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Getting It Up – Pixar’s Up By: PoisonRamune, the Apathetic Lizardman I had recently seen Pixar’s Up which is surprising for me, as I normally only go to the theatre once a year. Though the first movie I saw this year was less than spectacular (The Legend of Chun-Li), Up seemingly made up for it. While many of my friends had warned me that Up was going to make me cry, I was surprised to find that I didn’t. It made me feel bad that I didn’t cry, since even one of my hardcore “street” friends cried at the beginning of the film. I will admit that whenever I think about the movie, I do get a teary eyed thinking about the last shot of the film.
Though Up is an animated movie, I almost want to believe that the movie was made more for adults. As far as Pixar movies go, Up is a very sad movie. It’s even a bit sadder than Wall-E, which got pretty depressing towards the middle and end. Another thing that makes me think Up was made more for adults was the fact that the main character is a cranky old man. Though Mr. Fredericksen (the main character) does have some endearing qualities about him, he’s really a mean son-of-a-bitch throughout the movie. I personally can’t imagine any child asking his parents for a shirt that had Mr. Frederickersen on it or having their next birthday party’s theme with him on the decorations (well, maybe Fredericksen as a kid, since he was designed very well and was down right cute).
As with other Pixar movies, Up has a very clear moral to its story. The premise of “keeping to commitment over one’s personal agendas” is a resounding theme in the movie. In fact, “cross your heart” is a line used near countless times in the film (well, actually like 3-5 times, but you get what I mean). I find it strange that the morals of Pixar movies coincide greatly with where I am in my life when I watch them. I first noticed this with The Incredibles, as I was very depressed working a desk job that didn’t provide me with the “adventure” I promised myself I’d be seeking daily. Up’s moral lesson is no exception as I often find myself trying to weasel out personal commitments in order to squeeze a bit more personal leisure time out of my day. As you may know from the trailers, Mr. Fredericksen attaches a large amount of helium balloons to his house and uses the house as a sort of airship/blimp in order to grant his wife’s life long wish to go to South America and to escape being put in a retirement home. Along the way he meets an overly excited boy scout, named Russell and a talking dog by the name of Dug. Aside from that, everything else would pretty much be a spoiler, thus I won’t go further into the story. The story is overall very well written and by the end of the movie, I actually felt kind of bad about the way I talk about and treat the elderly. Before I used to see them as walking burdens that were out of touch with the world and think they know everything; however, I do see them as people who once had dreams and hopes like me with most of those dreams going unfulfilled as time passes (even with this epiphany, I may not treat them any differently. But that’s just the way I am).
As always Pixar does an amazing job at creating a very lush and “real” looking 3-D world. However, this time they really outdid themselves. Everything looked very beautiful and well designed in the film from the sky’s weather effects to the characters, everything looked amazing. One thing I must say, Pixar needs to team up with Nintendo and get a new Balloon Fight game going, since Pixar should win an award for making digital balloons look near exactly the same as their real life counterparts. I must say, Up is probably not going to win any awards with its soundtrack. It’s a little sad, since I love the music from The Incredibles and I still catch myself singing Toy Story’s “You Got a Friend in Me” with this bad Randy Newman impression that actually sounds more like Tommy Chong’s voice from the Cheech and Chong material. The music just didn’t really stand out; most of the time it seemed either too atmospheric or too generic, making it so you either couldn’t really hear it or you didn’t really care about it.
All in all this was a very well made movie and very entertaining the whole way through. I didn’t even feel the need to pull out my phone and start trying to calculate how much longer I would have to sit there (a common habit of mine whenever I go to the theatre). I say take the kids if you got them, since they’ll like the animation and probably the characters Dug and Russell as well. If you want a good date movie, I suggest this one for that too. You’ll probably get extra points for crying during the film, since I was actually accused of being a robot by the girl I went to see the film with. 8/10 groups of multicolored balloons attached to a patchwork colored house
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