"But it's a TALKING DOG!"
So entreats young, tubby, mush-mouthed junior wilderness explorer Russell when craggy, cube-headed old Carl tells him he can’t keep this newly discovered creature. The obviousness of the statement – declared with such plainspoken, stupefied shock – works as a handy stock response to any niggling kvetches about Disney/Pixar’s Up. Some of the plot elements seem forced? But it’s a TALKING DOG!
I’m not quite as filled with the same helium that has other critics calling Up a contender for Best Picture, but I’d be a cruel, heartless bastard if I wasn’t lifted by the story of a grieving widower rediscovering a life of adventure with a good-natured, wide-eyed, clumsy and noisy boy. Each of Carl’s grouchy sighs is met back with the exuberance of youth. When Russell isn’t imitating animal sounds he is “beep-boop”-ing like a GPS device or else making bizarre observations about “your TVs and clocks and stuff.” I’m about the least kid-friendly guy around, but even I couldn’t get enough of young Russell. For all of Disney/Pixar’s technical marvels, first praise goes to directors Pete Docter and Bob Peterson and new voice actor Jordan Nagai.
While promotional clips present Carl Frederickson (voiced by Ed Asner, but looking more like Spencer Tracy with surrealist proportions) as the grouchiest old man in the history of movies, Up’s first few scenes do something quite remarkable to reverse any preconceived opinions. Taking last year’s Wall-E almost as a dare, Up features a dialogue-free sequence at the top of the picture that is shocking in its simplicity and effectiveness.
A short film unto itself, the first-reel sequence gives witness to the courtship of Carl and his wife Ellie, their early marriage, medically proscribed childlessness, financial setbacks, and Ellie’s eventual illness and death. When you hear people losing their minds about Up, chances are it is this revelatory passage that is doing it. What makes it so striking for me is how it colors all of Carl’s crazy old man antics. In a normal movie, we’d laugh at the goofy looking old man going bananas because someone is scuffing up his mailbox. Seeing the world through Carl’s eyes, however, we know that that’s Ellie’s mailbox, dammit, and take your stinkin’ hands off it now, mister, before I clock you one.
This early sequence is mirrored toward the end of the film, after Carl gives a big Disney/Pixar Eff You to the Man and sets his house aloft with hundreds of balloons. (Just go with it.) His intention is to fulfill a promise he made to Ellie as a boy – to live out their days at Adventure Falls in South America (it’s like America – but South!). It is on this journey that Carl bonds with Russell, saves a multi-colored giant bird and meets the talking dog. Excuse me, talking dogs.
He also meets the famed adventurer of his youth, Charles Muntz, and here’s where some of those story problems I’m gonna be jerk enough to mention come in. Firstly, how in the world is the dude still alive? He must be a hundred and thirty years old. Secondly, is that really what’s been driving Muntz for decades of isolation? (no spoilers.) And if he can make dogs talk . . .he can’t . . . do what he’s trying to do? (again, no spoilers.) Frankly, the whole third act of the movie is a little weak.
But the movie is gorgeous. The Pixar geniuses can still get big laughs out of all ages with just a glance. And the aforementioned bird might be the best ready-made stuffed animal since Nemo.
Up is a tremendous achievement with real non-saccharine heart. I hope I’m as cool as Carl Frederickson when I’m that old.
Ratings:
Writing: B
Directing: A-
Performances: A-
Visual Appeal: A-
Overall: B+
Vitals:
Release Date: May 29, 2009
Studio: Disney/Pixar
Director: Pete Docter and Bob Peterson
Cast: Ed Asner, Jordan Nagai, Christopher Plummer, John Ratzenberger
Genre: Animation
MPAA Rating: PG
