It's hard to find a critic who hasn't been at least partly bowled over by Pixar's latest tale, a meticulously crafted, old fashioned-feeling tribute to good things in life: love, companionship and - in this instance - the joy of sharing one's fandom with another. As is so often the case these days when the animation studio releases one of its gorgeously unorthodox features, there are comparisons to classic Disney, and many a gasp of awe and wonder at the level of achievement involved.
Up centres on Carl Fredricksen, a grumpy old pensioner who defies the developers planning to knock down his home by tieing thousands of multi-coloured balloons to the roof and floating off on an expedition to south America, one he planned to make with his wife when a much younger man, before life and money problems inevitably got in the way. Along for the ride is the perky but irritating Russell, a young Wilderness Explorer (read Boy Scout) who was standing on Carl's doorstep when the house launched itself into the skies.
The true centre of this film, however, is Carl's relationship with his wife, even though she passes away within the first five minutes. In a stroke of sheer genius, we first see her not as an old lady, but as a feisty shock-haired pre-teen devotee of the great explorer Charles Muntz, with Carl as her tongue-tied admirer. We are then invited to look on as the pair (much later) share a first kiss, get married and move into their first home, all the way through until the terrible moment they are parted.
Without this beguiling montage, Carl would just be a cantankerous old git with very little to make us empathise with him. With it, we can understand exactly why he sees the world in shades of grey, and admire him for still having a sense of adventure in his heart despite all the sadness that encases it. Elie had always wanted to visit a place named Paradise Falls, where Muntz claimed to have discovered a lost world of weird and wonderful creatures, and that is where the lovesick Carl sets off for once his home has unshackled itself from the Earth and leapt into the clouds. It's easy to pigeonhole somebody for their age, demeanour or outward appearance, but the film reminds us that the indomitable human spirit resides not in these things. This is just one of the reasons why Up surpasses just about any non-animated film you will see this year in its ability to embrace both the darkness and the light of our existence, and to get right under the skin of its protagonists.
"Up is a wonderful film, with characters who are as believable as any characters can be who spend much of their time floating above the rain forests of Venezuela," writes Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times. "They have tempers, problems and obsessions. They are cute and goofy, but they aren't cute in the treacly way of little cartoon animals. They're cute in the human way of the animation master Hayao Miyazaki. Two of the three central characters are cranky old men, which is a wonder in this youth-obsessed era."
"This movie is remarkable for a brilliant montage sequence at the very beginning, sketching out Carl's early married life with childhood sweetheart Elie," writes our own Peter Bradshaw. "It is a masterclass in narrative exposition, and the moments explaining their childlessness will bring a lump to your throat. This is a terrific film with hints of Conan Doyle's The Lost World and Albert Lamorisse's Red Balloon."
"It's one of the most extraordinarily openings to a film, far less an animated film, ever to have been crafted," agrees the Telegraph's Sukhdev Sandhu. "It dares to risk alienating the young children all the poster and ad campaigns would suggest it's aimed at. Against the tendency of studios to appease older viewers with a stream of double-entendres and in-jokes, it deluges them with more heart-on-sleeve emotion than a romantic weepie."
"With the dialogue-free first act of WALL-E, Pixar challenged the assumptions underlying family animated movies," writes Channel 4 Film's Matthew De Abaitua. "With Up, Pixar and Disney continue their adventure in pared-back storytelling, repudiating the pernicious received wisdom that what children require from a film is the discharge from a blunderbuss of pop culture gags, demographically-engineered characters, infantile wisecracks and celebrity voices. Up ranks in the top five [of Pixar films] along with Finding Nemo, Monsters, Inc, WALL-E and Toy Story 2."
So good has Pixar's recent run been, that it's almost easy to forget how much ingenuity and endeavour must goes into these films. The studio has reached a level of sage accomplishment that almost boggles the mind, and I can't wait to see what it comes up with next.
But perhaps you disagree. It's been almost impossible to find a negative review of Up, but there must be someone out there who hated it? Perhaps your kids found the movie boring, and you wanted to throttle both Carl and his diminutive companion Russell? Or perhaps you were as enchanted as the rest of us. Do let us know, in either case, by posting your comment below.
