Film Review: UP (2009)

Directors: Pete Docter & Bob Peterson
Running time: 96 mins (approx)
Certification (UK): U

Watched at the cinema Saturday 10th October 2009.

PLEASE NOTE: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS IN THIS REVIEW.

I am a great fan of animated films, and I must say this is, without a doubt, the best I’ve seen this year! I really wanted to stand up and give it a round of applause at the end; unfortunately it’s not something we do here in the UK. Hats off to the guys at Pixar, they’ve done it again! A great script, some great characters and a truly excellent story. But I’ll tell you a little about the plot before I continue to sing its praises.

Carl Fredrickson is a 78 year old retired balloon salesman who decides one day to go on an adventure. He is doing this to keep a promise he made a long time ago, don’t worry, I won’t give that part away. Attaching thousands of balloons to his house, he takes off and heads towards South America. Little does he know that Russell, a Wilderness Explorer was on his porch at the time of take-off. The pair finally makes it to South America, not far from the location Carl wants to go to. Having lost some of the balloons on the journey they have to walk the house the rest of the way. This is where the real adventure begins. They meet a giant bird called Kevin, a talking dog called Dug, an old-time adventurer called Charles Muntz and a whole pack of highly trained dogs. That’s all I can tell you I’m afraid, do yourself a favour and go and see it, it’s really worth it!

Now, I’m not going to get into the 2D, 3D debate, my local cinema can only offer films in 2D, which I found to be perfectly adequate. I guess, having never seen a modern 3D film, I’m not missing it. Technically, another faultless piece of work from Pixar, we’ve come to expect nothing less from those guys. I think the casting was bang on, tremendous work from the voice talents of Edward Asner as Carl, Jordan Nagai as Russell, Christopher Plummer as Charles Muntz and Bob Peterson as Dug and Alpha (the lead dog). As I said at the beginning, I wanted to stand up and give it a round of applause. I very rarely feel this way about a film, I guess the last time was the first ‘Lord of the Rings’ films. This just shows how much I really enjoyed it, a really touching tale set within a great adventure and an awful lot of laughs! I absolutely loved it!!

My score: 9.5/10

LINKS:
IMDb Site: http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt1049413/
Official Site: http://disney.go.com/disneypictures/up/
Trailer: http://uk.imdb.com/rg/VIDEO_PLAY/LINK/video/screenplay/vi172163609/