2008 | U.S. | 96 minutes
Director: Pete Docter, Bob Peterson
Writers: Pete Docter, Bob Peterson
Cast: Ed Asner, Christopher Plummer
Distributor: Walt Disney Studios
Cdn video distributor: Walt Disney Video
When I was kid our family had a dog named Nemo. It was a wonderful German Shepherd/Labrador mix that loved catching all sorts of things. Especially small animals. Rabbits and muskrats were his usual victims. Whenever I played with him in our backyard, something — some sound or sight out of the corner of his eye — would always catch his attention, prompting his head to whip around and stare at whatever the source was. He’d freeze like that for a bit, before turning his attention back to me, happily panting again. If only he could talk. I always wondered what must be going through his mind.
Now, thanks to Up, I wonder no more. It invents a dialogue for its canine characters — via a voice-box collar that translates dog thoughts into words — that, someday, I suspect will prove to be damn close to reality. Of course, it also made me laugh out loud. The 1:23 mark in this trailer should explain why.
I highlight this because, traditionally, the freedom of animation is that you can do anything. Mostly that other beings — like the toys in Toy Story, the fish in Finding Nemo — get to behave and talk like humans, sharing many the same feelings and desires for love and adventure. It helps give the audience something to relate to. The characters of Up, though, largely stick to their inherit ways. Old men behave like old men, kids like kids, birds like birds and, of course, dogs will always be dogs. The latter are shown to be remarkably well-trained, and though the scope of their abilities (like flying fighter planes during the climax) is definitely a stretch, they still retain their here-boy-fetch instincts. It comes in handy when our heroes are in a pickle.
Up opens with one of the most heart-warming sequences I’ve ever seen in cinema. It’s a lovely, wordless montage that chronicles the love story of two people, Carl and Ellie, from childhood to old age. What follows is the life of Carl after Ellie is gone. Now an old man, he’s a bitter recluse who has transformed his once happy home into a shrine for his departed love. When faced with the final phase of his own life, Carl decides to realize a dream he and Ellie had shared since the day they met; to find a place called Paradise Falls.
Thanks to his life-long profession as a balloon salesman, Carl has all the tools he needs to get the job done; thousands of multi-coloured helium-filled balloons that fly Carl off in search of this mystical land — house and all.
Unbeknownst to Carl, a young kid was under his porch when he launched; a chubby Wilderness Explorer named Russell. He’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer either. Russell ends up throwing a wrench into his Paradise Falls plans, but at least the misadventures that follow allow Carl to realize another dream; an audience with his childhood hero, Charles Muntz (Christopher Plummer).
The appearance of Muntz — isolated from civilization, and surrounded by his army of canines — recalls some spooky similarities to the Kurtz character in Apocalypse Now. Could the name similarities be a coincidence?
Need it be added, Muntz is no longer the hero he once was. Years in the wilderness, haunted by his obsessions to recapture fame and glory, Muntz has gone off the deep-end and emerges as a deadly threat to Carl, Russell and the beastly comrades they’ve come to love.
Knowing this is a Pixar production, it should be a given that the visuals are extraordinary — though produced in 3D, the compositions render beautifully in 2D — and the story follows the usual arc of characters finally making profound realizations that inspire them into heroic acts, filled with action and adventure.
Critics and fans everywhere are often tempted to use expressions such as “this is the best Pixar film yet” but, you have to admit, Up comes up short in its character diversity and all-star casting (Ed Asner, Christopher Plummer and relative unknown Jordan Nagai are the primary voices here) that distinguished their earlier films, especially the Toy Story films. Plus it deals with darker themes such as mortality (something that made Toy Story 2 a more depressing, though still touching, experience). After Ellie disappears, Carl is a grumpy old fart for most of the story, and we know his Paradise Falls objective will never bring the happiness he desperately seeks. Still, we’re forced to wait almost an hour for him to realize that too.
But it is the ghost of Ellie — whose spirit still lurks on wall portraits and photo albums — and Carl’s undying love for her, that keeps the heart of this story alive. Not a bad trick for a character that’s largely absent and mute.
- Theatrical release date: May 29, 2009
- Video release date: November 10, 2009
- Production Budget: $175 million
- Worldwide Box Office: $506,962,798
FUN ALTERNATIVE : How could I resist? See for yourself some of the similarities between Up and Apocalypse Now. Try to imagine Willard as Carl, Lance as Russell and the Dennis Hopper character as “Dug.”
If you haven’t seen it before, trust me, it’s not meant for kids. This is a much darker, graphically violent and pessimistic vision.
This Vietnam War tale, based on Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, follows Captain Willard as he travels up a river in a small boat to track down the well-decorated Colonel Kurtz who has disappeared into the jungle, gone native, and is reportedly insane. Willard’s mission: Kill Kurtz.
You can avoid the “Redux” version of this film (nearly an hour longer than the already lengthy two-and-a-half hour original). The documentary Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse makes a convincing case for why scenes (later re-inserted into Redux) were taken out in the first place. Director Francis Ford Coppola expressed no regret over that decision. He only changed his tune when it became fashionable to create “director’s cuts” — and squeeze out more cash — and the Redux version was the result.
And if you enjoyed the gorgeous visuals in Up, Apocalypse Now possesses some of the most extraordinary of any motion picture. Cinematographer Vittorio Storaro (he became a legend for his work on The Conformist) is a master at capturing primary colours and, despite the location shooting in the mostly brown and green jungles of the Philippines, he still manages to paint in some vivid palettes. The night sequences too (the Bunnies scene, the Do Long Bridge scene and the bloody climax) further incorporate available light sources that are often breathtaking.