Pixar is Awesome.
Their latest movie, UP, is simply stupendous.
Wolverine? Bah! A toothless tomcat. Terminator Salvation? Pshaw! A bunch of namby pamby wind up toys with broken main springs. Logan and Connor meet your better! Almost octogenarian – Carl. At 78 years of age and a product of cinema only, he kicks the collective butts of these so called tough guys. Even Kirk and Spock of the rebooted Star Trek movie could stand to learn a lesson or two from the Ed Asner voiced character.
Pixar has amassed an amazing pedigree of movies. UP may very likely end up as the new inheritor to their throne. This is a movie; no strike that: this is a piece of art, about life and living. UP flawlessly encapsulates a lifetime of shared experiences in the first ten minutes. UP is all respects the closest thing you will ever see to a perfect movie. Those first 10 minutes ARE perfection. Pure, story telling perfection.
The amazing thing is that the film continues from that high point with only a miniscule drop in the overall emotional power that the opening prologue generates. It goes without saying that the technical aspects of this film continue to push the edge as Pixar has done in every subsequent movie since they first started.
What makes UP so transcendent is the storytelling. Emotional touchstones set up at the beginning of the film are used to perfection for the payoffs that follow throughout the movie. Moments of sadness and regret become moments of joy and inspiration by film’s end. The story arcs are woven with invisible seams. Never is there a moment or even an inkling of manipulation. This is a masterpiece of storytelling. Wonderfully wrought. Seemingly simple on the surface yet full of multiple layers of heart felt emotions.
It is no small measure of greatness that a film totally created in the digital realm generates more emotional reactions from its audience than its CGI enhanced brethren even seem capable of dreaming about.
This is a exciting and giddy tale of chasing one’s dreams and exploring undiscovered places. Not just untouched places as in a geographical sense but also of the human heart. Mixed in are steady doses of humour that always plays honest and true. This is a tale that celebrates the joy of the human experience.
Pixar does not only create movies, they create magical treasures.
