Well, I enjoyed Up very much. I thought it was really great. Beautiful animation, great story, very well developed, likable characters, funny, touching, exciting. Everything that Coraline wasn't. Ouch!The opening sequence, the back-story that lead the viewer up to the present was absolutely fantastic. So moving that I teared up. It then gave the movie such a great platform to build on because you now knew the characters' motivation, and you completely empathised with his feeling of loss and missed opportunities.
And the little boy character, well he was great too, so likable and so spot on. All the voices actually were really great and well-cast. And all the lesser characters were funny and interesting as well.
Overall, it was really well made, and fun and exciting. A bit of a return to form, in my opinion, for Pixar, after the great but not fantastic Ratatouille and Wall-E. I'd put it on par with Cars, and maybe a bit behind my two favourites, The Incredibles and Finding Nemo.
Very satisfying, and definitely worth seeing on the big screen. 4/5
16 comments:
Do you reckon under 5's would appreciate it, or would it (...) be over their heads?
Wall-E was awesome, but I agree that Ratatouille wasn't too great.
Jen didn't like Cars, but my boys love it.
Finding Nemo made me cry (because we watched it when Jen was pregnant with our eldest).
do you think Rataouille is worth seeing ben? I really didn't want to see Wall-E, but ended up loving it (and got a bit teary!)
Looking forward to seeing Up too.
Mark- I think they would. I was wondering about whether my 2 yr old could cope. I think she probably could. Her main issue would be sitting still. It's not overly scary, and there's lots to appeal to little kids I think. There would be some stuff over their heads for sure, but not in an inappropriate way.
Rodeo- I thought Wall-E was awesome at the time. If you click on the 'pixar' label on this post you can read my review of it. But I think the first part was much more engaging than when the humans came into it. From that poit it felt a bit convoluted in hindsight, for me.
Cars was way better than I expected, and really it was all due to the story and characters, which were so strong.
Finding Nemo was really great, I thought. Just a perfectly made movie.
soph- Ratatoullie is definitely worth checking out. While not quite as strong, it is still great, and there's so much good stuff in there.
I will second your review - it was fantastic (though I reckon it beats The Incredibles, in fact, all the other Pixars). I challenge anyone to watch that first bit without tearing up.
We watched it with a couple of three (or so) year olds behind us, who seemed to really enjoy it (there was only one 'I'm scared now' but that scene was pretty short so it was fine).
Also, it was awesome because it had dogs.
Up = "great-but-not-fantastic" as you put it. WALL-E = a cinematic masterpiece. Let's see, a beautiful Sci-Fi masterpiece of a love story, or....a story that involves talking dogs flying planes? Uh, yeah, WALL-E it is.
Okay, the dogs flying planes bit was very dodgy. But an abberation in an otherwise perfect movie!
It's a fantasy movie for kids. There can't be dogs flying planes?
Why no mention of Toy Story? I still reckon that's the best one :/ (though Nemo comes close)
Thanks Ben,
Haven't seen UP yet, but my current pixar standings:
1. Finding Nemo - mix of story/themes/cinematography/character journey(s) is spot on. People may diss the "heroic story" formula, but it works brilliantly in this flick. (Maybe also it's because I'm a dad and I was 'hooked')
2. Cars - It's grown on me, paticularly with the ultimate "win" not being what he wanted to start with.
3. Monsters Inc - friendly monsters is a great re-imagining.
4. Bugs Life - the geek gets the girl has always resonated with me.
5. Toy Story
6. Incredibles - the family interactions (good and bad) are portrayed so well they can be uncomfortable. Which probably means it should be higher on the list.
7. Bolt - good, funny, great emotive climax, but for some reason not as deep/satisfying as some of the others.
8. Wall E - boring. The first half hour left me yawning. Visually brilliant, but I guess I was expecting more. However, my 2 year old still walks around with a mini clothes basket on her head chanting "waal-EE", "EE-va". Perhaps also my anti-eco bandwagon meter is set too high.
9. Ratatouille - Again a well told story, and some very funny bits, but most of it was over the kids' heads (particularly jokes) and they didn't enjoy it as much. Kept on asking us why we were laughing.
Stuart- Yeah Toy Story is really good, but for some reason I've never seen it from start to finish. I'll get it for the kids some time and watch properly.
Mark- A good summing up. I agree mostly.
The reason Bolt isn't as good is because it's not Pixar. It may be Disney, I can't remember, but it's not a proper Pixar one. It lacks the heart that the pixar ones have.
Also, I thought the first 30mins of Wall-E was fantastic, it was the rest of it that lost me a bit.
Toy Story 2 is waaaaay better than Toy Story 1. Really.
One of the few times a sequel seriously outdoes the original.
It's less scary for the littlies too. Which is nice. But also wouldn't work without the original in place. I've heard they've canned two versions of Toy Story 3 because they just weren't good enough.
And I approve of that canning.
Unless it's unstoppable awesome, just leave it as is.
I approve of that attitude as well. Other studios should be brave enough to take that approach as well. That's why there is so much bog being produced all the time. Pixar is the one company that pretty much gets it spot on every time. Quality control.
Aside from Shrek 1 & 2 (For which I'd credit the basis in a book and Adamson as a good story-teller), I'd say this pretty much sums up the differences.
www.culch.ie/images/pixarvsdreamworks.jpg
I've just come home from watching it. Loved :) My first 3D feature, too!
Jen and I watched this today (not in 3D).
I think we both cried through almost the entire movie.
It was brilliant.
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