Movie Review: "Up"

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you one of the best movies of 2009. After Wall-E, I had pretty much all confidence in Pixar in the sense that they can do no wrong (most of the time). And while Up did seem like it would be a simple little enjoyable movie, it takes you on a ride deeper than its bright colors and talk dogs would lead you to believe.

What I liked

Plot

This movie had a very strong story: two kids like each other, get married and live life until one of them dies. After she dies, the husband becomes an old hermit and fulfills an old promise. This is probably one of Pixar's deepest stories in the sense that you in other films you could almost see what was coming and when it was. But this movie takes you in so many different directions. It also handles transitioning between plot elements very well.

Characters

This is a very eclectic cast of characters. An old man, a fat Asian boy scout, a tropical bird, and a lovable talking dog. This seems like they combined other characters from other movie, but man they make these characters work off of each other very well and it is emphasized by giving each character a chance to shine with Carl and Russell given the main attention. This movie also made me so attached to the relationship between Carl and Elie (the wife who dies) that it had me crying in 15 MINUTES! I have never had that happen to me in a movie. The fact that they made the characters that believable that you can connect with them on that deep of a level, that is a win in my book.

Setting

A jungle is great for this movie. While I'm not a big fan of a good looking movie over a good driven movie, here you get not only a good story with great characters, but it looks good too. At times I thought that the movie was real and not CGI.

Humor

This movie is probably Pixar's funniest. All I have to put for this is one of my favorite lines, "My name is Dug. I have just met you, and I love you!"

Score

It is no surprise that this movie won the Academy Award for Best Score. The music compliments the movie well and is one of the reasons why I got connected to the characters in the first 15 minutes.

What I didn't like

Nothing

Yeah, there wasn't much to complain about. There are some minor grips, but nothing that keeps it from being an overall great movie.

If you haven't seen this movie yet, then go and get it. Not rent it first, I mean buy it on DVD or Blu-Ray. This is a great movie from a great movie studio.

Overall Grade: A