Up (2009)

Weeks before "Up" came out back in the Summer of 2009 it was already hailed as the best animated feature ever made, and the Oscar (which it eventually got 6 months later) was already in the bag. There is no smoke without fire, true, but when that happens it's just clever marketing, often unsubstantiated. Yet everyone repeated that even before they saw the movie, so when they did, their minds were made up beforehand, and failed to see the inconsistencies it had! After "Wall-E", Pixar continued its "social pictures" knowing that nowadays you just need to hint at a theme to make a movie good. "Ratatouille" is one of the best Pixar films, if not the best, much better than "Up" or "Wall-E" but because it had not a "save the environment" or "elderly people are still people" theme, it was much less talked about. Don't get me wrong, "Up" is good, is very good, but it keeps with Pixar's tradition of only working out concepts and applying them skilfully just enough to make it stick, and then fill the picture around it. "Toy Story 3" is amazingly brilliant the second 45 minutes. The first 45 are boring as hell, a repetition of the first 2 Toy Stories, and with scenes which repeat themselves non-stop just to hit that middle-of-the-film mark so that the action can start. In "Up" it's the other way around, the first half of the film is fantastic, and then, again because of the 101 screenwriting rules (the need to be a villain) the movie hits a dead end. See Miyazaki's "Tonari no Totoro" (1988). Here is a film without villains, without drama, without all-is-lost scenes just before the big climatic ending. It just has that thrill to be young and be alive told with beautiful imagery. But americans would never understand that... "Up" has, quite simply, the best character development ever put on film. For the first 10 minutes, we see the entire life of Carl Fredricksen (voiced by Ed Asner), we understand his condition, his humanity, we know everything there is to know about him... and he doesn't speak once! In 10 minutes, with the beautiful score by Michael Giacchino (Oscar winner due to this scene, because the rest of the score is just average), he grows from boy to man, from man to old age, along side his wife, who eventually dies of old age. If you are not crying at the end of the first scene, then your heart is made of stone. It is just amazing, and rivals all the scenes you can throw at it, from "Casablanca" to "It's a wonderful life". And then he ties balloons to his house and flies away to seek Paradise falls, a place which he promised to take his wife but never did. Unfortunately, a scouts boy Russell (voiced by Jordan Nagai) is stuck along for the ride, but that's ok. The movie is still heartfelt, endearing and with beautiful animation. Yet all is destroyed because the screenwriting classes tell that a movie needs a villain. Well, this one didn't. Obviously we see the filmmakers reaching a dead end, because the early scenes in Paradise falls have the same dialog between Fredricksen and Russell over and over again. And in comes Christopher Plummer, an explorer seeking a rare bird. But how is that a villain? For all I can grasp, he claimed the bird existed but no-one believed him, so he seeks it out, and has been doing so for 50 years. He says he wants to prove the bird exists. Ok. So he wants to capture it, show it, prove his point and then.. what? Send it back to the wilderness or throw it in a zoo, perhaps? Obvious deduction but the movie doesn't make it. The movie treats the initial piece of information as a threat. No-one talks of killing the bird. No-one says that he isn't going to take it back to the wilderness once he proves it exists. Or is Pixar trying to send a message against zoos? Instead they make him do unbelievable things as going after everybody with a shotgun or killing anyone who tries to take the bird. But if they did, they would prove the bird existed anyway, so it should be all the same to Plummer! Anyway, "Up" fails because the plot needs to go through all those cliche-writer's class steps. If not for that, it would be brilliant. Fantastic portrayal of a character (Fredricksen), fantastic animation/score interaction, and a moving and heartfelt story. They shoud have a blu ray option that takes the villain parts out of it. Then you would really have material to rival "Tonari no Totoro", and it would truly be one of the best animated features ever. Pity filmmaking today is about ideas, and half-made stuff. And awards the same. As soon as I saw those 10 minutes in the movie theater the day the movie premiered I said "Giacchino will win the Oscar". And he did! Because the music stood alone and everybody listened to it. That's how Gustavo Santaolalla won back-to-back Oscars in movies with almost source soundtracks. Because his 5 minutes of composed music were in slow motions or establishing shots, with the volume turned out loud so that no-one could miss it. There can be better scores, but if they are embedded in the picture (say in action scenes) one only listens to it instinctively without knowing it or if one buys the cd. So that never wins, even though it can be a better soundtrack. "Up" is more than a great picture, it's a great marketing feet, and a lesson to all filmmakers out there in "what scenes I need to put in my picture to make it a success, regardless of all the rest of it". But boy, those few scenes really are something, regardless of all the rest of it!