Good, but not Pixar good

Rating: 5/10 (2 June 2009)

What I like about Pixar: they generally cover each of these levels: 1) the setting 2) the story, 3) the characters, 4) drama, 5) humor, 6) visuals. In the case of Up, the humor was not at all on par with previous Pixar releases. But the biggest problem was with the setting of the story, i.e. the world they create. In Monsters, Inc they could invent anything, because it was a fictitious world. In Toy Story, the toys could do anything, but the humans were generally bound to the same physical laws as the rest of us. That's where Up makes a gigantic misstep. The main character is rendered very realistically, visually, but does the impossible for an elderly arthritic at every turn (running pulling a house... excuse me?). Where did the talking dog collars come from? The villain is portrayed as a realistic human, but it makes no sense that he might (living in the rain forest, alone) invent a talking dog collar. He's an explorer, not an engineer. This was clearly just something Pixar pulled out of their "funny ideas to stick in a movie someday" jar. They should have looked to see if it fit, first.
There were some moving scenes, stunningly rendered, but as a cohesive long feature it fails.