UP?....the first quarter hour brings you DOWN!

Rating: 5/10 (31 December 2009)

As a projectionist, I frequently get to see the first ten minutes of most movies. You start the show, then hang around to make sure all is well with sound and vision before moving on to the next lace-up. Sometimes, those first few minutes stretch out a bit as the movie catches your interest.
So it was with Up, but not in any kind of good way. The first 15 minutes or so depict the life of the Old Man from his childhood through to his current grumpy self. And what a life. Good God! A more calculated betrayal of viewer expectations I've never seen! At first, all is good. The kid plays, he meets a young girl, falls in love, gets married etc. All nice, charming stuff. But then the evil Pixar gremlins twist the knife ruthlessly. One mishap after another befalls the man and his wife. The car breaks, then the house is damaged in a storm. Then the wife discovers she can't have children (yes, I know...this is supposed to be a kids film, right?). Every mishap sets back the couple's plans to visit Angel Falls in Venezuela (a dream since they were both little). Finally, though, all seems well. The man (now old) finally goes and buys the tickets for the trip. He plans a nice picnic at their favourite spot to break the good news to his wife.
Can you guess what happens? The evil Pixar goblins think that's too cheerful for kids. They instead have the wife partly collapse on the way, leading to a hospital scene (the second one of the intro) and, ultimately, the most depressing scene of all - the old man returning to his home alone, the wife having passed away.
All this in the first fifteen minutes....
I get that Pixar wanted to explain the back story of the old man so he wouldn't come across as grumpy and churlish. But all they actually did was to depress the Hell out of everyone watching.
As this was aimed primarily at younger kids, I can't help but wonder about all the awkward questions and tears parents must have faced in those first twenty minutes.
The rest of the film is technically excellent, but still rather dark and morose. Additionally, the complete and utter incompetence of the boy, Russell, leaves you wondering just how he managed to get all his other badges. Dogged persistence, I suspect.
Anyway, the film isn't brilliant on a number of levels - competent, but not brilliant. But those opening minutes really taint the rest of the movie badly.
As a rental I'd suggest vetting it yourself before showing it to the kids, particularly if they are sensitive. You'll end up answering a whole bunch of difficult questions if you don't.
It's not a bad movie, as a whole, but has a rather unpleasant bite at the start which throws it in with the likes of Disney's Dinosaur and Bridge to Terabithia for unexpected shock value.
EDIT: Just realised that "Stupid, but funny, Fat Kid" appears to be an endemic trait in animated movies. Up, Monster House, Paranorman etc. they all have them now.