Up film review

UP the movie

Up the movie is a great movie. Up the movie is a thoughtfully made and well made movie. Up the movie is memorable to watch and sad at times.

I really enjoyed the film Up. It is a real gem. Up begins with a young boy named Carl Fergusen who has a taste for adventure. Carl is also quite shy. He meets a quirky and talkative girl named Ellie with the same sense of adventure. She shows him her adventure book which she has never shown to anyone else "in [her] whole life!"

In Up the movie, Ellie has big plans for what she will do in her future, especially travel to South America. The last page in her adventure book says "stuff I am going to do." Carl is impressed. Ellie says to him. "You don't talk much. I like you!" I love that line in the movie.

Fast forward to their marriage as adults. They look like an adorable couple and they enjoy life, often staring up at the sky and sun while lying on a picnic blanket.

One day the clouds in the sky all take the shape of babies and they see that as a sign to start their family. Sadly, Ellie is unable to have children but their lives together are wonderful nevertheless. The sad reality causes them to revive their sense of adventure and they plan to travel to South America. They take small steps in this plan, saving their extra change daily and putting the coins in a large jar.

Then something very poignant happens in the Up movie and all of us in the audience are all able to relate to it. There are several instances that create unforeseen expenses and the couple has to take a hammer to the jar, breaking it so that they could get the money when a tree falls on their house in a storm, when Carl breaks his leg and has hospital bills, etc, etc. They attempt to replenish the coins every time they are used up but they just get used up so often. It is difficult to save.

So life happens and the years pass them by. They lead a very happy life together but will they ever get to their proposed adventure in South America? Ellie especially wants to see the remarkable Paradise Falls and has pictures of it. They replaced a mural suitable for a baby's room with a large picture of their own house situated right at Paradise Falls! Is that a dream that can really be realized?

I think I will stop here, making this film review of Up much more brief and less detailed than most of my film reviews usually are. Nevertheless, I had the pleasure of watching this film not really knowing what to expect and never knowing what would happen next, from scene to scene. I had known of none of the spoilers whatsoever, making it a terrific movie going experience.

I think that revealing information was well protected in the Up movie trailers and I had not read any reviews prior to seeing the movie. The trailer below is just a teaser trailer but even the full length trailers are not too revealing about the plot. Of course we do see the house up in the air suspended by the balloons but there is lots more to the story.

I think not knowing much beforehand makes a really positive difference when seeing this film especially and the surprising things that occur take the audience member on an adventure as well.

There are both happy and sad moments in this animated film. Some things make us regress back to a childlike wonder as we watch the far fetched and unreal things that will never happen but oh, what fabulous ideas they are.

Some moments show us the tough stuff that we can go through in real life.

Up the movie

Rated PG

Ed Asner as the voice of Carl (as an older man) and others

I rate it 5/5 stars *****