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In cinemas Thursday [G]
Directors: Pete Docter & Bob Peterson
Runtime: 96mins
Firstly, an opinion: if you can’t find something to enjoy in UP, then your soul must be comprised of crumbly, eye-stinging asbestos fibres. Apologies if that seems harsh.
Last year’s Wall-E was, for many (although not necessarily the target audience of young kids), a triumph of CGI animated feature films. Deeply affecting, funny and thrilling, the robot romance was filled with a very human sense of drama and comic timing. An almost old-timey reverence for quality storytelling shone through in every frame. UP, directed by Monsters, Inc.’s Pete Docter and writer/voice actor Bob Peterson, features a similar heart and commitment to narrative engagement – something that might come as a surprise to those only familiar with the posters of an old geezer hanging from a floating house held up by a colourful balloons.
Carl Frederickson (Ed Asner) is the geezer, but not in the film’s opening moments. There we see him as boy entranced by newsreels featuring monster hunter Charles Muntz (Christopher Plummer), a globe-trotting science hero also admired by Carl’s adventurous young neighbour Ellie. In a masterful and wordless sequence we then follow Ellie and Carl’s life together – sharing dreams of flying to ‘Paradise Falls’ in South America to follow in Muntz’s footsteps, courting, getting married, buying a house, a failed pregnancy, Carl becoming a balloon salesman … and also, heartbreakingly so early in the film, the passing of Ellie. Returning to Carl as a lonely 78 year-old, an eviction threat sees him transform his house into an airship with the intention of finally visiting Paradise Falls as he and his beloved wife intended. By accident a young Wilderness Explorer (boy scout) named Russell (Jordan Nagai) is taken along for the ride, with the mismatched pair driven by a storm almost to the very spot where Muntz was last seen.
In the wilds of South America they encounter Muntz’s last monster – a giant (and hilarious) prehistoric bird Russell names ‘Kevin’ – and a dog with collar-mounted translation device. ‘Dug’ (Bob Peterson) as he’s known, is one of Muntz’s corps of dog minions – and the old monster hunter is still very much alive and on the trail of Kevin. So begins a perpetual series of brilliant misadventures as crotchety Carl is drawn from his quest to lay his and Ellie’s house at Paradise Falls, to helping Russell protect Kevin from the now homicidally obsessed Muntz. Enormous zeppelins, dogs flying bi-planes, great gags, action and geriatric swashbuckling abound – all with the old-school verve of films that don’t need to wink at the audience every five seconds like a bad sitcom (I’m looking at you Madagascar).
Visually it’s one of Pixar’s best yet – absolutely sumptuous and brimming with colour – and if viewed in 3D, it’s even more eye-popping again. Add to that some real emotional depth and the development of a genuinely satisfying friendship between Carl and Russell, and you have yet another thoroughly successful effort to add to the studio’s already full scorecard.
Wherever your cinema tastes lie, it would be very difficult to remain either unmoved or tickled by this film, which truly deserves the adjective "charming". Go see it.
****½
TOPHER HEALY
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