A soaring success
Filmmakers bring a light touch to poignant, funny animated adventure
By: Randall King
29/05/2009 1:00 AM
http://media.winnipegfreepress.com/images/1210606.jpg
Filmmakers bring a light touch to poignant, funny animated adventure Up. (PIXAR / DISNEY)
IN the brief history of com­puter animation, an early problem was that human characters tended to look plastic. The maverick anima­tion company Pixar brilliantly circumvented that debility with their first feature, Toy Story, in which almost all its protagonists were plastic.
It isn't as much of a problem now, given that the medium has come a long way in a short time. Even so, you have directors like McG deliberately scaling back the use of computer-generated images in the movie Terminator Salvation, claiming that it distracts from the earthy realism of footage shot in-camera.
Maybe. But then, why is there more humanity in Pixar's new, all-CG feature Up than there is in the entirety of Terminator? Also: More nuance, more tenderness and an altogether more insightful perspective on what it is to be alive.
Up wears its ambition boldly, starting with the introduction of a quiet, adventure-obsessed boy named Carl Frederickson, who meets his soul mate Ellie in an abandoned house, pretending to engage in the same kind of adventurism as their Lindbergh-like idol Charles F. Muntz (Christopher Plummer). Carl and Ellie marry, and we witness their happy lives together in a gorgeous, wordless montage, rendered poignant by their deferred dreams of adventure and their failure to conceive. (Yes, it's heavy stuff, even in the context of a children's film.)
At the end of it, Carl (Ed Asner) is alone, facing eviction from his home, and the death of his dreams altogether. But at the last minute, he conceives of an escape that will honour the wishes of the late Ellie: the former balloon salesman inflates thousands of balloons with helium, attaches them to his fireplace and flies his lonely abode to the adventure mecca of Paradise Falls in Venezuela.
Unfortunately for Carl, a stowaway "wilderness explorer" named Russell (Jordan Nagai) is on his porch when the house shakes free of its earthly bonds. By the time Carl gets to Paradise Falls, he is responsible for the kid, a giant exotic bird dubbed Kevin, and a dog named Dug (voiced by Bob Peterson, who co-directed the film with Monsters Inc. helmsman Pete Docter). Yes, that's right, voiced. Dug and all the dogs of Paradise Falls have been given the ability to speak courtesy of a high-tech collar.
Carl even gets to meet his childhood hero Muntz, only to discover that his one-time idol is not so much a crazy old coot as a malevolent madman.
Peterson and Docter pull off an awesome feat of juggling the movie's verbal comedy, action sequences and bittersweet soul, keeping it all as gravity-defying as those balloons.
And how about that killer irony at the movie's core? Carl experiences the adventure (and also the parenting) of which he always dreamed, but he is too distracted by his mission to get the house to Paradise Falls to notice. Indeed, he spends much of his time dragging his floating house across the landscape.
Sure, it's a bizarre spectacle worthy of that surrealist Luis Buñuel. But it's also as elegant a metaphor as you could wish for a man unable to let go of his past.
randall.king@freepress.mb.ca
OtherVoices
Through its writing, direction and execution, Up doesn't just achieve hipness, it transcends it. With its spirit of fun and adventure, it's a thrill ride, but a thrill ride with heart.
This is a wonderful film. It tells a story. The characters are as believable as any characters can be who spend much of their time floating above the rainforests of Venezuela.
Extending the patented Pixar mix of humour and heart, Up is the studio's most deeply emotional and affecting work.
As of May, Best Picture of the Year: Another jewel in Pixar's crown, Up is a truly uplifting experience, a thematically inventive, emotionally touching, poignantly romantic film that lingers in memory long after seeing it.
The look of Up is a world away from Pixar's usual CGI intricacies -- simple in a way that only artists with a genius for complexity can achieve.
As buoyant and richly tinted as the balloons that figure so prominently in its story, Up is also thoroughly grounded in real emotion and ideas of substance.
A feather-light farce with a delicious dose of the sentimental, it isn't the animation company's biggest, most complicated or even its best. It's just a film in which most every oddball element of an odd yet familiar story works.
Rest assured, it gets funny. And it's thrilling, too, as the third act takes place almost entirely in the sky.
