Looks fantastic. Slight plot niggles!

Rating: 9/10 (31 October 2009)

This is the first time I've been to the cinema in about 18 months. That's having small children for you. So, it's my birthday. 42, since you didn't ask. It's half term, and the cinema is heaving with children; our own son is too small yet for the film, so it's just us adults. We're a little late, and the auditorium is a strange sight as everyone is wearing dark glasses. My first 3D film! Keep up. This is going to be relevant.
I'll try and keep the spoilers to a minimum, but anyone who's even half awake will know that Pixar's latest animated feature follows the adventures of an old man and a small boy who fly a house to South America using balloon power. Up is a beautiful movie. Every scene is lovingly rendered with a fantastic attention to detail- to take one example, the way the use of colour alters during the course of the film as the mood changes.
The film contains early in its running time a scene destined to become a classic of cinema, a wordless montage sequence explaining our hero Carl's life from a child to an old man. One shot alone contains more pathos and humanity than many films this year will manage in total. At the end of this sequence, it would be a hard heart indeed that was not moved.
Once Carl finds his young stowaway, the pace shifts up a gear as the two get involved in an adventure in the mythic location of Paradise Falls where Carl has always longed to go.
On one level, this is a fantastic film, surely one of the best of the year; moving, funny, heart-warming (with a soupçon of the environmental message seemingly mandatory in all such features). All kinds of lessons are learnt. Following one's dreams; living in the moment; the dangers of obsession. Carl's house becomes a very large extended metaphor, taking him soaring away from his old life, but then tying him down when he needs to be free.
And yet, and yet, and yet.
What this most definitely is not is a children's film, especially not younger ones. Fairly early on, a small voice whispered behind me, "I thought this was supposed to be funny." Yes, it contains its share of slapstick humour and chase sequences that will thrill smaller kids, but its main themes will go straight over their heads.
For adults, meanwhile, the plot fails on several levels. Yes, I know this is nitpicking, but movies have to follow their own logic. I am fully prepared to accept within the world of the film that a house can be floated by balloons and steered across continents. However, how does an old man who walks stiffly with a cane suddenly start taking part in action sequences? I can accept that someone has invented a device for translating dogs' thoughts into speech- but how do they prepare dinner (or fly planes)? Ultimately, these concerns will fade. My lasting impression will be the beauty of the pictures and the tear rolling down my cheek at the end of the truly amazing montage near the start of the film.