emotions. Voice actors do a great job with their characters, even the rather simple characters. Music is used well, even if it's not hyper-memorable.
Ultimately, Up falls into line as a good Pixar film, just under the tier of great Pixar film. Of course, a good Pixar film tends to mean a great film otherwise and I won't hesitate to recommend it to anyone. 8/10.