-- Compiled by Canwest News Service
Filmmakers bring a light touch to poignant, funny animated adventure
By: Randall King
29/05/2009 1:00 AM
Filmmakers bring a light touch to poignant, funny animated adventure Up. (PIXAR / DISNEY)
IN the brief history of com­puter animation, an early problem was that human characters tended to look plastic. The maverick anima­tion company Pixar brilliantly circumvented that debility with their first feature, Toy Story, in which almost all its protagonists were plastic.
It isn't as much of a problem now, given that the medium has come a long way in a short time. Even so, you have directors like McG deliberately scaling back the use of computer-generated images in the movie Terminator Salvation, claiming that it distracts from the earthy realism of footage shot in-camera.
Maybe. But then, why is there more humanity in Pixar's new, all-CG feature Up than there is in the entirety of Terminator? Also: More nuance, more tenderness and an altogether more insightful perspective on what it is to be alive.
Up wears its ambition boldly, starting with the introduction of a quiet, adventure-obsessed boy named Carl Frederickson, who meets his soul mate Ellie in an abandoned house, pretending to engage in the same kind of adventurism as their Lindbergh-like idol Charles F. Muntz (Christopher Plummer). Carl and Ellie marry, and we witness their happy lives together in a gorgeous, wordless montage, rendered poignant by their deferred dreams of adventure and their failure to conceive. (Yes, it's heavy stuff, even in the context of a children's film.)
At the end of it, Carl (Ed Asner) is alone, facing eviction from his home, and the death of his dreams altogether. But at the last minute, he conceives of an escape that will honour the wishes of the late Ellie: the former balloon salesman inflates thousands of balloons with helium, attaches them to his fireplace and flies his lonely abode to the adventure mecca of Paradise Falls in Venezuela.
Unfortunately for Carl, a stowaway "wilderness explorer" named Russell (Jordan Nagai) is on his porch when the house shakes free of its earthly bonds. By the time Carl gets to Paradise Falls, he is responsible for the kid, a giant exotic bird dubbed Kevin, and a dog named Dug (voiced by Bob Peterson, who co-directed the film with Monsters Inc. helmsman Pete Docter). Yes, that's right, voiced. Dug and all the dogs of Paradise Falls have been given the ability to speak courtesy of a high-tech collar.
Carl even gets to meet his childhood hero Muntz, only to discover that his one-time idol is not so much a crazy old coot as a malevolent madman.
Peterson and Docter pull off an awesome feat of juggling the movie's verbal comedy, action sequences and bittersweet soul, keeping it all as gravity-defying as those balloons.
And how about that killer irony at the movie's core? Carl experiences the adventure (and also the parenting) of which he always dreamed, but he is too distracted by his mission to get the house to Paradise Falls to notice. Indeed, he spends much of his time dragging his floating house across the landscape.
Sure, it's a bizarre spectacle worthy of that surrealist Luis Buñuel. But it's also as elegant a metaphor as you could wish for a man unable to let go of his past.
randall.king@freepress.mb.ca
OtherVoices
Through its writing, direction and execution, Up doesn't just achieve hipness, it transcends it. With its spirit of fun and adventure, it's a thrill ride, but a thrill ride with heart.
-- Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic
This is a wonderful film. It tells a story. The characters are as believable as any characters can be who spend much of their time floating above the rainforests of Venezuela.
-- Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
Extending the patented Pixar mix of humour and heart, Up is the studio's most deeply emotional and affecting work.
-- Richard Corliss, Time magazine
As of May, Best Picture of the Year: Another jewel in Pixar's crown, Up is a truly uplifting experience, a thematically inventive, emotionally touching, poignantly romantic film that lingers in memory long after seeing it.
-- Emanuel Levy, emanuellevy.com
The look of Up is a world away from Pixar's usual CGI intricacies -- simple in a way that only artists with a genius for complexity can achieve.
-- David Edelstein, New York magazine
As buoyant and richly tinted as the balloons that figure so prominently in its story, Up is also thoroughly grounded in real emotion and ideas of substance.
-- Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly
A feather-light farce with a delicious dose of the sentimental, it isn't the animation company's biggest, most complicated or even its best. It's just a film in which most every oddball element of an odd yet familiar story works.
-- Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel
Rest assured, it gets funny. And it's thrilling, too, as the third act takes place almost entirely in the sky.
-- Robert Wilonsky, Village Voice
-- Compiled by Canwest News Service
We see it then!
