Minority Opinion: I didn't Like "Up"

Awards season looms on the horizon, and as we gear up for the festivities, we can expect to hear plenty of talk about this year's Pixar entry, Up. Given the critical praise, strong box office returns, and unstoppable momentum of the Pixar juggernaut, Up is likely to breeze right in and win the Oscar for Best Animated Film. The film represents another spectacular achievement for Pixar, and it seemed to make audiences happy. But for me, it was a letdown.

If you haven't seen the movie, you've probably at least heard people talk about the tremendous opening sequence. This is rightly lauded. In record time, we are introduced to a young boy and girl, and are made to care deeply about them. We watch them grow up, develop romantic feelings for each other, get married, and experience many of the ups and downs of life. Then, before a lifelong dream of traveling to South America together can be undertaken, the elderly woman dies. In less than 10 minutes, the movie has us crying for characters we've just gotten to know.

We're then introduced to Carl's current situation. Old and alone, he is being forced from his lifelong home by a city with modern development plans. And as we know, he decides to escape this situation by tying balloons to his house and floating the whole thing away.

Some people might think the concept of sailing an entire house through the air with common balloons is too unrealistic, but those people are wrong. That's the premise you sign up for going into the movie. Every movie, whether live action or animated, sets its own rules, its own level

of reality. We know that this is going to be a movie about a house floating via balloons. It's also within the reality of this movie to have the thoughts of dogs translated into English by a computer-enhanced dog collar.

The problems began for me about halfway into the movie. And they started with those verbose dogs. [ I guess I'll put the SPOILER ALERT here. ]

As I said, every movie establishes its own level of reality. But once a movie's reality is established, it's obligated to stick to its own rules. This is not a movie about Talking Dogs, or a movie about Dogs Being Smarter Than We Think. The reality this movie establishes is that its dogs are the same Normal Dogs we see in our own Reality World. The only reason we can understand what they're saying is because somebody invented an electronic dog collar that picks up a dog's brainwaves and translates the thoughts and intentions into English. By the movie's own rules, these are Normal, Real-World Dogs. But after we're introduced to a pack of Normal Dogs, they soon begin acting extraordinarily.

First, I found it questionable that when the dogs were communicating to other dogs, they made use of the English-translation collars. Why didn't the dogs communicate to each other using barks? Perhaps the collars automatically perform their translation function no matter what animal the dog is communicating to. Fine. But shouldn't the dogs have been barking in addition to the collars translating - like when a news program dubs a translator overtop of a foreign-language speaker; you hear both at the same time.

You may think I'm quibbling; but this was merely the gateway for what became incredible rule breaking later. Eventually, the dogs start coordinating attacks in ways that Normal Dogs never would. They think and reason in ways that you and I know Normal Dogs don't. It all culminates in dogs getting into little doggie airplanes, and piloting the planes with their little doggie paws.

They FLY PLANES!! And execute aerial attacks! Folks, Normal Dogs cannot do this. Hell, I can't do that! The most complex mechanism I've ever seen a Normal Dog operate is a skateboard... and he even sucks at that!

(Adequate at best.)

Again, we're talking about the rules the movie has established for itself. I don't have a problem watching a movie where a dog flies a plane, if it's within the rules of that movie. In fact, it happens in one of the best animated movies of all time.
This is the most egregious rule breaking in Up, but it's certainly not alone. Other examples include Carl's physical capabilities (he needs a walker throughout the movie, until he's called upon to become a superhero at the end) and the inertia of a floating house (early in the movie, they can't prevent the house from floating into a cliff and causing some damage; later, the house maneuvers like a biplane... goddamn that aerial battle sequence!).

Ultimately, the most disappointing aspect of the movie for me was the villainous Muntz. Early in the movie, Muntz is introduced as a hero and, furthermore, the inspiration for the young boy and girl to become world explorers. Later, Muntz is revealed to be an obsessive glory hound who's a little cracked from decades of isolation. So much so that he's willing to murder innocents in order to prove his greatness to the world.
The Fallen Hero/Idol tack can make for a great story. I just didn't feel it fit into this particular story. In fact, I didn't really feel like Up needed an external antagonist at all. The antagonist is Carl's own loneliness and feelings about failing to live up to his own expectations. He didn't need to have a sword fight on top of a zeppelin to learn that he needed to let go of his past and embrace his future.

Would it have been more challenging for the Pixar team to make a movie with such an abstract antagonist that would still be enjoyable to children? Certainly. Maybe even impossible! But Pixar has spent the last 10+ years convincing us that if anyone could do it, it would be them.
And here's where my criticism is maybe a little unfair. I'm holding Up to standards that perhaps it doesn't warrant being held.
I'm a huge fan of Pixar. From the beginning, they've always exceeded expectations. Toy Story 2 should have been a major letdown from the greatness of the original, but it turned out to be possibly better. They should have fallen on their faces when they attempted to make a superhero movie, but The Incredibles was entertaining and surprisingly mature. Ratatouille should have been an inferior sight gag-laden movie, but turned out to be big hearted and inspiring. Wall-E should have been nothing but a Short Circuit rip-off, but was an impressively entertaining sci-fi "message movie."
Ah, Wall-E. I'm still coming down from the high of that movie. As I've said before, I think that movie should have been a contender for, if not the winner of, Best Picture of 2008. They took a lot of chances with that movie - the much vaunted nearly-wordless first act, the environmental and consumerist messages that could have turned off the majority of the audience. But they went for it, and they pulled it off beyond successfully.
So maybe my expectations were too high for Up. It's its own movie, and certainly deserves to be scrutinized as such. I'm sure my opinion is influenced by Pixar's track record; strip that away, and you have a fine, entertaining movie in its own right. Still flawed, but forgivably so. And what will its competition be in the animated category this year? That remains to be seen; and perhaps Up will prove to be better than them all.
As it stands, I didn't particularly care for Up, and I think it was overpraised due to the cachet of the Pixar name. Whatever surprises awards season brings, I hope this movie will be evaluated fairly and not win as a foregone conclusion.