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**WARNING - This review on the new Pixar movie "Up" contains some spoilers.**
Hello everyone and welcome to my review of Up, the newest animated film by Pixar Studios. This is The Alpha Jan here and I am coming to you after doing some animated banners. Anyways, I believe this movie had a lot to follow up on since I believed WALL-E was going to be very hard to top. In that sense, I am sure Pixar knew that their last animated film was going to be real hard to top so they took a different direction which is quite smart in my opinion. All in all, this movie delivered with many different surprises especially when it came to the different direction they decided to take. I am going to review this movie on the unbiased overall and the emphasis of positives on story (relative to source if any), design, and morality, which seems to be the basis for my reviews as of late. So if you want to read the rest of the review, please click on the "read more" link below and check out the review.
Story - The story is about an old man nearing the end of his life who wants to fulfill a promise he made to his deceased wife. In the beginning of the movie, we are shown the relationship of Carl Fredrickson and his wife Ellie and how they became close through their love for adventure as well as their hero idolization of famous explorer, Charles Muntz. In the beginning of the film, Carl, as a kid, is watching a documentary in an old theater of Charles Muntz and how he was dishonored and disgraced becasue scientist said his rare find, a skeleton of a new species, was fake. Charles decides to go back to the place in South America, known as Paradise Falls, to find a living specimen of the rare species. This is a setup for the plot of the movie because Ellie, when she first meets Carl, shows him her dream to live at Paradise Falls where their childhood hero, Charles Muntz is. She even makes Carl swear by crossing his heart.
The next bits of the movie goes a showing of Carl and Ellie getting married and how their life is with some twists and turns. I won't spoil much on that but Ellie dies before Carl and he remembers his promise to send Ellie to Paradise Falls, thus why he decides to move his entire house, using a lot of balloons, to Paradise Falls. In a sense, he was going to the falls to honor his promise...and to die there. Along the way, there are many other twists and turns, including Russell, a young boy who is working for his final badge as a scout. Russell grows a lot in this movie but the one person who grows even more is probably Carl. I pretty much gave the basic start of the movie but the rest, all the twists and turns will be up to you to watch. Trust me, they make a very good story.
Design - Easily well-down for a movie which isn't quite a kid's movie and not overly an adult movie. It is a very good balance. The animation is well done as always and the casting is excellent. As a side teaser, John Ratzenberger makes another cameo voice in this movie and if you didn't know, he done a voice in all of Pixar's movies to date. In the original Pixar movie, Toy Story, he is Hamm, which he comprises in the sequel. In Bug's Life, he is P.T. Flea. Finding Nemo: School of Fish doing charades. Monsters Inc.: Abdominal Snowman. Cars: Mack. The Incredibles: The Underminer. You get the idea. In this movie, John Ratzenberger voices a construction worker in the beginning of the movie.
The voice of Carl is done by Ed Asner which threw me off since I always think of Ed Wuncler I from the show Boondocks which is very vulgar so in ways, I kept on thinking of Carl as a hidden corporate gangster ready to pop out. He did a good job voicing a somewhat cynical yet kind-hearted old man. Russell is voiced by Jordan Nagai who I have no idea is but he did a good job voicing an adventure-seeking yet naive to the world character in the form of Russell. Other voicing credits include Christopher Plummer, Bob Peterson, and Delroy Lindo. I won't say who they are for it may spoil a lot of the movie's surprises.
Moral - The moral or hidden meaning of the story was to pretty much live your life despite all that may come to hold you back. Ellie had a book of what she wanted to do and before the page "What I'm going to do" when she first shows it to Carl, is a house next to the waterfall at Paradise Falls. Later on in the movie, Carl looks through the book and sees that the pages after the "What I'm going to do" page are filled with pictures of her time and marriage with Carl meaning that she lived her life. The last page has a written note to Carl from Ellie thanking him for the adventure and wishing him to make his own.
A lot of this moral is based off of "carpe diem" and living for the day. The past is history, the future is a mystery but today is a gift. That is why it is called the present. In the beginning of the movie, Carl was living a mundane life without much emphasis to go forward becasue he kept dwelling on the death of his wife. It is when he goes out on his own he grows and learns to move on. If you constantly harbor your feelings to one part of your life, either negative or positive it could be, you shut yourself from any possibilities life may come your way. I have talked to elders and the ones who seemed to have a good life are the ones who lived it from one day to the next, mistakes and accomplishments all. The ones who felt they wasted their lives were the ones who didn't think they moved on.
Overall - A very surprising movie by Pixar but I wasn't surprised since they always make good movies as of now. I suggest this movie to everyone who loves to watch a good movie. Personally, I suggest bringing the family. A guaranteed blu-ray purchase when it comes out of that format. Until then, I hope you all enjoy the movie because I surely did.
Faith Saves ALL!
Alpha OUT!
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