Up

I just saw Pixar's latest, Up, and adored it. It's probably overall my third favorite Pixar film, after WALL-E and The Incredibles, but the beginning ten minutes or so, where it depicts the life of Carl and Ellie, might be my favorite segment ever in a Pixar film.

Boy, though, talk about a film where if you don't know anything going in, which I didn't, you would have NO idea where it was going. When the robotic dogs showed up, I almost felt overwhelmed with the oddness of the story, but once it started to come together, which happened right around when they met the explorer, I realized how excellent the story was. I actually like how overwhelmed I felt; I'm sure Carl felt the same way once Dug showed up.

Oh, and speaking of Dug, such a brilliant character. I had already fallen in love with him from the trailers (SQUIRREL!), but I loved and appreciated him even more as the film went on, along with the rest of his group (POINT). The writing was insanely funny for him and the other dogs, and the voices were spot-on.

Some other little notes. The animation was beautiful but seemed less showy than usual for Pixar, which I actually kind of liked. The animals were so well done throughout, especially Kevin (the snipe). Ed Asner was pitch-perfect. I love that Russell was Asian-American (he was based on one of the story boarders for Up who also directed the really cute short before it and is Korean). The villain in this felt slightly off and nasty from the very beginning, which is nice because when he truly lost it and became evil it felt totally natural and understandable even, and completely uncontrived.

Finally, there were a bunch of little kids at the screening I went to, and I was slightly surprised only because this is a PG movie and it deserves the rating; there's a lot of sadness, evil acts, and guns. And, not to my surprise, a good number of the kids got freaked out by the film, and several left. But just as many if not more loved the film; they were laughing and getting into it.

Definitely go see this if you haven't yet; it's one of the better films I've seen in a while.