"Up"

"Up" (my 0-10 quality rating: 10) (animation) Director: Peter Docter, with co-director Bob Peterson Screenplay: Bob Peterson Voices: Ed Asner, Christopher Plummer, Delroy Lindo, Bob Peterson Time: 1 hr., 36 min. Rating: PG (perilous action)
A masterpiece of adult-level art and craft of animated films, not to say a wonderfully refreshing plot quality exploring seriously the trials and tribulations of our lives. The points of praise for this film cannot be overdone. It's a landmark.
And no, forget about any necessity of seeing it in 3-D. If anything, that's distracting.
Pixar, ever the innovator in raising the bar on animated feature films, now presents an artistically and intellectually brilliant movie which amazingly appeals to both kid and grown-up filmgoers, although its sublest points are definitely adult-oriented. No, you don't have to be accompanied by a child under 9 to be admitted; you can totally love this gem of entertainment all on your own. Yes, it even surpasses the ingenious "Wall-E."
And no, this is not, as all the previews exploit at juvenile levels, simply about an old gent who has his house and himself lofted away by thousands of balloons to fantastical adventures. That's got nothing to do with the film's visceral levels of emotional force. We're talking timeless, actual emotional values at all ages to the end. Ane guess what, old people are not upstaged by kids and are actually shown as wiser.
For the grand intelligence and sensitivity that went into this movie are based on the simple notion that certain human emotions, dreams and hopes are universal in people of all ages from early childhood to final farewells. In particular, loneliness. Yes, you will cry in some scenes, not because of cartoon characters up there on a big screen but because the feelings they are eliciting exist regardless of the medium and the age of the characters and evoking them, whether by real acting or animated figures.
Package these amazingly created aspects with spellbinding aesthetics, some of ethereal quality, and endlessly playful notions of human interaction, and you've come to an experience, not a movie. Through inspired balance of screen color designs and shapes to pace the momentum, craft joins story value to summon forth your deepest values and yearnings.
Here we have the love between an 8-year-old boy and a girl growing to adulthood and marriage, then on to old age and a haunting memory at 78. It's all told quickly in an exquisite montage.
Now for the fun and the beauty.
The story is essentially that of the delightfully impossible journey of aspiration into unknown geographic territory which brings forth wondrous new emotional energy by an old codger and a young boy scout. Sounds sentimental? The way it's manifested charmingly and disarmingly here, with minimal fantasy elements, that can be criticized only if you're an irrevocable cynic for whom feigned indifference has become a religion. Indeed, the film takes admirable risks in being relatively talky and steering well clear of the usual "marketable" kids' appeal action pieces.
The story begins with 1930s simulted Movietone newsreel in which the story is told of an Explorer named Muntz tried to convince the world of the existence of a giant bird. Widely derided as a hoax, he took himself into self-exile into the South American jungles to find that bird again. Profoundly affected by the film are Carl and Ellie, two children with adventurous ambitions. As they grow older (in a fantastically descriptive brief montage) they hold to their dreams and they marry and look to fulfilling that dream.
But alas, there is fate. Ellie must settle for a contented, loving but perhaps boring life with balloon-seller Carl (voice by Ed Asner). And so tragically, she dies so before her time. She has left a scrapbook. And a cantankerous widowed husband who becomes a virtual hermit. He just wants to be alone. Or so he thinks. His home surrounded by giant construction projects, that will be very depressing for him.
But human ingenuity springs eternal. Faced with eviction, Carl comes up with the mother of all schemes. In a dazzling sequence, he attaches thousands of colored balloons to the house which hoist it to the skies.
So now to fly it to South America, so to live his deceased wife's dreams. But he has a stowaway aboard. It's Russell, the little Junior Wilderness Explorer who had tried to get the old man to help him get his Help the Elderly badge award.
At their arrival at the falls, in thick fog on top of a mesa, they have begun an adventure that will feature endless jungle animals, all presented with outstanding imagination and perception, with special appeal in the insightfully treated dogs who greet them. In the finale, there will be a zeppelin piloted by Muntz (the portrayal and treatment of it provide a mighty visual experiencein its elaborate exterior and interior), the idealized explorer over which Carl has modeled his adventure. Muntz has been up there all these years in quest of the bird the world did not believe existed.
So many incidents and so much action, yet the film is forever first-rate in its attempt at probing the depths of human emotion. It is ever a class act, funny, absorbing. Moving.
Marty Meltz, film reviewer for the statewide, New England Award-winning Maine Sunday Telegram for 30 years, had his column terminated 12-31-07 for newspaper budget cuts. His website, dedicated to giving readers right-to-the-point reviews, is http://www.martymoviereviews.com
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