Looking "Up"

I've been a Pixar fan for a long time. The animation studio's knack for creating a truly engaging story out of unlikely premises is essentially unparalleled in today's film industry. And (my apologies to all of you who like the two "Toy Story" movies the best) they've generally just continued to improve.

However, none of their movies have been able to match the perfect blend of good writing, visual impressiveness, humor and message that was concocted in 2004's "The Incredibles." That movie, a tale of a family of discontented superheroes forced to keep their powers under wraps, is sharply written, animated with lush colors, funny at all the right times and able to deliver important messages about the importance of family and the need to keep the world from downplaying uniqueness (it also goes out of its way to pay some fun homages to several comics, most notably "Watchmen" and The Fantastic Four). While Pixar has served up genius both before (the "Toy Story" films, "Monsters Inc.") and after ("Ratatouille," "Wall-E") "The Incredibles," Brad Bird's directorial debut remained my favorite entry in the studio's lineup.

Until, possibly, now.

After the disappointing "Cars" (arguably even after the solid "Finding Nemo," with the exception of "Cars") Pixar has been less about making high-quality family entertainment and more about making high-quality, meaningful movies that will also entertain children. This shift saw the production of "Ratatouille," another Brad Bird movie about the proper treatment of greatness (also about a rat cooking things), and "Wall-E," an almost avant-garde work that belies the importance of human connection in an increasingly digital world. Both were well written and exquisitely animated ("Ratatouille" even received an Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay, and I have a quote from that film adorning the top of my blog), but Pixar's latest feature, "Up," manages to not only best the studio's last two outings, but perhaps even "The Incredibles."

I've never quite seen a movie like it. It attempts from start to finish to place one foot firmly in reality and the other just as solidly in fantasy, and it succeeds wholeheartedly. I'll attempt to give a brief synopsis without giving away any too much of the plot.

Carl Fredricksen was just a young, quiet, pudgy boy who dreamed of one day being an explorer in the vein of his childhood hero, a brilliant, fantastical (and apparently discredited) explorer named Charles Muntz. On the way back from a theatre newsreel detailing Muntz's latest exploits, Carl meets a girl who is, in many ways, his opposite: a tall, skinny, outgoing and loud girl named Ellie. Although the two couldn't be more different, they are united by Ellie's unabashed friendliness and a mutual love of Muntz and adventure stories in general. Following this childhood meeting, the film presents a touching montage of Carl and Ellie's life together, including their marriage, a tragedy and the bumps and pleasures of life. Carl is a balloon salesman, Ellie is a zookeeper, and the pair lives in the house in which they met. They are happy. Throughout it all, the couple attempts to save money to visit Paradise Falls, Peru, the site of the most legendary of Muntz's exploits.

Unfortunately, life repeatedly gets in the way of their dreams, and Ellie dies before such a trip can be taken. Carl becomes a grumpy recluse, content only while basking in the memory of his wife. Even this is bittersweet, as he feels just a bit guilty for not taking her to Paradise Falls like they'd always planned. Then, an uncomfortable accident occurs, and people begin to question whether the octogenarian can live on his own anymore, in his treasured house that is the last remaining symbol of his former happiness. It's very heady stuff for an animated film, but it's handled very skillfully here.

However, all of the above lays the groundwork for the actual events of the movie, which manage to simultaneously be one of the more outlandish yet simple stories Pixar has presented: Carl, faced with a nursing home, opts instead to rig a large amount of balloons to his house and fly to Paradise Falls as a tribute to Ellie. A young boy scout accidentally stows away, and the two embark on a series of jungle adventures, Carl most begrudgingly.

Even that brief description belies one of the most striking things about this film: its interplay between fantasy and reality. While Carl's tragedy and personality are presented as very serious and real, the vibrant colors and crazy characters surrounding him recall the Looney Tunes classics of old. He behaves like a man who has suffered real loss, but he attempts physical feats in the film that very few people, and certainly no one his age, would be able to do. So too, is the animation scaled back from the hyper-realism of the last two Pixar offerings. Here, the landscape is unbelievably lush, and the characters' appearances are clearly designed to accentuate personality traits.

However, rather than creating an awkward juxtaposition, the film benefits from the hodgepodge of styles. Carl's adventures serve as object lessons and metaphors for the way his life has turned out, but they also function as tributes to old adventure flicks and classic children's animation. At times, they become almost allegorical, because the film never loses sight of the fact that the real story to be told is the story of Carl's life: the beautiful love of a dedicated marriage, the sadness that comes when that union ends, and a reflection on what is really important. Ultimately, Carl's journey to Paradise Falls reveals to him that he didn't need to become an explorer to find fulfillment; rather, being thankful for what has passed and willing to embrace the future becomes an exciting exploration all its own.

"Up" is truly a well-made, touching film. I even cried during a couple of parts (you'll probably be able to guess where once you see it), and I rarely ever do that during a movie. Do I like it better than "The Incredibles"? I don't know; further viewings may tell.

Either way, it's simply great.

