Unlike the whimsical 25 minute, dialogue-less opening of Wal-E, "UP" has 25 minutes of mostly dialogue-less opening that lacks whimsy at every turn. In fact, just about every part of UP is depressing, sad, and quiet.
The first half-an-hour is a montage of two friends growing up with a dream to build a house atop "paradise falls" Venezuela, they grow up, get married, have a miscarriage (yes, you read that correctly) and consequently now children. They keep braking their vacation jar to use the change to pay for emergencies and then they grow old and Ellie dies from what seems like cancer.
Now, do I have the kids attention? Which part is a family film? The part with the miscarriage, the shattered dreams or the long, slow death?
Then, on the eve of eviction and a trip to a nursing home to die, our aged hero unleashes a thousand balloons to lift his house and float him off to Paradise Falls. With, of course, a lonely, fatherless, overweight boy scout en tow.
This is of course, a set-up. Old, bitter man learns to care for young, fatherless boy while letting go of dead wife and finding out childhood hero is a raging lunatic who abuses dogs in the Venezuelan jungle.
Really, are the kids still with me?
The story is contrived and obvious, the visuals nice, but repetitive, the pace mostly laborious and the tone dark and depressing. The 3D is not worth the admission, a film with so much going on in the air should at least have so breath-taking 3D visuals, but, no. The glasses where mostly pointless.
I actually had to sit up to stay away 3/4 through, as I knew what was going to happen next.
My advice, stay home, watch Wal-E on Blu-Ray.
Get more detail about Up (4 Disc Combo Pack with Digital Copy and DVD) [Blu-ray].
No comments:
Post a Comment