Minor spoilers only.
Just like the house in the movie, Up has a promising lift off but soon loses altitude and drags its way to the end. It’s actually a pretty good movie, but story wise, it’s just not up to Pixar’s usual high standards.
I have seen all but one (A Bug's Life) of Pixar’s feature films and I must say that Up lands firmly at the bottom of my favourite Pixar movies list. In fact, just so you know where I stand, here is my list from best to merely somewhat spectacular Pixar movies.
The Incredibles
Toy Story
Toy Story 2
Monsters Inc.
Finding Nemo
Cars
WALL-E
Ratatouille
Up
It is of course visually stunning. Pixar only keeps getting better in that department. Although I must point out that I’m not a big fan of the current 3D fad. I don’t think it adds much to the experience and in fact detracts by causing eye strain and washing out the colors slightly, as would happen if you watched wearing mildly tinted sunglasses. It also distracts by jolting you out of the story every time the 3D kicks in and it’s like the film makers suddenly shouting “hey look what we can do.” Anyway, on to my next nit to pick.
I believe that the line separating movies which are genuine and honestly moving and those that are plainly emotionally manipulative can often be very thin. To me, for the first time, Pixar crosses the line from the side of honestly moving to emotionally manipulative. This is not because the moving aspects of the story were too extreme or unbelievable, but because those elements were literally left hanging out on their own by a story that provided little else in the way of engaging plot, serious adventure, real excitement and that all important movie magic.
The actual adventure part of the movie is the least compelling and drags the movie down the most. Comedy wise there are a few laughs but far fewer than we’re used to in a Pixar movie. The most prominent and unfortunately most over used gag in the story is facilitated by dogs who wear collars which translate their barking into human language. The first few times we hear it is cute and funny but it gets old pretty quickly.
Another bit, which I first thought could be at best a slight diversion part way into the story (it involves a rare big bird), turns out to be the main focus of all the action and was thus disappointing.
By the time it’s over we’ve learned nothing new, been treated to tired old inspirational clichés and are left wondering why we had to go through all that merely to be reminded of a few lines of greeting card poetry.
Looking back, it seems quite obvious to me that they started out with the sob story first then tried to write the rest of the movie around it. Didn’t quite work for me.
Just like the house in the movie, Up lands exactly where it intends to in the beginning. And just like the house in the movie, the ride involves much more dragging and much less soaring than I had hoped.
It has the scenes to make you cry, it just doesn’t have the scenes to make you care.
6/10 for me.
P.S. Most people are gushing over this movie so you may well love it as well. It just seemed a little lacking to me.
