Review, Up
By Catherine Knauss
Monday 19th October 2009
Monday 19th October 2009
I’ve always been a Disney girl. I grew up on (and still know every single word of) the original classics: Aladdin, The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, and so on. So, I wasn’t overly thrilled when Disney and Pixar merged to become the animated film powerhouse they are today. I didn’t try to find Nemo; I didn’t particularly care when the Incredibles struggled to save the world; the idea of a rat cooking in a French restaurant turned my stomach more than anything; I didn’t even see Cars. I gave up on everything Disney if it also had the Pixar name hyphenated onto it.
I didn’t expect to feel any differently about the newborn in the Disney-Pixar family. Up is the story of Carl Fredrickson, a lonely old curmudgeon who inadvertently brings Russell, a Junior Wilderness Explorer, on a journey to Paradise Falls in South America. Of course, true to fantastical Disney-Pixar fashion, Carl and Russell travel by floating house, suspended by hundreds of thousands of helium balloons. Upon reaching Paradise Falls, things – unsurprisingly - do not go according to plan, as Carl and Russell encounter Kevin, a giant tropical bird Dug, a well-trained but exceptionally stupid golden retriever, and Charles F. Muntz (Christopher Plummer) a once famous and now villainous explorer on the hunt for birds of Kevin’s species.
Combining the perfect mix of Disney spirit and Pixar animation, Up restored my faith in Disney-Pixar, with loveable characters (with the exception of Muntz) and light-hearted humour. Up also delves into slightly deeper emotions that children’s films usually avoid, highlighting both Carl’s grief at the loss of his wife and Russell’s feelings of abandonment due to an absent father.
If I were going to be terribly cliché, I would tell you that Up is a film for the young and the young at heart, but instead I’ll just say this: it converted this wholly Disney girl to a Disney-Pixar girl. If that isn’t a strong recommendation, I don’t know what is.
Rating: Three Stars
I didn’t expect to feel any differently about the newborn in the Disney-Pixar family. Up is the story of Carl Fredrickson, a lonely old curmudgeon who inadvertently brings Russell, a Junior Wilderness Explorer, on a journey to Paradise Falls in South America. Of course, true to fantastical Disney-Pixar fashion, Carl and Russell travel by floating house, suspended by hundreds of thousands of helium balloons. Upon reaching Paradise Falls, things – unsurprisingly - do not go according to plan, as Carl and Russell encounter Kevin, a giant tropical bird Dug, a well-trained but exceptionally stupid golden retriever, and Charles F. Muntz (Christopher Plummer) a once famous and now villainous explorer on the hunt for birds of Kevin’s species.
Combining the perfect mix of Disney spirit and Pixar animation, Up restored my faith in Disney-Pixar, with loveable characters (with the exception of Muntz) and light-hearted humour. Up also delves into slightly deeper emotions that children’s films usually avoid, highlighting both Carl’s grief at the loss of his wife and Russell’s feelings of abandonment due to an absent father.
If I were going to be terribly cliché, I would tell you that Up is a film for the young and the young at heart, but instead I’ll just say this: it converted this wholly Disney girl to a Disney-Pixar girl. If that isn’t a strong recommendation, I don’t know what is.
Rating: Three Stars