Film review: Up

Directors: Pete Docter, Bob Peterson
With: Edward Asner and Christopher Plummer.
Released: October 16

Pixar might specialise in cartoons for children, but after such early favourites as Toy Story and Finding Nemo, the plots have become increasingly complicated: I'd defy viewers of any age to explain exactly how Ratatouille's various rats, ghosts, restaurant critics and hygiene inspectors fit together. This sophistication is sometimes cited as a sign of the studio's independent spirit, but after their new 3D cartoon, Up, it's starting to look as if some simpler plotting might be a more genuinely radical choice.

Up begins by introducing a boy and a girl, Carl and Ellie, who bond over their love of globe-trotting escapades—imaginary ones, anyway. Promising themselves that they'll one day visit a patch of South American jungle named Paradise Falls, they go on to marry, and their shared life is presented in a beautiful, wordless montage which would stand as a remarkable short film in itself. When it concludes with Ellie's death, quite a few viewers will have to raise their 3D specs to wipe the tears from their eyes, not least because the couple never did get round to that trip to South America.

For the rest of Up, Carl is a grouchy widower in his seventies. To prevent himself being evicted from his home, he decides that he will make that journey to Paradise Falls, after all. He ties thousands of helium-filled party balloons to his house, and floats away in it, accidentally bringing along a boy scout for the ride.

The image of a house suspended from a jostling, multi-coloured mass of balloons is so wonderful it could have been torn from a classic children's picture book—so it's strange how quickly the film has Carl and his young stowaway touching down in South America. They have to finish their journey through the jungle on foot, and suddenly the cartoon is a whirl of talking dogs, giant birds, evil masterminds, and death-defying scrapes, none of which has much to do with Carl's bereavement, or his lifelong yen for travel, or the key concept of the floating house. It's as if the writers had taken a classic children's picture book and bolted an adventure plot on the end to make it long enough for a film.

Up is still a treat. It's exciting, it looks delightful, it plucks the heart strings, and it features some of Pixar's funniest ever comedy. But it's a pity the film-makers resorted to the frantic action sequences that round off every contemporary cartoon. It might have been even more sublime if it had kept Carl and his house in the air all the way through, drifting in the sunshine.

Nicholas Barber