Not Down

Oh god, not more Jehova's Witnesses!

I'm a sucker for just about everything that Dreamworks or Pixar puts out. I know they're geared towards a younger audience, but these movies have plenty of entertainment for adults. I also will probably never outgrow my love of cartoons.

A recent trend in these movies is to make them 3D, which really adds to the movies and all but guarantees that I'll go see whatever it is they put out. Seriously, if they put 2 girls 1 cup in 3D, you know I'd go see it. I'd regret that decision, sure, but I'll have already bought the ticket and want to stick around to get my money's worth.

So Disney/Pixar's (Dixar?) latest incarnation, Up, is about a man trying so hard to keep a promise to his wife. We first see the two in their childhood meeting up in an abandoned house, find out they share the same spirit of adventure, and are then treated to a 5 minute montage of their lives together, culminating in Ellie's (the wife's) death. Their dream was to live at Paradise Falls, so Carl - the old main character - in a incredible disregard for building code, attaches a ton of balloons to the house and flies off.

This movie was funny, and Ed Anser was amazing as the crotchety old man. I must confess, one of my favorite TV shows growing up was Freakazoid, and every time the old man was on the screen, I kept imagining Cosgrove. The other characters played off him incredibly well, including a naive boy scout, a large rare bird, Carl's childhood-hero-turned-rival, and an army of talking dogs.

I was taken aback, actually, at the amount of emotion that was inherent in this Pixar movie - there were times where you couldn't help but feel sad. This movie brought my girlfriend to tears on more than one occasion.

The 3D aspect of the movie never really jumped out at me. This means it was either done poorly, or so well that I wasn't noticing the 3D details. Given Pixar's reputation I'm inclined to think the latter, but that's the ironic thing about details - do them well and no one notices. I'll have to watch it in non-3D (likely when the DVD comes out) for comparison.

Verdict: See it in theaters