Film review: Up

Published on Thursday 8 October 2009 19:06

UP (U) **** DIRECTED BY: PETE DOCTER, BOB PETERSON VOICES: EDWARD ASNER, CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER, JORDAN NAGAI, BOB PETERSON

LIKE the first half of Wall-E, the first ten minutes or so of Pixar's latest animated wonder are cinematic perfection. They kick off in the 1930s with a little boy called Carl having his mind blown at the movies. On screen is newsreel footage of a world famous explorer and aviator by the name of Charles Muntz (Christopher Plummer).

The footage, which co-directors Pete Docter and Bob Peterson render in authentically scratchy black-and-white, shows Muntz being celebrated then demonised after one of his discoveries – a skeleton of a large flightless bird found in South America – is deemed a fraud. Carl is unperturbed by this scandalous revelation. Too caught up by the notion that someone can go off and explore exotic jungle lands – in a massive plane with custom-designed dog-training machines, no less! – he skips home daydreaming about the adventures he might one day have, all the while imagining exploration possibilities in his own modest neighbourhood.

Soon thereafter, Carl meets Ellie, a fellow would-be adventurer who blows his mind for a second time by befriending him and forming a secret adventure club in an old, rickety, abandoned house. This house quickly morphs into their grown-up house as Docter and Peterson proceed to silently sketch out Carl and Ellie's lives together with stunning economy and heartbreaking directness. In the space of three or four minutes we get the highs, the lows, regrets and disappointments (including an inability to have children) of their time together.

Mostly, though, we get a sense of the way that life, as it so often does, has managed to get in the way of Carl and Ellie fulfilling their childhood dream of exploring South America together. It's such a beautifully orchestrated montage of shots that, when we finally meet Carl as a curmudgeonly, 78-year-old widower, we understand the reason behind every sigh, every creaking body movement and every cranky remark. He's a man weighed down and haunted by the unrealised ambitions of his youth, desperately trying to preserve the memory of the one thing in his life that made him happy: Ellie.

Never ones to talk down to children (or adults for that matter), it's a typically sophisticated opening from the Pixar team, as good as anything they've done. What's more, they manage to segue from that melancholic start into high adventure with such astonishing ease that you never question the change of pace or tone.

With developers threatening to toss Carl (voiced by Edward Asner) out of his home, which thanks to years of urban renewal now sits in the midst of dozens of skyscrapers (the noisy construction of which is a constant source of irritation to Carl), he plans to put his previous employment as a balloon salesman to use by tying thousands of helium balloons to his house and escaping to Paradise Falls, the dream location he and Ellie always planned on visiting. The house taking off for the first time is quite something to behold, but it's also the moment that the film starts to become a slightly more conventional animated adventure movie.

Trapped under the porch is a chunky eight-year-old Wilderness Explorer called Russell (Jordan Nagai), a goofy kid who is so determined to gain his "assistance to the elderly" merit badge he has been scrabbling around under Carl's house looking for an animal that Carl made up to get rid of him.

Stuck with each other as they soar through the sky, theirs is the familiar dynamic of the mismatched buddy comedy Pixar made its name with, though the generation gap in this instance also accidentally gives it an amusing flavour of the reluctant mentor relationship found in Clint Eastwood's recent Gran Torino (without the racial epithets and gun-toting violence, of course).

It's funny and sweet, but also a tad predictable, with Carl's initial irritation with Russell softening as he recognises the same reckless spirit of adventure in him that he had as a little boy. Where Up really wins out, as the film's action shifts to South America and this intrepid duo have to contend with a surprise villain, is the loving attention to detail its makers confer upon both the setting (a richly imagined wilderness, clearly fuelled by memories of 1930s serial adventures) and the additional characters.

Among the latter are a flightless, chocolate-loving bird that Russell names Kevin, and a pack of dogs that are hunting Kevin down. The dogs in particular are so brilliantly conceived they threaten to run off with the entire picture.

Fitted with electronic gizmos that allow them to talk (the reason for which becomes clear as the plot progresses), the film smartly refuses to transplant human personalities onto them and instead strives to articulate their thought processes.

The star of the show is Dug, a dopey, waggly-tailed, intensely loyal mutt who is easily distracted by squirrels and befriends a reluctant Carl with the words: "I've just met you and I love you."

There are some typically stunning action sequences as well, though given Up marks Pixar's first proper foray into 3D film-making, they're not quite as jaw-dropping as you might expect. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Pixar don't need such gimmickry to engage an audience and Up certainly doesn't rely on it, though the ending does feel slightly rushed in comparison to the beautifully contracted opening.

Nevertheless, despite such minor imperfections, Up still works as a heartfelt hymn to the importance of embracing life's large and small adventures.