Pixar are, Will Smith aside, seemingly the only bulletproof people in the film industry today, with all of their films apparantly untouchable at the box office. Their latest offering, Up, has continued the streak and garnered as impeccable a critical reception as the two previous Pixars that preceeded it (Ratatouille and WALL·E).
The story follows a widower who, following an altercation with a workman is going to be sent off to a retirement home. Rather than face that "death" he blows up thousands of balloons and lifts his house off the ground, preferring instead to fulfill his wife's lifelong ambition of living in a remote part of South America. A local boy scout (well ... "Wilderness explorer") is unwittingly taken along for the ride and when they arrive they encounter everything from rare birds to a pack of talking dogs.
On many occasions this is an extremely amusing film, a lot of stuff is aimed way over the kids' heads at the adults (for example a shot of some of the dogs playing poker) and it does shift quite freely. Unfortunately the main child character is the most annoying Pixar have created in many a year although the script has enough skillfully drawn situations to smooth that over. The most friendly of the dogs, Dug, steals the show and has some of the funniest lines. A lot of the humour here is extremely silly, which is a stark contrast to the recent films they've done, the height of which being the "evil" dog having a helium-style voice.
Like WALL·E, there is a bravura wordless section early on (albeit 10 times as short), here recounting the main character's marriage. If there is a problem with the film it's that it has touches of brilliance that recall previous works but does not go on to surpass them. The marriage montage is pure cinema and effortlessly moving, but the rest of the film, whilst very entertaining for the most part does not live up to the promise of its best moments. In a way it is rather unfair to judge a Pixar film as the bar has been raised so high, so consistently. This isn't quite the case of a Yelena Isinbayeva crashing out without recording a height at the World Championships this year, but it's more like her delivering an easy win without ever attempting to go for the world record she has so often broken before.