Pixar Rises Again With 'Up'

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Pixar Rises Again With 'Up'
By Chris Glazier

Pixar's unprecedented string of quality hits continues this year with Up, another quirky, funny, poignant film that will be a hit with every member of the family. Up actually manages to one-up (sorry, that will be the only pun for the rest of the review) some of its predecessors by not only telling a playful story, but also balancing it with some surprisingly mature themes.

For example, the film starts with an intro that basically tells the entire life story of its main character, Carl Fredrickson (voiced by the wonderfully grumpy Ed Asner), in about 10 minutes. We see Carl as a boy finding his soul mate, Ellie, who shares his enthusiasm for "adventuring." We see them get married, grow old, deal with not being able to have children, try but fail to save up money for an adventure, and eventually watch Ellie pass away. Its powerful stuff, and it gives the audience a strong emotional attachment to Carl, even though he doesn't talk the entire time. This is just proves again how strong Pixar's story-telling abilities are.

From there, the movie follows Carl as a grumpy, lonely old man (but one that we understand because of the brilliant intro). Forced to move, Carl instead sets out on his long-postponed adventure to South America by tying thousands of balloons to his house and taking off into the sky. Right off the bat, he finds his adventure taking an unexpected turn when an 8-year-old scout named Russell ends up on his porch. From there the story takes even more unusual twists and turns, each one more fun than the next.

The plot includes everything from talking dogs to giant birds to crazy villains with zeppelins. Pixar manages it all brilliantly, throwing in plenty of its trademark humor (this is a must-see for dog lovers) along with doses of the aforementioned mature themes. As we slowly watch Carl soften up to Russell, we realize that the boy's dad is absent in his life. Carl begrudgingly starts to play take on a father figure role while learning to move on from the death of his wife. The themes are subtly woven into the story, and by the end they prove to be meaningful and touching.

Every age group will enjoy Up, from little kids to senior citizens. While the whole family can enjoy it, it would also make for a particularly good father-son night out due to the themes. If you've been wanting to have some good one-on-one time with your son, an evening that includes this movie would probably be a hit.

Content Watch: Up is rated PG for some "action and peril." Of course it's a great movie for kids, but some of the themes might be a little scary for the very small ones, particularly the villain and his evil dogs.