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Movie Review – Up

Posted by chris On May - 30 - 2009

A few years ago, while doing our yearly pilgrimage to Disney World, my wife and I walked through Disney Hollywood Studios (MGM for those who still don’t know about the name change)… While admiring everything that is Disney animation magic, I noticed something odd… a movie poster of an old man, looking at old biplanes from his house doorway… what struck me as odd wasn’t the scene in the poster… put the familiar logo on the bottom of this poster… Pixar… and the art of the poster was more reminiscent of a cell painted animation and not the 3D animation for which I worship Pixar…

Well, years have passed and now Up is out in theaters and is now the second biggest opening day movie for Pixar, only beaten by Wall-E.

Before I start with a review of Up, or even a description of the story… I want to say that walking out of the theatre, my wife turns to me and says that this was her favorite 3D movie ever… and she tends to be quite critical about 3d movies, only really liking Monsters Inc… wait… does she have a thing for Pete Docter???

Carl Fredricksen (voiced by Edward Asner, a phenomenal voice actor), a 78 year old man, sets out to fulfill his lifelong dream in memory of his love. On his trip, he befriends a motley crew of characters; Russell, a wilderness explorer 70 years his junior; Dug an golden retriever who just wants to be loved and Kevin, a gigantic mother bird (Yes… Kevin is a female). On his adventure, he runs into his childhood hero, Charles Muntz (voiced by Christopher Plummer, a fellow Cannuck) who isn’t quite the hero he thought he was.

As is tradition with all Pixar films, John Ratzenberger voices one of the extras in this film

The modeling is top notch, though I actually have a few things that bugged me in the modeling/texturing side of things. All the dogs in this film, with possibly Dug being the exception, have HUGE foreheads… and I mean neanderthal sized… The other thing that bothered me, was Kevin’s eyes… they seemed too… two dementional… they didn’t pop out and glitter like typical Pixar eyes.
Some things I definitely want to mention that impressed me was as the movie progressed, Carl’s facial hair grew, which was fantastic… the other thing that I found wonderful was the teary eyes Carl had at one point.

If you haven’t seen this film yet, go see it… please… see it in theaters if you can, rent it once it’s out… buy the blue ray, by the DVD… Now… anyone want to go see it with me again???

Edit: I totally forgot to mention that we saw this in ‘Disney Digital 3-D’
… Typically, I’m not a fan of Stereo movies… as they tend to give me headaches, or just plain don’t work for me… however, when we got into the theater, and they handed us our Real 3D glasses… I kinda had a sigh of “oh no”. After the insane price of goodies, we got to the seats, and when the trailers started, it indicated to put on the glasses… At this point I was completely surprised… the trailer for Ice Age 3… in stereo… and I could see Scrat in on top of the head of the person in front of me… and didn’t feel eye strain…
As Up started though… I noticed there was almost no stereo 3D scenes… but walked out without a headache.

Just thought I’d share that.

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