At the Academy Awards back in February, Jack Black revealed the secret of how to make money doing voice-work for animated films: he takes his salary from Dreamworks and bets it all on Pixar to win the Oscar.
He was joking, but he had a point. The Shrek movies notwithstanding, Pixar is way in front of the pack for children’s movies, even outdistancing the long-time champion, and Pixar’s current partner, Disney.
Up: Pixar Goes Three-Dimensional
Up marks Pixar’s first foray into feature-length 3-D moviemaking. The technology, having been regarded for some time as gimmickry, is making a comeback as studios try every means at their disposal to lure moviegoers back into the theatres. Unfortunately, this new film doesn’t quite measure Up to either Pixar’s legacy or the promise of 3-D fireworks.
Co-directed by Pete Docter and Bob Peterson (the writer of Wall*E and Finding Nemo, respectively), Up stars the voice of Ed Asner as Carl Fredericksen, a newly widowed elderly man desperately trying to hold on to the house he built and lived in with his beloved wife, Ellie. There’s a gorgeous dialogue-free montage of their life together that echoes the near silent-film quality of the first half hour of Wall*E.
When it looks like he’s going to be forced to leave the house, Carl decides to make an unrealized dream of a trip to South America come true, only to find he’s got a stowaway: a young boy named Russell (Jordan Nagai). The previews have all shown how Carl makes his getaway, but the adventure really begins once he and Russell land in Venezuela: there are talking dogs, giant birds, an insane old explorer (Christopher Plummer) and a bit with a frog that will have you rolling in the aisles.
Short Film Partly Cloudy Funnier than Up
Yes, Up is funny, colourful and sweet. And it’s a lovely meditation on both growing old and making one’s dreams come true. These are all good things to have in films for the kiddies. But there’s a disjointedness to it, a manic quality, that hasn’t been present in the best of the Pixar films (Wall*E, Ratatouille and the magnificent The Incredibles). All these films had moments of delirious insanity, but it never felt forced. Up feels like it’s trying to justify the 3-D technology by going totally over-the-top.
And, frankly, the filmmakers don’t use the technology to its fullest potential here. There are a few nifty shots – small missiles that appear to shoot into the audience, for example – but there are a lot of wasted moments, too. If Russell’s going to swing from an airborne house, why not have him swing into the theatre? If we keep seeing things fall, why can’t we ever see them falling towards us? The 3-D previews before the main feature were more impressive, and the Pixar short that opened it was funnier. (Keep your eyes open for this short, called Partly Cloudy, come Oscar time.)
In sum, Up had the potential to be another of Pixar’s golden moments, but blew the chance in order to mess around with the film world’s newest toy.
