Up: Why Pixar Rules!

Hollywood needs to learn a lesson.  A lesson I get taught almost everyday as a film student.  The lesson: Story is King.  Pixar knows this lesson.  They act on it.  And that is why they are the best at what they do.  Sure they have beautiful films that are fun to look at.  They even have exciting action sequences and funny moments, but first and foremost for them is the story.  Believe me, UP has a great story.

The movie starts out with Carl Fredrickson as a child.  He is a quiet, short, little guy with a big imagination.  He roams his streets imitating his hero, adventurer Charles Muntz.  Later he runs into a spunky girl named Ellie.  She makes Carl 'cross his heart' and promise to take her to South America one day to see the Forgotten Falls.  Carl and Ellie eventually fall in love and get married.  

The film flash forward and takes Carl and Ellie quickly through life and some challenges.  This part of the film is surprisingly sweet and poignant.  It's hard not to quickly fall in love with Carl and Ellie.  When Carl loses Ellie later in life he becomes a bit of a crumudgeon.  He sits on his porch and gets the mail and that's about it.  Carl lives in the same house he has for all those years with Ellie, but a land developer is building all around him and wants to buy Carl's home, but Carl won't sell.

Things change when Carl strikes a worker in anger.  He is forced to move into a retirement center, but Carl's not going to go quietly.  He decides to finally take that trip to South America and does so by lashing thousands of balloons to his house that easily pick it up and carry it away.

Carl is accidently joined by Wilderness Explorer and nuisance Russell.  Russell is trying to earn his last merit badge for assissting the elderly when he is lifted up with Carl's house.  Carl and Russell soon get to South America and make their way towards the falls.  Along the way they meet up with an exotic bird, Kevin (named by Russell) and a talking dog named Dug.  Both of these charaters add some great comedy to the film (listen to Dug's "joke" he tells, I died laughing).  Later the villain is introduced, but I won't ruin all that for you.

The film is just plain fun.  It's a good story, with some touching moments, great comedy, and pretty good action (the fight scene at the end between two old men is pretty great).  You'lll love the characters and the gags, they're just so much fun.  As far as pure entertainment value goes, I would rank this film in my top three Pixar movies along with Toy Story 2 (P.S. There's a Toy Story 3 teaser trailer at the beginning of the film) and The Incredibles.  Pixar wins the year again!

Rating:  99 Luftballoons