Eddy and I went to see Pixar's new movie Up yesterday and I was honestly a little disappointed. I'm not saying that it wasn't a good movie - I don't think I've seen a Pixar film that was without any redeeming qualities - it just wasn't as good as many of Pixar's other films. The story revolves around Carl, an elderly man going on the adventure that he and his wife had planned before her death. One of the things that I respect Pixar for is that it deals with themes like death and aging (or environmentalism with Wall-E) that you don't normally find in children's movies. They always strike me as very sophisticated for movies geared towards younger audiences. Anyway, Up's plot felt fairly disjointed to me, with the first part of the movie not really meshing with the second part until the very end. I though the talking dogs were a little gimicky, but Kevin the bird was absolutely gorgeous and charming. This, like many of Pixar's past films, was devoid of any major female characters, which annoyed me.
One thing that I've always liked about Pixar that I missed in the films is that the subjects of their movies are usually not something you would think of making of film of - like robots, monsters, fish, toys etc. There is something so clever about making films about these un-thought of subjects, and Up felt somewhat dull because it only focused on seemingly normal human beings. Yes, it is unusual to have an old man as the protagonist of children's film, but Pixar's medium seems better suited for more fantastical and visually interesting creatures. The imagery of the balloons, Kevin the bird and South American were all visually interesting, but I didn't think that the main characters were in anyway improved by the medium - certainly not in the way that Sully or Wall-E were.
The film is definitely worth seeing, but I don't think that it was Pixar's best effort. ***1/2
(The short at the beginning was fabulous. That's the kind of creativity that I expect out of Pixar.)
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