‘Up’: A film review

I’ve got a bone to pick with the creators of Up. Yep. I said it. The wizards over at Pixar made my wife cry. And I was hard pressed not to follow suit.

After Pixar set the bar with their debut feature film Toy Story in 1995, the animation studio has followed success with success with films like Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, and Wall-E. All of these films have been wonders to behold visually, but make no mistake: the boys and girls over at Pixar aren’t just twisting colorful balloon animals together that will wither and deflate in some dark corner of a child’s closet after time and perspective have worn away their luster. And while their pictures are colorful and visually delightful to look at, the folks at Pixar seem more interested in telling a good story. And that’s just what they’ve done in the 2009 Oscar-nominated film Up.


Up tells the story of a couple of kids (Ed Asner and Elizabeth Docter) who become friends through their mutual love for larger than life explorer/adventurer Charles F. Muntz (Christopher Plummer). The opening montage of scenes shows the two kids as they grow into adults, marry, and begin to create a life together. The two share a dream and a promise they’d made as kids to someday move to far away Paradise Falls, South America and live. But ordinary life somehow gets in the way of the dream, and the two never quite seem to find the time or money to make it happen.

I’ll leave the rest for you to figure out. I hate spoiler-filled reviews.

Up is not about balloon rides and zany, slap-stick jokes, talking dogs, and cute, quotable catch phrases. Up is about living your dreams, fulfilling a promise, and finding out that it’s okay to live an ordinary life. In the end, it’s not the dreams and things acquired that make a life fulfilling. It’s the experiences had along the way, and the love shared between people that matters.

Up is, in my opinion, the best Pixar film to date. As such, it’s difficult to restrain myself from blabbing on and on about the movie, the story, the visuals, the acting, and the directing that clearly made it what it is. But it’s because I enjoyed it so much that I do restrain myself. Everyone deserves to experience a film like this for themselves. Without some twit blogger ruining it for them.

Go rent Up today. I hope you enjoy it as much as Kelley and I did.

Score: 4/5

Kirk out.