UP – pete docter – 8.3 / 10

The bar for a Pixar film is set pretty high-- perhaps unreasonably so-- but personally I’ve only really loved the Brad Bird entries in the Pixar catalog (The Incredibles and Ratatouille). Last year, I was particularly annoyed that the general consensus seemed to be that Wall-E was Pixar’s best film to date. Seeing as it had major problems in its last third, a completely predictable (not to mention poorly thought out) ending and a couple of action sequences that seemed more suited to something in a Dreamworks animation film, I couldn’t see how anyone could think it the best film Pixar had yet made.

Even though I only really enjoyed the first forty minutes or so of Wall-E, I was still heartened by the fact that Pixar didn’t seem to be resting on any particular formula or taking the easy way out and making more films about talking animals, toys, cars and other inanimate objects; something they could probably do for decades with great financial (and possibly even critical) success. Indeed, it almost seems as if they've purposefully decided to make films centered on topics and ideas that, on the surface, appear least likely to produce great films. Three years ago they made a film about a rat, possibly the most hated creature ever to get a starring role in a major film. They followed that with a story about the last inhabitant of a blighted earth, a robot without a voice. And now, with Up, they’ve made a film about a cantankerous old man biding his time on his porch as he waits to die.

And yet, somehow, Up turns out to be the funniest and possibly most moving Pixar film yet. And while it isn’t my personal favorite from the studio (that would be Ratatouille), it gets pretty close. Much of the emotional heft of the film owes to the incredible, wordless, ten-minute sequence that comes near the beginning of the film wherein we see young Carl and Ellie grow from young children into senior citizens, facing some serious (and very adult) problems along the way. Aside from the incredibly assured storytelling on display in this sequence, you also have to love the fact that the film doesn’t pander to the children in the audience. There’s no way, for instance, that a child of eight or nine would understand, from the quick shot we see here, that Carl and Ellie can’t have children. But rather than explain it with dialogue, the filmmakers (Pete Docter and co-director Bob Peterson) seem fine with the kids not getting it and seem to think it won’t impact their enjoyment of the film negatively. The level of confidence that choice displays is truly remarkable.

That moment is also, in a nutshell, the difference between a Pixar film and an animated film from one of its rivals (Dreamworks especially). Whereas in a film like Shrek or Kung Fu Panda, the stuff for adults is simply a random smattering of pop culture references, with Up the adults in the audience are experiencing the film in a whole different way than their kids. That difference in approach tells you everything you need to know about what sort of films Pixar is making (and, conversely, it also says a lot about what sort of films Dreamworks is making).

Whatever I might have thought of the ending of Wall-E, the first, mostly wordless half of the film works spectacularly well. It’s emotionally affecting, highly entertaining and remarkably assured. Aside from the aforementioned ten-minute wordless sequence at the start of Up, the best moment in the film is a similarly wordless sequence wherein Carl empties his house of all the worldly possessions acquired in his life with Ellie. It’s both a way of saying a last goodbye to his beloved wife and of finally choosing to begin the next phase of his life. In particular, the shot of their favorite chairs sitting side by side on the plateau just as they had sat for so many years in their living room is heartbreaking.

That the filmmakers at Pixar can achieve such poignancy without employing a single word of dialogue is extraordinary. And it’s become pretty clear after these last two movies (plus their last few short films (Lifted, Presto and Partly Cloudy) which have all been free of dialogue) that Pixar has a command of the visual medium that surpasses just about anything since sound first entered the picture in the late 1920s. That’s a tremendous achievement for any filmmaker but for a group who-- ostensibly at least-- make kids’ movies, it’s downright incredible. In fact, you could probably watch Up with the sound off and not miss out on any of the emotional impact of the film.

That’s not to say that the voice acting in Up is without merit. Indeed, the voices of the various dog characters are used to great comedic effect. In particular, Dug (voiced by co-director Bob Peterson who also voices Alpha) is given just the right mix of silliness and pathos that he stands out as one of the more memorable talking animals in a genre overrun with them. My personal favorite Dug moment comes right at the end when Carl and Russell (the stowaway on Carl’s floating house) are playing a game involving spotting different colored cars. Dug, color blind obviously, shouts out that he sees gray cars. It’s a moment that probably (though obviously I can’t say for sure) works for the kids in the audience just because Peterson’s deliver of the line is funny on its own. But it’s an added treat for the adults, one more way in which the filmmakers refuse to pander to their audience.

Up is not, however, without its problems. Perhaps owing to the fact that it’s more aggressively comedic than any film Pixar has yet produced, Up falters a little by telegraphing its jokes and repeating a few of them one time too many. Whereas with the dramatic elements the film is assured and nearly flawless, the comedic elements seem forced and occasionally labored. One such example is the bit where the dogs become distracted by the sight of a squirrel. Though it’s paid off pretty well in it’s final iteration, the joke becomes a little annoying after the second or third time it’s employed.

There’s also the clumsy way in which the film deals with its cartoonish, capital 'E' evil villain, especially since this is the first Pixar film that has resorted to such a stereotypical villain. There’s nothing redeemable about Charles Muntz and no sense of what might have made him the way he is (that the world didn’t believe his discoveries were real is not sufficient motivation for becoming a old Hollywood style, scenery chewing villain). He’s just a plot device to kick off the really nifty jungle chase sequence in the middle of the film and the elaborate airborne battle at the close of the film. And he’s dispatched in a rather bland and predictable way, almost as if he’s beside the point. And, really, I guess he is. The film isn’t about him. It’s Carl and Russell’s journey. Muntz is just there so that we can get some cool action. There’s nothing wrong with that, necessarily, but I’ve come to expect more from a Pixar film.

But comparing Up to other Pixar films is a little unfair. After all, The Incredibles, Ratatouille and the first half of Wall-E set the bar so high that a failure to clear it seems like something of a disappointment when the fact that Up even gets close to scaling those heights should be celebrated.

Besides the obvious jokes and stereotypically cartoony villain, perhaps what most keeps Up grounded where other Pixar films soared is the smallness of the story it has to tell. Up is the story of one man coming to terms with the death of his wife and finding his place in a world without her. And while that’s certainly a resonant story to tell (and one that's told with incredible grace and skill), it’s not exactly an earth-shatteringly important story. It’s a modest movie I guess is what I’m saying. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course. And the film tells its modest story extremely well. It’s really only in comparison to other Pixar films that Up falters. And while that’s incredibly unfair (after all, nobody judges Terminator Salvation on how it compares to The Dark Knight just because they were produced by the same studio), that’s just the way it is sometimes.