I was rather excited to see Up, Pixar’s newest creation, since I missed it in the theaters. So after it came out on Netflix, my mom and I decided to pick it up and watch it. Pixar has always had a reputation for doing movies that are capable of catering to a more mature audience, so I wasn’t especially worried about the whole thing. If only they had come through.

Up follows the adventures of an old man whose dreams have passed him by. After a happy but unfulfilling life, he’s finally decided it’s time to pursue the adventure that has escaped him all his life. Escaping from the suburban sprawl, he unfurls a massive collection of balloons and lifts off, setting his destination for Paradise Falls in South America, a destination he and his wife had dreamed of throughout their life. Accompanied by a boy scout stowaway pursuing his final badge, the Assisting A Senior Citizen badge, they make their way toward Paradise Falls…

Of course, that’s not the *whole* plot, but that’s damn close. However, other than the very touching opening sequence detailing the old man’s life, there wasn’t a whole lot redeeming about it. A lot of Pixar’s trademark humor, which is done with subtlety and a bit of restraint in Pixar’s better movies seems to have been simply abandoned. It’s like about 30 minutes in, they had spent all of their writing budget on the good 5 minutes of the movie, and then decided to resort to cheap humor. For example: much of the movie revolves a dog whose master invented a collar that allows him (and his other dogs) to speak. Of course, this is pretty much used for the cheap “dogs are stupid but lovable creatures” gag, except this time done in audio. Then there’s the menacing alpha dog, which of course is a Doberman, ordering around various underling dogs and generally being portrayed as menacing. This would have been ok if they just played it straight… but instead, they decided to go for a cheap laugh by giving him a squeaky chipmunk voice for half the movie, and then proceeding to point it out painfully every time he was on-screen. They even managed to make the obvious “dogs playing poker” joke, which is too forced to be amusing to adults and too old to be amusing to kids, meaning that it falls flat on pretty much everyone.

The plot is also incredibly shallow, with a grand total of 3 human characters: The bitter old man, the hopelessly innocent boy scout, and the unflinchingly evil for the most ridiculous reason antagonist. Where other baddies can be either flat out evil for no reason (see Sid from Toy Story, who just likes to screw around with toys in terrible ways) or are involuntary antagonists (the kid at the dentist’s office in Finding Nemo who inadvertently offs her pet fish), the baddie of Up is evil to the point of impossibility. I’d go into more detail, but again, the plot is so shallow that I might as well at least leave something unsaid.

In the end, Up was a movie that tried too hard to pander to both of its target audiences and falls flat. It deals with a number of adult-ish themes that kids may not relate to, and it hits adult viewers over the head with gags meant to keep kids entertained with cheap humor. It’s the only Pixar movie that I can actually consider to be “bad”, and that’s saying a lot.

Posted by Will Raus Personal