And as magically and almost as quickly as Dorothy’s travels from Kansas to Oz, Carl’s flying house – complete with a young stowaway Explorer Scout named Russell – touches down in South America perched on the edge of a cliff along an impossibly high precipice and overlooking – tauntingly so close and yet hopelessly so far – a figment from his and Ellie’s collective imaginations – Paradise Falls.
Thus begins Carl’s final odyssey, towing the house like a man flying a kite step by treacherous step along the edge of a cliff before the helium escapes and renders the house forever immovable. And this is also where the movie lost me.
Carl’s journey is complicated by first one and then many talking dogs – aided by collars that translate their thoughts into words. Then a huge, Toucan Sam-like colorful bird joins the silliness. It all left me feeling disappointed, a bit letdown. By then however the children in the audience were in Heaven.
I’ve since given Up quite a bit of thought – always a good sign – and, thinking back, the Loony Tunes turn of events, the goofy high-tech dogs, and the distinctly extinct-looking bird shouldn’t have seemed surprising at all – the first scenes foreshadowed all of them. Why then did the tonal change bother me? Am I just a fuddy-duddy like Carl and the movie was trying to tell me something?
I think I’m going to go buy some balloons – and then see Up again.
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Article comments
1 - Britney
Part of the magic of movies, especially movies such as Up, The Incredibles, Toy Story, and other amazing hits from Pixar, is called willing suspension of disbelief. Willing suspension of disbelief is part of the audience's role in theatre. Without supernatural and extrodinary events we would be watching everyday life - and who wants to watch that?!
2 - Todd Ford
It's not a matter of suspension of disbelief that I struggle with concerning Up. It's a matter of the film carefully establishing an internal logic only to throw it out the window in favor of an entirely different, even opposite, internal logic. While I didn't go so far in my review, my teenage daughter and I actually entertain the reading that Carl dies when he goes into the house. The remainder of the movie then being his dying fantasy until he winds up in heaven in the final shot. Afterall, everything that happens (Wizard of Oz-like) during the "South American" scenes is reformulations of things that happened during the first 20 minutes and nothing is contained with those scenes that would be beyond the knowledge of a man who had only seen South America in pictures and postcards.