Up, up and away

My editor just asked me if I identified with the grumpy old man character in Pixar’s new 3D animated film, Up. Read on and judge for yourself.

Quite possibly the best part of Up takes place in the first 20 minutes. You see young Carl and Ellie — normal kids who faithfully follow the adventures of South American explorer Charles Muntz in books and movies. Then, in a brilliant sequence handled without a word of dialogue, we see them grow up, get married, nurturing dreams of having kids and building a home atop mythical Paradise Falls, South America — only to find themselves taking jobs in an amusement park (he sells balloons, she’s a zookeeper), never leaving their suburban home, never having kids… There’s not a dry eye behind those 3D goggles when Ellie passes away and Carl (voiced by Ed Asner), by then old and grizzled-looking, sits alone in his cozy but lonely house, now empty except for memories of his wife and her childhood scrapbook.

After that, Up turns into pretty much your garden-variety Pixar animated flick. Which is not necessarily a bad thing. It’s the “fish out of water” scenario, crossing Leave it to Beaver with Grumpy Old Men. Carl meets up with a half-Chinese-looking kid named Russell who is gunning for his final Wilderness Explorer badge by going door to door, trying to “assist the elderly.” The kid knocks on Carl’s door and won’t take no for an answer. Carl, however, has become an irritable old coot who is heading for assisted living because he won’t sell his little duplex despite all the skyscrapers rising up around him.

In an unexpected dash of vim and vigor, Carl somehow commandeers about 5,000 helium balloons overnight and attaches them to his house. How does he manage this? I know, you’re not supposed to ask, it’s a cartoon. But people are honestly talking about Up being “the best movie of the year,” so I’d like to think that logic enters into it somehow.

Of course, as Carl lifts off from his old neighborhood, he soon notices that Russell is a stowaway. I’m definitely in the minority here, but I found Russell to be a bit annoying. Someone should check his sugar intake. I actually objected to the many people around me finding him sooooo adorable. I felt like barking out, through my 3D goggles, “He’s a cartoon, people! He’s not real! He doesn’t exist!”

So yes, I do identify with the grumpy Carl character.

Real kids, by the way, are much more interesting, engaging, vexing and love-inducing than all the Russells in the world, no matter how much 3D detailing and CGI go into making the roly-poly critters. 

And herein lies a deep irony of being a parent: the things I found joyful as a kid barely register with me now as an adult. I actually loved cartoons and animation as a kid; now I look at all of them with faint suspicion, whether coming from Dreamworks, Pixar or anywhere else. If it weren’t for the innocent joy my daughter gets from watching such fare, I wouldn’t be caught dead watching a cartoon nowadays.

Harrumph.

Could be because I remember that old Disney films such as Bambi had a certain lack of self-consciousness. The characters onscreen didn’t seem aware at all of how remarkable it was that someone had given life to them, on a drawing table. That was the real magic.

But now — well, we’ve witnessed a lot of movie magic since Bambi. Cartoon kids onscreen today try to impress us — and all the kids out in the audience — with their razor-sharp attitude. Smart-aleck comments scripted by wiseass adults — whether coming out of the mouths of animated 10 year olds or animated tweeners — do not make for movie magic. At least not for me. (To its credit, Russell is not a smart-aleck kid. He’s trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent — just like any Wilderness Explorer should be. Plus a little annoying.)

As the previews rolled before Up, I heard one little kid in front of me mutter, “Dame ang 3D movies…” He seemed put out. That means the market may already be heading for saturation. In truth, the 3D effects in Up are put to good use — deep shots of the balloon-buoyed house drifting past various aerial views are especially nifty.

Carl and Russell end up atop a misty mountain in South America — a few days’ hike away from the mythical Paradise Falls. Crusty Carl insists they drag the dropping house along until they reach it, but Russell takes up with a very colorful flightless bird (named Kevin) and a dog (named Dug) with a voice-chip in his collar, and they get delayed.

There’s really nothing to complain about, watching Up. It’s another wonderful, wonder-filled outing from Pixar, which started the whole computer animation ball rolling with Toy Story years ago and must feel the pressure to “up the ante” each summer season with another imagined world. Considering the crappy “family” cartoons that get made, I definitely prefer something with heart and soul, like Ratatouille or Wall E (well, at least the first 20 minutes), over something like Cars or Madagascar II.

I don’t know. I worry about this, my lack of empathy for cartoons. Somehow, I’ve come to view animation as simply another industry, something meant to drag parents into cinemas along with their squawling kids. I noticed a lot of the reviews of Up talked about its “signature Pixar touches” and “gorgeous rendering” and “tech specifications.” What does this mean to a kid, let alone a parent? Better to make a film out of the first 20 minutes, enter it at the Oscars as an “animated short” and pick up your trophy.

On the other hand, it’s a sad reflection of the state of Hollywood when cartoons command greater audience affection than the latest Oscar bait. Movies like last year’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button are little more than cartoons with real actors pacing around in front of blue screens. Maybe instead of making movies about, say, illiterate Nazi jailkeepers (definitely the harder row to hoe, if you want to snag an Oscar) folks like Kate Winslet should now focus on being voice artists. That’s where the real heart-tugging is, apparently.