What's Up: Balloon To The Rescue! Review

**Bob:** Hey, guys. I can remember sitting in a movie theater several years ago, and being *completely* baffled by the teaser for Pixar's latest film: "Up".

*The teaser trailer for the film is shown.*

**Bob:** \*dumbfounded\* O-kay, that just happened... I guess. Some old man ties a bunch of balloons to his house, and then it just flies away? What is going on here? Really, the only kind of story potential I can see from that imagery is this.

*Cut to a clip from "The Wizard of Oz" of Dorothy's house falling out of the sky and crashing onto the ground. After that, cut to some scenes from the previously mentioned "Up".*

**Bob:** \*voiceover\* But then, the actual movie was released, and what did we get? A man going on an adventure in the name of his late wife, where he meets and has to fight off one of his childhood heroes, and gains the family that he never had. Boy, do I love going into a movie, thinking it's going to suck, only to be taken completely by surprise.

**Bob:** And, of course, Video Brinquedo just had to rear its ugly head and make an "Up" ripoff. This is "What's Up: Balloon To The Rescue!" \*voiceover\* The movie wastes no time showing us how much it's gonna suck. Not only is the title grammatically incorrect, since I'm pretty sure the "What's Up" part is supposed to have a question mark at the end of it, but this looks more like a production company logo than it does a title screen. Because the best way to rip off a Pixar movie is to make its titles look like the old Warner Brothers video logo. And the subtitle is "Balloon To The Rescue"? What, is the balloon the hero in this movie? And why even bother with the subtitle in the first place? Shouldn't "What's Up" be enough for the title?

**Bob:** I guess they're already paving the way for the next "What's Up" movie, "What's Up: Dawn of Justice". \*voiceover\* Anyway, the movie begins with a TV show about a bunch of monster chasers, who are talking about what might happen if they're able to make contact with aliens from other planets. Yeah, it seems that this "Up" ripoff is also within the same continuity as Video Brinquedo's "Monsters VS Aliens" ripoff.

*Cut to a made-up movie poster (the tagline reading "Oh dear..."), featuring Polaris from "The Little Panda Fighter", Amanda, Guto, and Dr. Crumb from the current review, and the Gladiformers.*

**Bob:** \*voiceover\* I guess this is their pathetic attempt at world-building before they release their "Avengers" ripoff, where the Little Panda Fighter and the monster chasers team up to battle the Gladiformers.

**TV Announcer:** Dr. Crumb is a visionary! He is a warrior in search of the highest human ideals, but he's not just about spectacular contributions to science! He also happens to be the uncle of the lovely and most eligible young lady in our city, Amanda!

*Amanda appears behind Guto and pushes him off the top of the couch.*

**Amanda:** How is it that you always seem to tune into these gossip shows? They're horrible!

**Bob:** And you certainly know horrible, don't 'ya? \*voiceover\* The monster chasers, who are named Dr. Crumb and Dr. Zoox, \*groans\* talk about a rock that they created that has the power to do whatever the hell the writer wants it to do on a whim.

**Dr. Crumb:** We've developed a hyper-light jet with a force strong enough to lift a house, as you'll see here!

**Dr. Zoox:** I don't think it's a good idea to mention this on TV!

**Dr. Crumb:** Yes, yes, right, that's true! We shouldn't reveal all the powers of this super-energized rock! One of its most nefarious features is it can, for example, hypnotize the entire world!

**Dr. Zoox:** Dr. Crumb, I think that's enough!

**Dr. Crumb:** Dr. Zoox, nobody knows that you have to activate it with a secret password: lavender! No one says lavender anymore!

**Dr. Zoox:** Can we change the subject, please?

**Bob:** \*as Dr. Crumb\* OK, OK, I'll stop talking about the super rock. Instead, let's conduct the real experiment for today: the effects of bullets on human skulls.

*Bob holds the prop gun to his head, pulls the trigger, and collapses.*

**Bob:** \*voiceover\* Dr. Dumb gives a demonstration of how the rock can make his house levitate, but Dr. Douche doesn't approve.

**Dr. Zoox:** Way up there, the atmosphere doesn't have enough oxygen for kids! Houses aren't aerodynamic!

**Bob: Then why did you rig your house to fly like that?!** \*voiceover\* We later find the doctors and their kids being visited by some French stereotype named Jean-Pierre, and he tells them of a new monster that's terrorizing the Amazon rainforest. But before they object to hunting it down, this kid, Guto here, sets a course for adventure. And they can't just turn the house around because it's a Video Brinquedo movie, meaning that everyone is a freaking idiot.

