Pixar Does It Yet Again With the Irresistibly Charming “Up”

I’ll admit it: “Up” was a flick that I was pretty eager to see. I’m a sucker for Pixar, and as noted earlier, it becomes a bit easier to get away with watching kids movies when you actually have a kid. So when “Up” showed “Up” in the mailbox and I got a chance to check it out, I have another admission: I loved it.

It was slightly unfortunate that the lead character, Carl Fredricksen, looked like a pint-sized version of Kim Jong Il in the beginning, and there were some rather adult themes throughout the flick: death of loved ones, animal abuse, corporate greed, violence and abandonment, among others. However, the underlying story was an undeniably beautiful one—a charming love story hidden beneath a great adventure.

When Carl (perfectly voiced by Ed Asner) is approaching 80, never realized his hopes of having children, has lost his lifelong love and partner, and risks having his home ripped right out from underneath him, he finds the strength to pursue the dream he’s had since boyhood: find Paradise Falls. And live there. So, naturally, he ties like a bazillion balloons to his house and drifts there, aided (sort of) by a stowaway Wilderness Explorer named Russell. Hilarity ensues as the unlikely duo have to steer the floating house through a jungle, navigating around talking dogs and the crazed explorer Charles F. Muntz, one of Carl’s childhood heroes—who is no longer what Carl always wanted him to be. I’ll let you figure the rest of the plot out by yourself, but the film neatly ties in some environmental themes and displays Carl achieving many of his dreams at once, in ways he never expected.

“Up” takes on larger and more serious issues than many children’s movies are willing to, and gets away with it by making sure it somehow all works out in the end. If you haven’t seen it yet, let yourself be a kid for 90 minutes—and you’ll find that your outlook is looking “Up.”