Movie Review: Up!

Movie Review: Up!

Up is one of the many Disney/Pixar 2D/3D films, and I finally got to see it last night. I fell in love with the character Carl Fredrickson from the minute I saw the first trailer. Why? Because the animated character looked quite a bit like my father, even though my father wouldn't be caught dead wearing a bowtie.

This story however is not one I find suited for small children. In the first 15 minutes Pixar treats you to the back story of Carl and Ellie. You see how they meet as children on a quest for adventure thanks to the short films about Charles Muntz and then you see them fall in love and marry. You also see Ellie grow old and then die. Not something I'd recommend for the littlest ones if you aren't ready for life/death questions.

After that you see a bitter Carl who doesn't want to leave his home, get ordered to a retirement community because he clubbed a construction worker in the head with his cane.

Uh...yeah.

Still its hard not to love Carl Fredrickson and its even harder not to love the Wilderness Explorer, Russell who shows up at his door, hoping to get the badge for helping the elderly.

That's when the fun starts. Carl's occupation involved balloons and with 10,000 he and his house with an unsuspecting Russell start to fly off to Paradise Falls, where Carl and his wife Elly had hoped to travel.

Enter a huge multi-colored bird, a dog with a collar that translates his barking into words and the 91 year old explorer that was exiled to the falls because of disbelief in his findings and you get some fast paced and funny action, although some of it is more violent than any children's movie need be. However its not so violent that any parent would need to feel concerned about what's happening, especially with some of the things that happen in other movies that kids see.

For the older audience, and lets face it there are plenty of us that still love these kinds of films, its really a lovely, sad, funny story and it reminds us that you should still go after your dreams even if you think you are too old. Its definitely a must see film, but then again most of the Disney/Pixar films are.

**** (4 stars)