Stands on its own as the animated film with all the individual high profile accolades; and Up is a pleasant piece, blending a number of fun ideas and affecting content.

Rating: 7/10 (16 March 2010)

One wonders if 2009's animated feature 'Up' will be the mark of change in certain areas. Here's a film of an animated ilk that not only opened the 2009 Cannes film festival, but became the first since 1991's Beauty and the Beast, and only the second ever, to receive a best picture academy award nomination. The heavy spate of films throughout the whole of the last decade, those of a kind that saw them animated but rendered by way of computers, have enchanted and engrossed children and adults alike; but one wonders if, amidst the higher-ups that are entrenched within the nether regions of The Academy and premiere occasions across the European film festival circuit, those in charge have ever seen any of them as anything more than just a bunch of cartoons produced in order to merely satisfy and entertain. Up's recognition at Europe's best known, but not necessarily best loved, film festival gathering plus domestic acknowledgement at The Oscars, even if it was never going to win, might mark Up down as more significant over time than the creators first had in mind.
Up's an enjoyable experience; a blending of physical comedy with a brutally simple, but certainly heartfelt, premise combined with a necessary amount of substance rolled into a package which suffices to a degree. No, the physical comedy does not peak at the levels 2001's Monsters Inc. attained, a film with a similar arc to Up in its cut and thrust idea of two hapless individuals (one little, one large) in possession of something they really ought not be as a wiry, spindly antagonist goes to extreme lengths to trip them up. Nor does it quite hit the heights of the previous year's Wall*E; a film that also had a somewhat lonely lead inhabiting a world that has significantly changed over the decades before deciding to branch out into yonder as all sorts of adventures and mishaps unfold. I imagine Up was pitched relatively simply, certainly if doubts were ever raised as to whether it would make its money back: it has a flying house; slapstick infused chasing; an oddball buddy teaming of an old man and a young boy; plus, it features a talking dog.
The film starts with a young boy by the name of Carl Fredricksen (Asner) having his gaze captured as looks at a cinema screen, displaying one of those reels of news footage you got prior to a film screening way back when, are captured. The cinema screen looms over the watching crowd, an establishment of power is apparent as this young boy observes in absolute awe explorer Charles Muntz (Plummer) take to the skies in his airship on a mission to seek out the animal whose bones he has brought back from South America, but have subsequently been deemed fake. The innocence of youth, and that latching onto either a brand name or an omnipresent media story is captured; the reasons for which become clear later on when another young boy sixty or so years later, carrying an obsessive fixation this time with the great outdoors, enable Carl to suffer an epiphany when all is truthfully revealed and the true nature of what was so striking and fascinating is all but a letdown.
Carl's ascent into old age is put across by way of a three or so minute montage, a life of which seemed to consist of home-building, balloons and a wife named Ellie. Following her death, the void that is that they never got to journey to South America together, despite Ellie's equal fascination in Muntz and his travels, has steps dutifully undertaken so that it may be filled by Carl in flying off to the continent by way of a lot of balloons and a lot of helium. It additionally allows Carl to avoid the wrath of some thinly drawn businessmen whom want his house and land for construction purposes, and whose appearance is made more unearthly in their wearing of shades thus giving them an odd insectile look. In the process of filling that particular void, he will gradually undertake filling another in the taking care of young junior scout Russell (Nagai), the son he never had while in time, Carl will come to represent the father Russell doesn't seem to have. Russell additionally has one of the more perplexing lines of the film; when he expresses his distinct shock at the discovery of a talking dog in Dug (Peterson), despite having just flown to Venezuela from The U.S.A. by way of a house and then encountering a bird that sort of resembles the long since extinct Dodo.
Up's idea is clear-cut, in that Carl's there for adults wanting to will on the guy trying to pay respect to his dead wife, while Russell's shenanigans and often amusing antics will entertain those of his respective age range. But Up's heart is in the right place, and its instances such as Carl's emotionally charged reaction to Russell's innocent "cross your heart?" plea as well as some basic mother-bird-in-peril/chicks-rendered-defenceless are effective without overly demanding we react. Like most of these films from recent times, the chase inspired finale in which physical comedy and all the natural surrounding elements combine to create a set piece is present. It's equally dramatic as it is funny, an idea for a finale coined from the removal truck chase sequence at the end of Toy Story. It's not of the creative nor humorous level that Monsters Inc. hit, what with its extravagant ideas and genuinely funny moments spawned by a number of doors opening up and acting as portals into our world as a warehouse full of all kinds of devices and tricks acted as the setting. Nonetheless, Up works; with a blending of heartfelt and comedic material which sit well with chase-come-thriller ingredients that crops up towards the end.