short version: It’s Indiana Jones meets Grumpy Old Men by way of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. I laughed, I cried, i felt sorry for the idiot dog and the little kid with a tragic back-story. Mostly I laughed. Terrific movie.
long version: I selected UP for my weekend movie viewing because the other movie i wanted to see, a zombie movie called Pontypool, wasn’t playing anywhere in town. Yeah, “Drag me to hell” is in every theater in spitting distance and I do love my horror movies, but Drag Me To Hell is PG 13, and thusly ajump-and-scream thrill movie for the kids.
UP, for it’s PG rating and kidvid trappings, is actually a kind of sweet sad poignant buddy movie. It starts with Carl Fredrickson. he is old and grumpy and lives in a brightly colored Victorian house and his neighborhood is being torn up for skyscrapers and minimalls, but he will not leave. This is the house where he lived with Ellie, after all.
Ellie is his late wife. they met as kids, fast friends in their joint fandom of Charles Muntz, a legendary globe-trotting explorer who vanished after people mocked his discovery of a giant bird skeleton many years ago. They married as adults. never had kids, but worked in a zoo and were happy. Then she died, and now Carl clings to the house they shared and hates the world for changing around him.
It is only when someone has found a way to force him from his home that Carl decides to do what he and Ellie always dreamed of doing as kids: following in the footsteps of Charles Muntz and exploring the jungles of south america. so he turns th ehouse into an airship and sets off!
I kinda wondered why he never bothered with the airship-house thing while Ellie was alive. I’m sure she’d have gotten a kick out of it. but still, better late than never,. and now he has a sidekick, a pudgy cub scout out to win his last merit badge that was on the porch during liftoff.
the cub scout has his own tragic story, and clings to scouting like Carl clings to his house. and there’s a villain with a bunch of dogs for minions, all outfitted with electronic collars that allow them to talk like humans. They’re still dogs, and easily distracted by squirrels, treats, and tennis balls, making them the perfect sort of henchmen to facilitate all manner of slapstick comedy like you’d find in a n episode of Venture Brothers.
That’s what this really remnds me of. Venture Brothers. except without all the swearing and killing. i adore it. go see it.
May 31, 2009 at 8:48 pm |
I’m going to take Kid de Vil to this soon.
June 4, 2009 at 8:50 pm |
I’ll have to check it out. It could be good training for becoming a grumpy old man.
June 7, 2009 at 7:13 am |
I need to check this out. My boyfriend showed me the trailer and was really excited to point out that the grumpy old man looks remarkably like my dad. So, I want to see it purely for this reason.