Way overrated

Rating: 4/10 (17 December 2009)

The first 10 minutes are great and heartfelt, but the rest of the movie is just standard kiddie-animated-action-movie fare, but without any really funny gags or interesting or quirky characters. It seems for a lot of people the central premise/moral of the story touches a nerve, but that one idea alone isn't enough to lift the movie above an average rating.
The animation is very good, as one has come to expect from Pixar, but sorry, the bar has been raised - in 2009 this level of quality has become the norm, i.e. average.
The character development is good for Carl Fredricksen, but lacks depth for Russell and also for Charles Munts. Carl is really the only person in the movie who you kind of get attached to, but again, mainly due to the first 10 minutes montage of his life.
The movie doesn't contain a lot of humour - the one it does have seems forced and silly (dog voice collars, the bird swallowing Carl's walking stick, etc. - yawn). This movie is nowhere near the league of Pixar greats ranging from Toy Story to Wall-E. For other studios this might be considered good, but for Pixar I would consider it average at best.