Up

**** Stars

Up is Disney Pixar's tenth film. Any signs of fatigue in their latest feature? Not-a-one. Pixar is the only studio that can call itself critically and commercially perfect. You would think that the studio's much deserved bragging rights would distract its filmmakers from their initial intent (telling an original story), but if anything, they just seem to get better and better. While I'll admit Wall-E is still their strongest entry, Up is easily worthy of being hailed as a cinematic masterpiece.

The opening of Up is quite possibly the most poetically heartbreaking sequence in the history of animation, or arguably any genre for that matter. Pixar has found a way to tell a person's life story in a montage-like format without almost any dialogue (this was also mastered in their 2008 Best Animated Picture Wall-E, which was criminally robbed of a Best Picture Nod).

The protagonist of Up is Carl Fredricksen (voiced wonderfully by Edward Azner) who we see grow from childhood to old-age. He has one big passion in life. You could argue that it is two different things. 1.) That it's his eternal desire to explore Paradise Falls, a fictitious place that forever shouts adventure or 2.) Ellie, the love of his life. Meeting at a young age, Carl and Ellie spend a life together, becoming married and both dreaming of that eventual Paradise Falls adventure. Too bad "real-life" stuff gets in the way, and that dream is put on hole until Carl grows old, and beyond the years of Ellie's life.

Now I have always hated giving out the plot of movies in my reviews. I hate it, hate it, hate it. Of course, it is my job to explain what a film is about so you can determine if you want to see it or not, but that always seems to become a summary of a film's narrative over an appropriate analysis. Every critic has done it at one point. In this review, I'm here, nearing its end, to redeem that on-going distraction.

I will not to tell you anymore about what happens in Up. All I'm going to say is what you need in order to understand what the film and and its title are externally promoting. Carl, growing old and desperate for one final act of adventurous soul-searching, ties numerous amounts of balloons to his house and flies UP into the air and away on a journey that is much bigger than he could ever imagine. Carl is joined by Russell (Jordan Nagai) a young and overly optimistic boy scout who accidentally boards the house during takeoff, and eventually a talking animal named Dug. The three are a hilariously diverse trio, able to balance comedy and true emotions that you wouldn't expect from an outside perspective.

Bottom line: If you let your imagination take over and ignore the urge to bash films that are wildly considered perfect (shame on the continuing cycle of the three-or-so random critics for once again ruining another chance for a Pixar film to reach 100% on Rotten Tomatoes since 1999's Toy Story 2), prepare for Up to reward you up and beyond any possible expectations.