Pixar aims high but stays grounded with its new film Up

Having led the way for so long in the field of advancing animation, Pixar have been lagging behind somewhat in the technical race. The new wave of 3D had already become an often seen feature of animations in particular as well as live action films like Journey to the Centre of The Earth 3D before Pixar announced that Up would require its viewers to don Eric Morcambe style glasses to watch it in cinemas. Though their Disney half did venture into the territory with Bolt, an early runner of the technique.

Up is, in a way, the least typical Pixar film. There’s no other world as such, no completely imagined environment like those of Monsters Inc., The Incredibles or Wall-E. Though the vastness of the skies is used to impressive effect, really putting the 3D glasses to good use. The main characters are simply a very normal, grumpy old man and a typically innocent young boy, a very down to Earth odd couple. Carl Fredricksen is clinging to the home he and wife Elliott shared their life in before she died, desperate to keep it from the hands of developer tycoons who want to build on its site. We see a flashback of Carl’s life with Elliott, where they dreamed in their youth of seeking out the far off land of Paradise Falls, hidden in the depths of South America, emulating their hero, explorer Charles Muntz, who travels the uncharted world in his airship The Spirit of Adventure.

When all looks lost in Carl’s attempts to save the house he takes up this spirit and launches his home into the air with the aid of thousands of helium balloons, unknowingly with young Russell on board, an accidental stowaway. And so an other world is imagined and now seems within reach. Yet for all of the fantasy and ridiculous denial of physics Up still seems like it’s anchored to the ground in the sense that the characters are human (though there are ‘talking’ dogs and a large flightless bird that’s unknown to the human race), and plagued with human insecurities. Russell misses his Dad and Carl has been lonely for years, clinging to the past. This adds depth to the old aged/young and innocent comedy balance but also underpins the story. When Carl realises he has to shed all of his baggage and look forward rather than dwell on what’s lost (a hugely touching moment) he succeeds where Muntz, by now in the role of full blown arch villain, and brilliantly voiced by Christopher Plummer, fails by way of his obsession with a past wrongdoing and refusal to give up the ghost.

There is no doubt in my mind that young and older children will enjoy this film hugely, as they always do with Pixar films. But with Up there’s that little bit more that the parents that take them to see the film will enjoy. Airborne scenes soar, the music sweeps and swells (composed and arranged effectively by Michael Giacchino but without hitting the heights of Thomas Newman’s superb score for Wall-E) and the 3D effects will have excitable eyes popping out of young heads but the most technically advanced Pixar film yet is built on the strength of its old fashioned story telling values, and will be appreciated all the more by the older members of its audience for it.