**Jean-Pierre:** When we arrive zere, you're all in for a little surprise. \*chuckles\* I can't wait to hypnotize as many people as possible.

**Bob:** \*voiceover\* Yeah, say it a little louder. I don't think they heard you. And of course, flying to the Amazon is so quick and uneventful, that they get there after fading to black.

**Guto:** I'm not so sure it was a good idea to bring the laboratory here. Can we go back now?

**Bob:** Hey, great idea! If you go back now, then we won't have to watch this movie anymore! \*voiceover\* After Jean-Pierre traps them inside a cave with some dynamite that isn't there, he finds the super rock and tries to get it to work. But his *outrageous accent* keeps him from saying the magic word properly.

*Cut to Jean-Pierre trying to pronounce "lavender" a few times, and then to a clip of the French Taunter from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail".*

**French Taunter:** You and all your silly English kaniggets!

**Bob:** \*voiceover\* And then some guy in a hot-air balloon just *happens* to drift by, and it turns out that Jean-Pierre actually *can* hypnotize people now. So, instead of taking this guy's French-ness and turning it into a plot point, they go ahead and keep it meaningless, just like it was before. Point for consistency, I guess. But then Jean-Pierre drops the rock, and because it has the magical power of plot convenience, it suddenly opens up an interdimensional portal, where a bunch of giant, living squeaky toys come out of it. And of course, Jean-Pierre doesn't react to them in any way at all. It's not like the animators *have* to make their characters have actual performances, right? Two of the monsters fly off, but before the third one can eat Jean-Pierre, the monster chasers contain it without *any* explanation of how they got out of the cave.

*Cut to a brief clip from "Thumb Wars".*

**Princess Bunhead:** I escaped somehow, let's go.

**Bob:** \*voiceover\* I'm serious! Not even the monster chasers know how they got out of the cave, since Amanda here, somehow, contributes their miraculous escape to Jean-Pierre.

**Amanda:** (to Jean-Pierre) Oh, you saved me! My hero!

**Bob:** \*sarcastic\* If there's one valuable trait that these scientists possess, it's their *mighty powers of observation.* \*normal, voiceover\* It turns out that their deus ex rock-ina has been depowered, of course it has, so they have no means of getting their house to take off to go after the monsters. So how do they get on their way? By strapping that hot air balloon onto the house and using **that** to get their house off the ground. \*sarcastic\* Why, I had no idea that the combined weight of a house and an observatory is exactly the same as the baskets that people attach to hot air balloons. This movie is teaching me so much!

**Dr. Zoox:** \*standing on the front porch\* Ah, I never would've thought flying in a balloon would be so much fun, and so stable, too!

**Bob:** \*as Dr. Zoox\* It's also a really good thing that there just happens to be no wind at this attitude! Boy, being this high up with no safety railing is the safest thing possible! \*voiceover\* Dr. Dumbass discovers that one of the monsters is attacking the Eiffel Tower, and they set a course for Paris. And how do they know that the monster was *in* Paris?

**Dr. Crumb:** I just put the words "attack" and "monster" into Google, and voila! It was actually really easy!

**Bob:** \*voiceover\* Huh, funny. I didn't know that Google looked like a black screen with green text on it. Maybe they're celebrating the anniversary of basic code.

**Jean-Pierre:** And where are you going to take ze monsters afterwards?

**Dr. Crumb:** We're going to reopen the portal and send the monsters back to their home dimension!

**Bob:** \*as Dr. Crumb\* And we can do that somehow, despite the rock being completely powerless. **Science!** \*voiceover\* So they get to Paris, again in an impossibly short amount of time, where monster number two is busy dry-humping the Eiffel Tower, and they capture it immediately upon their arrival. I think the movie knows that nobody cares what's going on at this point, so why even bother putting in a big, epic action scene right here as they take down the monster? Jean-Pierre convinces Amanda that they should be the ones leading the charge and catching the monsters, and because women in movies *have* to be complete morons when French accents are concerned, she agrees and they drug the doctors' tea after they track down the third monster in China. And where does the monster end up being in one of the biggest countries in the world? The Great Wall, of course! \*sarcastic\* Because there is nothing else in China anywhere!

