Why Pixar Rules the Summer Movie Season: My Review of Up (Spoilers)

One word: Heart. This is what drives so much of Pixar's animation films, and Up is just the latest in heartwarming animation cinema. More importantly, it's what makes Pixar the most admirable and the best of all Hollywood studios today, and thank goodness a film like Up offers us moviegoers something imaginative, delightful, sentimental, adventurous, and "up" lifting in a summer movie season that offers us so much throwayable flicks.

Ten minutes into this film, I was weeping saltwater tears, and that was when I knew I was watching something special and magical. As with WALL-E, wordless actions exquisitely set up the exposition, and like Ratatouille (like when the "Grim Eater" flashbacks to his childhood when he bites into a sumptuous dish of ratatouille), emotional moments are deeply felt through a finely drawn eye-quiver. There's more emoting occurring in an animated eye movement than there is in many live-action actors' posturing, including that of Christian Bale's flat performance in Terminator Salvation. In other words, Up is fantastic movie viewing.

The plot is a rather absurd yet moving story that comes right on time for our economic recession times. Carl Fredericksen (voiced by Edward Asner), a 78-year-old widower, finds himself suddenly alone with the passing of his longtime partner, Ellie, whom he met in childhood. Both shared a love for adventure - their imaginations fired by movies and the adventures of their hero Charles Muntz. Together, they form a special wild adventure club in an abandoned, decaying house in their neighborhood. They eventually grow up, get married, and in homage to It's a Wonderful Life (replete with Ellie's Adventure scrapbook, with unwritten pages for the "Things I'd Like to Do"), the couple fix up that old decaying house of their youth and make their home where they will reside for the rest of their lives. Their dreams of venturing to South America to visit Paradise Falls (the fictional allusion to Venezuela's Angels Falls) are constantly placed on hold due to life's little interruptions. Along the way are other disappointments - the couple are not able to have children, for example - and while they put away money over the years to save up for their adventure trip while they work in a local zoo (Ellie is a zookeeper while Carl sells balloons), old age overtakes them, and eventually Ellie dies.

Sad and alone, surrounded by the memories of his life with Ellie, Carl finds himself an old relic in the midst of a changing environment. Outside his house is the menace of urban sprawl where developers hound Carl for his property so that they can continue in their development plans (so many levels, so many levels). Being the stubborn old man that he is, Carl refuses until an altercation arises that labels him a "public menace" who must be taken away to a retirement home. Carl has no other choice when, inspired by a picture drawn by his wife - which depicts their little house atop the Paradise Falls - and by her Adventure Scrap Book and the empty pages of her "Things I'd Like to Do," Carl gets the zany idea to attach his house to a gazillion helium balloons, which lift him up and away from it all - heading, lo and behold, to Paradise Falls in South America.

This image is truly striking in this day and age of the housing crisis, for how many homeowners, who've had to foreclose, would love the idea of saving one's home in such a lofty and whimsical way? Another movie homage is, of course, The Wizard of Oz, and there's a quick yet poignant scene (at least for me) of a little black girl playing with toys in her bedroom, who looks out her window to see this flying house attached to balloons. Her awe and wonder match my own, of course, and for a fleeting moment, I regretted that the story of the first "black princess" is being offered to us by Disney and not by Pixar.

Unbeknownst to Carl is the fact of a little 8-year-old eager-beaver type kid, who stowed away on his porch. Little Russell (voiced by child actor Jordan Nagai), a chubby Asian-American boy who has joined the "Wildlife Explorer" club and seeking a merit badge to "assist the elderly," at first appears terribly annoying and is downright clumsy (what with his overweight self, facilitated by his love for chocolate bars). Together, they journey to South America, where they encounter angry storm clouds, wild animals, and the vast wilderness of South America. What Up does really well - that other films, like Angels and Demons and Terminator Salvation fail to do - is character development. And we learn, during their crazy adventures, that poor Russell is as lonely as Carl, what with his eager hopes of pleasing his absentee father. One of the sight gags in this movie is seeing both Russell and Carl tied with a garden hose to that cumbersome floating house. So determined to fulfill Ellie's dream, Carl will lug that old house to Paradise Falls. Along the way are some cuddly animals and a villain, Carl's childhood hero, Charles Muntz (voiced by Christopher Plummer), whom he encounters in the wilderness and who eventually comes off like the evil colonialist Kurtz in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Yes, the many animal skeletons and suggested human skulls in his blimp-turned-home was enough to 1) make me terrified of this cartoon villain and 2) make me applaud the film for reminding us of the far more sinister implications of our colonialist explorer-adventurer, whose madness is advanced because of his need for glory in the "civilized" world.

I could go on and on, but what's essential to know about Up is its beautiful lesson of friendship and how it knows no boundaries or age-limits. Eventually, when Carl reads through Ellie's Adventure Scrap Book and discovers that her "Things I'd Like to Do" were not empty pages but instead filled with mementos of their life together, only then does he discard the house of its many furniture and items. Indeed, he eventually discards the house itself when he is presented with the choice of keeping it or keeping his newfound friends. Perhaps my favorite scene comes at the end when, after their wild adventures in South America, Russell is ready to be presented his merit badge for assisting the elderly. The other boys on stage all have their fathers. He does not. That is until Carl joins him on stage. The entire audience in the theater couldn't help themselves. We let out a collective Awwwww.

This film is so full of win, and I highly recommend it. It has given me hope in cinema and what cinema does best: creating visually stunning images with emotional drama. If you're one of those adults who don't go for animation, I suggest you transcend your prejudices and go see it. Borrow somebody's kid if you have to. You will not be disappointed.