Up, Up and Away!

Rating: 7/10 (30 May 2009)

It's getting cliché to say "the latest Pixar movie is one of the best films of the year" or "Pixar delivers again!" But, they're now 10-for-10 with 'Up' a brilliantly colorful and original story, filled with heart, adventure, comedy and finally a talking animal that not only explains why he (or they) can talk, but what they would really say vs. the writers humanizing them. Also, the movie opens with a great, yet somewhat slow, monologue explaining the background on the main character, Carl, vs. just telling us he's old and grumpy. At a very young age, Carl befriends an equally adventurous young female and its love-at-first-sight. They marry, but their dreams of Indiana Jones adventure is curbed by everyday life. After she passes, and his neighborhood follows, Carl takes flight, literally, avoiding certain doom in a retirement home. Stowaway Wilderness Explorer 8-year-old Russell helps him try and find Carl's (and late wife's) final destination in South America. Comedy ensues, as the life-lessons-learned and typical sidekicks. Best of the bunch is the aforementioned talking dog, Dug. He was hilarious, interesting and like I said, finally an un-humanized cartoon speaking animal. Okay, now the bad, not that there's much to say negative and this certainly wasn't the weakest, though still way above average, of the Pixar bunch. I saw it in 3-D, and it truly was NOT amazing in 3-D. 'Monsters Vs. Aliens' in IMAX was 10x better in 3-D quality and quality. 'Up' was also incredibly predictable, was funny at times – but not all the time and the trailers gave away too much, gave some background on the boy's father and some woman in his life, but never explored it fully and finally, I seriously can't believe CPS wouldn't be following with all the extreme dangers the child was in.