June 18, 2009
Up (2009)
Should I see it?
A weak yes.
Short Review: It's called Up but the plot never takes off.
It appears that Pixar’s quiver is just about empty. I’ve been praising Pixar for a long time and see them as one of the most consistent and reliable shops in business. Something that has always impressed me about Pixar’s films is how realized they all have been. From the carefully crafted scripts to the detailed visual designs, each outing up to this point has been worthy of the praise it has received. This film makes me worried that they have finally run out of ideas.
Like most other Pixar films, this movie centers on a journey. In this case, we are following Carl, an old man who straps balloons on to his house and flies away to a idyllic land in South America. He does this to fulfill the lifelong dream of his deceased wife Ellie. The set up for this works wonderfully and plays into the strengths of the story. Carl is a curmudgeon but we know he is a softy at heart. He remains in his home despite the developers and construction workers laboring literally right outside his door. Carl does his best to protect his home and by extension his memories of Ellie. This conflict works and is interesting, but it is a brief sideshow. In a moment of desperation mixed with inspiration, Carl hooks his house up to the balloons and he floats away in his house. This kills the conflict with the developer and sends the whole production down a dead end. The movie effectively ends at this point and it lingers on with no central conflict. XXX lands in South America and finds a villain that puts him in peril but the conflict is forced and illogical. It is there so Carl has something to do. Heck, the entire second half of the movie is there so Carl has something to do. There's no continual conflict from the beginning of the film to the end. This leads to a broken focus and a meandering storyline.
This is easily the weakest of all Pixar movies, including A Bug’s Life and Toy Story 2. This is a Pixar short stretched out to meet a longer running time.
The film isn't a complete loss. The visuals are pleasant to watch and there are moments that work. In particular the opening. The realtionship between Carl and Ellie is condensed into a tight review that is one of the best character summaries I've seen. It is truly moving.
I don’t recommend this film if you’re going because you trust Pixar. Its just not that good. If you’re going to entertain the kids, then this will work. It probably won’t be a huge hit with the kids but it should keep them quiet for a while.
Related Reviews:
Pixar movies
Cars (2006)
The Incredibles (2004)
Other Critic's Reviews:
Fistful of Donuts
Big Fanboy Reviews
Labels: animated, film, movie review, Pixar
posted by Michelle Obama's Left Nut at 3:00 PM
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3 Comments:
And here I thought I was the only person who didn't like this film. Everybody else is just "ooooo!"ing and "awwwwwww!"ing over it. It's making huge amounts of money.
And it's depressingly mediocre.
Your analysis is spot on. I just knew that I was figiting after the house landed, but didn't realize why. It's because the story died when the house took off.
I really saw this totally differently. I didn't think the conflict was contrived or disingenuous at all. Carl was trying to run away from a life he no longer enjoyed, oblivious to how much potential joy was all around him. The elements of his life up until then were the things in his house. Pictures of Ellie, scrapbooks, etc. But as he came to find out later, Ellie wouldn't have wanted him to run away. She wanted him to continue having adventures, right then and there!
The boy scout was great, an amalgamation of the young Carl and the young Ellie all rolled up into one. But Carl was so bitter and defeated that he couldn't see that. And I loved how his attempt to escape into the paradise he'd always dreamed about revealed those dreams to be frauds: The childhood hero was really an obsessive egomaniac. The terrain harder to negotiate and less beautiful than he'd imagined. So he finds himself literally tied to his dreams, trying desperately to hold them down and keep them from sailing off without him. He can't let go and hasn't noticed that all around him there are things that are so much better than the house full of dusty pictures, books and souvenirs he's clinging to ... keepsakes that he's literally tied to with a garden hose.
Heavy handed symbolism throughout, but it worked for me. The pages in Ellie's scrap book, the ones after the "Stuff I Haven't Done Yet..." and Carl's discovery of those pages and how it made him appreciate not only the life he'd had with Ellie but also the wonderful potential for adventures with everyone around him. And those closing stills of Carl and the kid and the dogs (even Alpha!) all so happy through acts of altruism.
Two Parter ... sorry, I kinda went George Lucas, stretching already thin ideas into multiple performances. Anyway, back to Up:
And talking dogs, man. Talking dogs. Dogs that say with an electronic voice box the very same things that they say with their eyes to us every single day. As a dog lover I totally ate that up. This movie seemed to reinforce one of my long held beliefs: There are no "bad" dogs. Dumb dogs, yeah, thousands of 'em. And dogs that like to hunt, and dogs that try desperately to please their masters by doing the violent things they've been taught to do... but all any dog wants is a big yard and a squirrel to chase and someone to scratch his head and say "Good Dog" now and then. The dogs were my favorite version of the dreams/reality motif in the film. Carl was desperately trying to escape into his dreams and get away from the real world. Carl Muntz was obsessive about his dream of finding the Kevin bird that it more a matter of vengeance than ambition. And then there's the dogs; living the dream every day of their lives. Their wants and needs are simple and few and their boundless enthusiasm for life was always in overdrive. They love without qualifying, work as hard as they can to please their masters, and want nothing at all more than an occasional scratch or to be told "good girl, good boy." And he occasional treat.
I saw this and it worked big time for me, I still believe that it's the best movie of ANY kind that I've seen since Saving Private Ryan. Now, granted, I'm going through some heavy family changes right now, big messy emotional stuff, so maybe I'm vulnerable and easily won over by a movie with a rambling story and talking dogs ... and a mama bird named Kevin. I admit, I might see this movie again in a few years and realize that it wasn't as good as I thought, and then remember the details of the painful memories that I'll probably always attach to this movie. It could be that I'm just susceptible to Pixar right now and would have felt this way about the one Pixar film that I think is the least of their effords: Finding Nemo." Maybe if I'd seen Finding Nemo under my present circumstances I'd have loved that movie.
But I think that what's gonna happen is I'm gonna try to see it several more times during the theatrical run, then buy every special edition DVD that they toss out, and look for a tenth anniversary re-showing in certain theaters and hope to see it on the big screen again.
I tend to go through life with a "Life Sucks" demeanor, so I saw a lot of myself in Carl. Seeing him make big readjustments to his priorities by the end really melted me. And that one scene, the last scene involving the grape soda pop top and the bobby pin ... man, that was it. I lost it. Great, snorting, gasping, heaving, violent weeping. Couldn't help it. Saw it coming and still couldn't help it.
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