**Bob:** Although, I guess it is *kind of* a good thing that this is the only Chinese stereotype that the movie throws at us. Actually, the people of China themselves in this movie are depicted in a manner that is very respectful, and completely-

*Cut to a Chinese tourist character in the movie, carrying a camera and wearing a noodles T-shirt.*

**Bob:** \*voiceover\* Oh, go to hell, movie! Yeah, because Jean-Pierre breaks his laser gun that's supposed to contain the monster, he and Amanda have to rely on the help of some random Chinese guy who's tinted yellow, wearing a T-shirt with noodles printed on it, and carrying a camera with him for no other reason than because Chinese people always carry cameras.

**Ching Ling:** No one back home will believe this!

**Bob:** Yeah, you had to take pictures because *no one* in one of the most densely-populated countries on the planet is around to witness a giant monster attacking the only man-made structure that's visible from space. \*voiceover\* Dr. Dumb shows up and gives them a bunch of party balloons so they can make their escape, party balloons which they shouldn't even have since it was a *hot air* balloon that brought them here, and of course they do get away, since the laws of physics were apparently written on a Magna Doodle. And how do they capture this monster? By dressing up that Guto kid as a giant cookie, and leading the monster into a cage that's big enough to *maybe* contain one it's feet, which is suspended by a single balloon that's so small that you can't even see it. Ignoring the obvious questions of how the hell this is supposed to work, why would they have a cookie costume for Guto for just such an occasion, when they've *never* let him help in their monster chasing before this point? But it turns out that they actually have a shrinking ray to bring the monster down to size-

*Briefly cut to Bob.*

**Bob:** Why do they have the energy to power a shrinking ray, but they don't have the energy to power their house levitation engine?

*And then back to the movie.*

**Bob:** \*voiceover\* And they take the monsters back to the Amazon. But Jean-Pierre uses the super rock, which has regained its energy somehow, to hypnotize them all. But because Guto was wearing sunglasses, I *guess* that means that he wasn't affected by it, and he knocks the rock out of Jean-Pierre's hand while he's gloating in the *worst place you could ever gloat at.* (on the front porch) Our villain, ladies and gentlemen. They set the house down, and the flash from that Chinese guy's camera frees our heroes from their hypnosis. They trap Jean-Pierre along with the monsters, and they throw *him* into the other dimension with the monsters, too. They could've easily just shrunk him down and keep him in a shoebox until they get back to America where they could hand him over to the authorities, but that works, too, I guess.

**Guto:** Boy, that was too much, seeing the face of that Frenchman when he went into the other dimension!

**Dr. Zoox:** Yes, I know, but it serves him right, that con artist!

**Dr. Crumb:** Even so, I think the punishment was a little harsh!

**Dr. Zoox:** What else could we have done? Take him to the police and say, "Take this man! He just hypnotized us, and wanted to take over the world!"

**Bob:** \*angrily\* Of course! \*voiceover\* And so the movie ends with them basking in their own idiocy, and Amanda reveals that the Chinese guy is her *new* boyfriend.

**Dr. Crumb:** Did you really have to pick someone who might be smarter than me?

**Guto:** Wow! You mean he can be that smart? Huh, I thought he was just gonna make us some dinner!

**Bob:** So, that was "What's Up: Balloon To The Rescue", and this is a movie that could use some rescuing of its own. \*voiceover\* The animation isn't *as* offensive as it is in other Video Brinquedo movies, but it's still pretty bad. The character designs have a bit more structure to them, and we get to see a little more detail in the backgrounds, but the character animation itself in this is just as stiff and lifeless as ever. The plot's a complete joke, the characters are all idiots, and the science is all over the place. And no, I don't care if this movie was made for little kids. When your movie stars a bunch of scientists, you're supposed to make them actually know a thing or two about science. And where Pixar's "Up" knows how to make the youngest generation connect with the oldest generation, which is always pretty damn impressive anyway you slice it, this movie trying to rip it off doesn't even try to get its audience to connect with anyone. Outside of internet reviewers looking for something to tear into, I can't imagine anyone watching this piece of crap for more than two minutes.

**Bob:** And with this piece of crap thoroughly thrashed, there's only one movie left on this DVD to review. So be sure to tune in next time when I review...

*The camera zooms in on Bob's face.*

**Bob:** ..."Ratatoing".

*A dramatic sting plays, and then we cut to a performance of "Up, Up and Away" by The 5th Dimension being shown as the credits roll.*

**Ching Ling:** Junky camera made in China! Battery dead already!