Wall-E World

Pixar is a good film company. Well, I guess I should say "division" or something now that they are owned by Disney, but their ownership by the Mouse hasn't hurt their product at all. In fact, their only misstep, 2006's completely horrible "Cars" (well, horrible unless you think that Larry the Cable Guy is the funniest man on the planet, in which case you might be slightly horrible), was actually the last film they produced before getting bought out by Disney.

Pixar has had me ever since 1995's "Toy Story," but their work has gotten so much better than that. "A Bug's Life," while not nearly as good as some of their other work, is still a competent, amusing flick, "Toy Story 2" at times surpassed its predecessor (although maybe I'm biased because I love all of the "Empire Strikes Back" jokes) and "Monsters Inc." is still one of the funniest and original animated movie I've ever seen (the funniest, however, is "The Emperor's New Groove").

Then came the big one: "Finding Nemo." While the film is a bit overrated (for all of its humor and the cool animation of the water, it is essentially a well done buddy movie--with fish), Pixar's most popular offering is still a good view. It was the film after this one, however, that makes Pixar a studio that I can still get really excited about: "The Incredibles." You see, with the exception of the kiddie-fodder Cars, The Incredibles is the first Pixar movie to actually delve into themes, making and exploring them better than much of the live action film world. In addition to this, it is also really funny, well-acted and very well-written, perfectly paced and all in all one of my two favorite animated movies ever (the other being the aforementioned "Groove").

After Cars came "Ratatouille," which both continued the thematic layering of The Incredibles and was Pixar's best rendered film (not best, it just had the best animation). And now comes "Wall-E," and it aims to impress.

[very mild premise spoilers ahead] The movie opens on an earth several hundred years in the future. It is an abandoned, lonely place, devoid of all human life (and almost all animal life, save a cockroach). Why? Because humans accumulated so much garbage that the non-biodegradable stuff forced everything else out. The humans (no word on the animals) went off to space on a giant space station, leaving trash cleaning robots to clean up earth so that the humans can return.

In fact, the only sentient being on the entire planet is Wall-E, the only trash cleaning robot who hasn't broken down and probably the only one to somehow evolve a personality. It is his personality and the personality of his love interest that carry the movie. That's right. Much in the way that Ratatouille had us not minding the thought of a rat in the kitchen, in Wall-E you actually care about the romantic relationship between two robots.

This is, remarkably, mostly pulled off in two ways: sound (not dialogue) and movement/expression. Ben Burt, the genius sound editor behind all of the Star Wars and Indy movies, conjured up a gargantuan sound bank for this feature--one big enough so that all of the robots even remotely featured in the flick have a distinct personality, just based on the squeaks, beeps and whirrs they emit. You can tell when a robot is sad or happy based on the sounds it makes (and most of it is computerized or mechanical sounds, and the little that isn't has been made to sound that way) and the subtle movements of its body. They rarely ever cheat on the robots' bodies either, which makes it even more amazing.

When I say cheat, I mean that they don't make the robots' metal parts curve unnaturally. In fact, nothing that any of the robots do looks like something a robot couldn't do. That, in my opinion, is the biggest testament to the success of the film: the movie gets you to care about and like and sympathize with machines, but they don't do it in any way that compromises the robots' machinery.

In addition to the primary love story, there is a great underlying theme to this film: isolation. While the primary love story shows the basic principle that loneliness is good for no one, when the humans in the movie do show up (halfway through the film, leaving the first half to two robots and a eerily yet wonderfully rendered future earth), the movie has some great things to say about self imposed isolation. All of the humans are fat, don't walk anywhere (they have hoverchairs), and they spend all day at a holographic computer console that constantly is in their field of vision. In becoming so immersed with technology--even with the interactivity of technology--they have lost the necessities of real relationships, of life not in front of a computer or on a cell phone. Touch, initiative, experience, all of these things have been forgotten by man. What a relevant message for today's world, where some people get antsy if they haven't texted anyone for too long.

There is, however, one complaint that I have about Wall-E. It's small, but it really bothered me.

At one point in the movie, a corporate CEO/U.S. President (can you see where this is going?) shows up to proclaim that the earth, regardless of the planned cleanup, will never again be habitable. He then proceeds to make a dumb, short speech about how we should "stay the course" and "not try to fix this mess we made." Wow. "Get Smart," just when I thought you couldn't get any more heavy-handed than having the President reading children's books to kids on the eve of a nuclear attack, Wall-E shows you up.

Again, while I have no problem with political satire, the above scene is A) not funny, B) not original and C) completely unnecessary. This movie could have been the most political thing in the world. It could have made fun of obesity, but it chose not to. It could have been a preachy environmental flick, but it took the high ground. In short: the movie could have had an agenda, but it chose not to cheapen itself by being dated or whiny. Except this one scene. The rest of the movie has an entirely timeless feel about it, but this one scene was so unbearably preachy and uncalled for that it just nagged at me slightly for the rest of the movie. So unnecessary. But fortunately, only one blemish on an otherwise great film.

There is more I could say about this movie. The score is excellent, it's funny in a sweet sort of way, it's beautifully rendered and so much more. But you should just go see it. And see it while it's still in theatres; it will look even better there.