Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Movie Review: Up

I saw this the past weekend. It's probably the best movie from 2009 I've seen so far. It also continues the Pixar streak: they haven't made a bad movie yet. This is an amazing achievement, and I keep thinking a clunker is coming, but somehow it doesn't. A Bug's Life was probably the weakest Pixar, and that's really saying something. Especially given the standard being set by other children's cartoons out there.

I was a bit skeptical of the premise for this film: man goes on a trip to South America by turning his house into an airship. Boyscout kid tags along. Sounds a bit wierd, right? But instead of being some crazy technicolor adventure, the movie turned out to be about aging, death, divorce, and finding joy in one's life, however one can. It was pretty heavy for a children's movie, which was evidenced by the confused questions some kids were whispering to their parents at the showing I attended. But despite that, all the kids I saw after the movie seemed happy and excited by the experience. I left the theater feeling the same way.

4 comments:

anphoe said...

I agree with you that it's the best movie from 2009 so far.

I have been dying to talk about this movie with someone. However, no one around me has watched it yet, and I didn't want to ruin the movie for them.

Anyway, even though I agreed with you as above, I left the theater feeling crazily sad. I didn't expect that the storyline was like that, so I didn't know his wife was going to die. My husband and I were both shock! I couldn't help but started crying from the early part of the movie, and then laughed a couple, and then cried again, cycled like that... I guess I am very emotional, but I LOVE sad movie. I ran to the restroom right away after the movie, and cried more, ran into the car, and then I broke down. It's just weird how the cartoon could make me cry so much. It's just very very touching!

Gloria Quincy said...

Thanks for your comment! My husband said he was shocked by the wife dying, but I knew something like that was going to happen because I had read a movie review that alluded to it. It was really sad, and I certainly understand you crying because of it. I think if I hadn't known that was going to happen, I would have cried too.

Rory said...

Yes, Pixar is pretty amazing. I too worry about their eventual misstep, but so far so good!

This article is fun to read :)

http://www.slashfilm.com/2009/05/31/easter-eggs-in-pixars-up/

Gloria Quincy said...

That was a fun article, Rory!

I assume you approved of there being so many dogs in Up?