Up - a Movie Review

The 2009 movie, "Up," by Pixar and Disney, was about two thirds good. This animated film begins by telling the story of a boy and a girl who meet, fall in love, and build a life together. Poignant in its silence, this segment of the film is incredibly sweet as it swiftly documents two lives intertwined to make one. All too soon, only one, now half, remains.

The old man, now alone and ailing, tries to live out his days in peace with his memories, but due to "progress" in the form of development, he's facing relocation to a nursing home. In a desperate attempt to avoid this, he ties a bazillion balloons to his house, thereby setting off in style to find the land in South America that he and his beloved wife dreamed of visiting.

Unexpectedly, a young Wilderness Explorer, Russel, has accidentally come along for the ride. The middle of the movie, equally charming to the beginning, chronicles their journey. Both the old man and the little boy act and interact realistically and humorously.

It is the third part of the movie that gets strange. A land inhabited by many dogs and their ego-maniacal master turns a sweet, believable, even relatable movie in to a frenetic and silly romp. The meeting with the old man's childhood hero is jarring and downright unpleasant, the dogs are a threat, and the carefully built relationship between the man and the boy crumbles as the dynamics change completely. Not at all in keeping with the first two thirds of the movie, the last third seemed to belong to some other movie entirely.

However, one of the dogs, and the large bird, in the distant land were kind of endearing, and the story finally got back to the relationship between the old man and the boy for a satisfying ending. So basically, the movie "Up" is two thirds charming and one third hyper. But two out of three ain't bad!