Up

Fifteen years since the studio’s first feature, and on movie number ten, Pixar made a film about ordinary people. Not toys, not bugs, not monsters, not fish, not superheroes, not cars, not rats, not robots… Just people.

And what do you know, the results are every bit as funny, wise, charming and poignant as before.

Up is the story of a grumpy old man deeply attached to his home of many decades. When the developers won’t take no for an answer, he ups and leaves, but he takes the house with him, courtesy of several hundred helium balloons. His destination is Paradise Falls, a kind of South American Shangri-la, the dream location he’d always planned to visit with his beloved wife but somehow never found the opportunity. As John Lennon put it, life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans. What Carl hasn’t reckoned with is an inadvertent stowaway, a plucky cub scout by the name of Russell.

Jordan Nagai, who voiced the chubby scout – a “Wilderness Explorer” – was born in the year 2000. What a character to carry with you through life: Russell is simply excited to be in the world, the picture of wide-eyed innocence and boundless enthusiasm, haplessly helpful and the mirror image of the little boy his grumpy companion Carl (Ed Asner) used to be

No less than the previous nine Pixar movies, it’s impossible to imagine this as a live action film. It may begin grounded in reality, but it soon takes off into the fantastical. There are fabulous goofy creatures, talking dogs, and spectacular action scenes. But the film will always be remembered for the ten minute montage at the beginning, a bittersweet summation of Carl’s life to this point.

Rarely has any film, let alone an animated one powered by the logic of dream and fantasy, been able to move so successfully — and so effortlessly — through so many different kinds of cinematic territory.

Kenneth Turan, LA Times

As in their finest work, the Pixar filmmakers have created thrilling cinema simply by rifling through its history.

Manohla Dargis, New York Times

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