Justin at the Movies

Up……Again!

// June 11th, 2009 // Random Movie Musings

On my official review of Up, I realized afterward that one thing failed to come across, and that was the fact that I liked the movie. I just had some problems with it. But I love the fact that there were comments left, by three people whose opinions I greatly respect, that disagreed with me. That’s what makes talking about movies so much fun. If we all agreed all the time and shared the same opinion, what would there be to talk about? I also love the fact that we can respectfully disagree, without getting mad at one another or taking it personally. I had all day to think about this and I felt that I may have written my review a little hastily, but it was because I was so mad at the movie. So, I feel that I owe it to myself and to my readers to fully explain the things I did like and the things that I didn’t like in a little more detail. So here it is.

I absolutely loved Carl. I thought he was an absolutely fantastic and complex character that had never been done by disney or pixar before. He was a good man and I loved the fact that he was wearing that grape pin when he was old. Adorable. I also loved Russell. I thought he was a great character, he was absolutely hilarious, and for the most part behaved exactly how a little kid behaves. I say for the most part because I did have one problem with his character, but we will get into that later. And to go along with both of these things I loved the dynamic between the two. I thought there relationship was fun, and sweet, and I never really knew what was going to happen next (between the two of them, I mean. The movie itself was pretty predictable.)

My favorite thing about the entire movie was the first twenty five minutes (approximately.) Up until the point where they landed in South America. Through the beginning I was thinking to myself, “This movie is going to be so amazing. Finally they made a cartoon that really draws on emotion, and is something that I can actually connect with on a human level.” And this is where my problem with the movie began. I loved the story between Carl and Ellie. I thought it was beautiful, touching, and truly moving. And then it got ruined. For me.

I was completely into this movie and thoroughly enjoying it until they brought in that damn bird. I was praying for somebody to kill that thing. And then to make things worse, they brought in a highly obnoxious dog, which is almost a recreation of pluto. But, whatever. These two stupid animals completely detracted from the beauty and pure emotion that they had spent twenty five minutes building up with Carl. For me, these two completely took me out of the movie and left me thinking that they had to do something to make it a kid’s movie. Well, they did, and unfortunately for them, these two characters are the Jar Jar Binks’s of the movie. Hated them.

Then I had a problem with Russell even being on board. How on earth did he get to be on the house mid-flight? He said that he was under the porch. Ok, that’s great, but I saw the bottom of the house when it took off and when it hit the truck and he was nowhere under the house. I also saw the porch and he wasn’t on there either. Maybe I missed something, it’s not very likely, but I guess it’s not completely impossible. This seemed like a little plot hole to me.

Then I had a problem with Charles Muntz still being alive. Let’s say for arguments sake that he was 20 when Carl was a boy. That would make him 98 at the end of the movie. And you are going to have me believe that he is still doing all that stuff at 98? And we all know he wasn’t 20 when Carl was a boy either. Some may say that that is ridiculous because Carl floats his house with balloons so why am I stuck on that fact. Well, I knew that he floated his house with balloons. I was aware that this was the premise before I saw the movie. I expected it, therefore it didn’t violate my suspension of disbelief. But seeing Mr. Muntz still alive did. Completely.

Now, back to Russell. The part of his character that I didn’t find believable at all….well I guess it’s not really a part of Russell’s character but more of his story. Anyway, the part of Russell’s story I didn’t find believable was the fact that they didn’t address the fact at all that his mom had to have been wondering where the hell her child was. He goes up and missing for days and not one mention of his mom, or her worried about him, or anything at all. I felt like that was a little dishonest and incomplete in the storytelling process. Then when he returns, true time has elapsed, but some creepy old dude is on the stage touching her son….this seemed a little weird and unbelievable. Once again, because they didn’t address the fact of his mom at all. I felt that was wrong.

Yes, I still have more problems. This one is just lazy to me. But, the voice of the bad dog when his voice thingy is broken, is the SAME EXACT voice as the cat’s in The Emperor’s New Groove. C’mon! How lazy can you be!? Recycling jokes, for me, is completely unacceptable. It’s the same exact voice! I have a huge problem with this.

And a huge problem I have is that butt buddies (none of my friends or family) of Pixar refuse to admit there is anything wrong with any of their movies. It’s just obnoxious. There is something wrong with every movie. No movie is flawless. Sorry. And I feel that if these “flaws” were in something like Monsters vs. Aliens, people would be all over saying they were plot holes, and that the writing wasn’t good. But since it’s pixar it seems like everybody just seems to turn the other cheek. That bothers me. Let’s be fair here. I am not attacking Pixar or people that love this movie, not in the least. If you feel attacked, well, I don’t apologize but maybe you should look into not being so sensitive.

My main problem remains to be the fact that I felt like they had a beautiful story and messed it up by trying to make it a kids movie. It doesn’t need that other stuff. I was in love with it until the kid elements. I am going to give this movie another shot when it hits DVD hoping that I will like it a little more the second time around. I was just very disppointed because they took a story that I quickly loved and ruined it. But that’s just me.