Up is without a doubt Pixar's most emotional film to date, and there was a noticeable improvement on the villain front. The Incredibles still remains my favourite though. I thought the beginning retrospect where Carl Fredricksen enters the rickety, sun-lit house as a child - the moment that defines the rest of his life - so very, very tender and saturated with a reality not yet seen before in a Pixar film. It just feels like someone's real, full-blooded memory, filled with sublimity and pain; with the unutterably beautiful gifts given by God.
Unfortunately the entire story is so lacking. The house going up with the balloons...yes, I can go along with that...the man and kid walking through the jungle with the house tethered to them...sure, I can follow...the strange dogs with voice-collars...er, uhm, okay, I can go along with that (cheek a little bitten)...the dogs flying the airplanes...that's it, nope, forget it; I am not willing to accept that. My elastic whimsy cord has been snapped at that point.
There is a truthful, "we-gotcha" moment, when the kid Russell responds to Carl's indignation towards Russell's calling his mother by her first name. You don't see that, well, pretty much ever in a popular film today. There's Carl's decision to embark on a new adventure. Good stuff. But the story itself feels threadbare.
The Incredibles remains on top. And I don't have a second favourite from Pixar. Too many mixed bags.
5 comments:
"...the dogs flying the airplanes...that's it, nope, forget it; I am not willing to accept that. My elastic whimsy cord has been snapped at that point."
That's funny. I said the exact same thing responding to Steven Greydanus' review of "UP". Some wonderful moments in the film, but... what were they thinking with the talking dogs flying airplanes? Pixar, falling back on weak, uninspired kid movie conventions?
It's like someone from Warner snuck in and maliciously re-worked the back half of their script. Were they lobotomized and didn't notice?
If their next movie has animals doing pop music numbers, I think I'll throw myself under a combine.
"It's like someone from Warner snuck in and maliciously re-worked the back half of their script."
EXACTLY how I felt.
+JMJ+
I really, really, really stretched my goodwill towards Pixar when those dog pilots came in, but what truly got me was the fact that the dogs couldn't smell Carl and Russell from several feet away, when the two were sneaking in to save Dug.
Dogs able to do impossible things? That's still okay.
Dogs unable to do things they are well known for? FAIL!
Oh, you're absolutely right!
I do remember vaguely wondering to myself that they would have smelled them, considering how acutely the dogs were able to do tracking earlier on...but the thought left me just as quick.
How in the world did I just ignore it? I'm getting rusty.
+JMJ+
Then there was that early joke about Carl smelling like denture cream, or something like that . . .
Post a Comment