Animated Excellence

Rating: 8/10 (25 August 2009)

It's become a tradition for me to go watch the latest Pixar movie when it comes out. This studio is the only one I trust enough to always blindly go to their movies. There's no greater cinematic injustice than wait for the DVD.
Movies like Up keep rewarding me for such loyalty. In this movie, we meet Carl Fredricksen, a 78-year-old man who decides to fulfill a pledge he made to his wife when they were still children: to visit South America. Their lives pass by in bliss, but without their dreams of adventure fulfilled; but when she dies and Carl faces loneliness he comes up with the most hilarious plan to make his dreams come true: he ties thousands of balloons to his house and just flies away.
By chance he receives an unwelcome guest: Russell, a 7-year-old boyscout trying to earn an elderly assistance' badge. Although the boy is initially an annoyance to the grouchy Carl, eventually the two become great friends and teach each other valuable lessons.
Like every Pixar movie, the story and characters are the main draw of the movie. Sure, the animation is spectacular, but which mega-studio can't get the same animation Pixar can? On the other hand, the screenplays Pixar comes up with are always simple but beautiful, not to mention excellent at visual storytelling. Wall-E was practically a silent movie; and even if there's quite a lot of chit-chat in Up, it's the ability to express ideas and feelings in images, which can be comprehended by children and adults alike, that make it so fascinating and heartbreaking.