'UP' Press Reviews

[Dustysage]

'UP' is about to get its big debut and there will be a swarm of reviews. MiceChat has a thread for the members to give their opinion: Pixar's UP - MiceChat Reviews

But what is the press saying?

Post the media reviews here.

[Dustysage]

The LA Times loves UP!

As success follows success for animation powerhouse Pixar, the pressure to maintain the streak must be phenomenal. Will the next film be the one that stumbles, the one that breaks stride? No one need worry, however, about "Up," Pixar's 10th and latest effort. It's not only good, it's one of Pixar's best. Some films are an obligation to write about, "Up" is the purest pleasure.

[OogieBoogie]

Time - Going up

Those, you might say, were the compass points of last summer's Pixar wonder WALL-E, of which Docter was the original director (before handing the project to Andrew Stanton). There are other similarities between that futurist galactic epic and Up, which arrives in North American theaters Friday after its rapturous reception two weeks ago as the opening-night attraction at the Cannes Film Festival. Both movies are about lonely creatures — a droid left on Earth, a man whose cherished wife has died — taking a perilous trip. Both protagonists are stout and box-shaped and don't talk much. Both films, under the thrill-ride wrapping, are unabashed love stories. And though it's not yet summer, we can declare that Up, like WALL-E, will prove to be one of the most satisfying movie experiences of its year. (See the greatest animated movies for adults)

Going Up - TIME

[OogieBoogie]

Newsweek - Up: Pixar's Latest Small Wonder

The guiding principle is the same across all Pixar films: "Wonder and interest doesn't have to come out of pizzazz and spectacle and huge idea. … I always knew that the power came from the small, and not from the big," Wall-E director Andrew Stanton said earlier this year. "[Making Wall-E] got me thinking about, and this may sound commercial, but how good Spielberg was at making moments of the littlest things." That minor details drive major plot points doesn't happen without meticulous curation, especially in the opening, silent montages of both Wall-E and Up. "It's not letting any stone be unturned," Stanton said about Wall-E. "It wasn't a random choice to just pick this. It's a conversation, like, 'Why are we picking this, why are we using this object, why are we in this set?' And frankly, I know these are questions I know you're supposed to ask yourself as a filmmaker with any film, but there's something interesting about doing a film where—and I never see it as silent—dialogue is no longer one of the ingredients that's giving you information. All I could do is give you intention and emotion." As Up continues to remind us, sometimes that's all you need.

Up: Pixar's Latest Small Wonder | Newsweek Movies | Newsweek.com

[OogieBoogie]

Hollywood Insider - How high will 'Up' go?

Even with an old man (voiced by Ed Asner) as the lead, Pixar is sure to maintain its perfect track record, scoring a 10th hit feature in a row.

Box Office Preview: How high will 'Up' go? | Showbiz News and Scoop | Studio and Network Dish | EW.com

[sir clinksalot]

The Tomatometer at Rotten Tomatoes currently has UP at 98%. That's phenomenal.

Up Movie Reviews, Pictures - Rotten Tomatoes

[sir clinksalot]

Roger Ebert

Up :: rogerebert.com :: Reviews

"Up" is a wonderful film, with characters who are as believable as any characters can be who spend much of their time floating above the rain forests of Venezuela. They have tempers, problems and obsessions. They are cute and goofy, but they aren't cute in the treacly way of little cartoon animals. They're cute in the human way of the animation master Hayao Miyazaki. Two of the three central characters are cranky old men, which is a wonder in this youth-obsessed era. "Up" doesn't think all heroes must be young or sweet, although the third important character is a nervy kid.

This is another masterwork from Pixar, which is leading the charge in modern animation. The movie was directed by Pete Docter, who also directed "Monsters, Inc.," wrote "Toy Story" and was the co-writer and first director on "WALL-E" before leaving to devote full time to this project. So Docter's one of the leading artists of this latest renaissance of animation.

[Coheteboy]

Daily Variety glows about Up

Up Movie Review - Read Variety's Analysis Of The Film Up

Despite the sheer volume of incident and action required of any film that includes young kids as a major portion of its target audience, "Up" is an exceptionally refined picture; unlike so many animated films, it's not all about sensory bombardment and volume. As Pixar's process is increasingly analyzed, the more one appreciates the care that goes into the writing. The underlying carpentry here is so strong, it seems it would be hard to go too far wrong in the execution.

Unsurprisingly, no one puts a foot wrong here. Vocal performances, most importantly from Asner, Plummer and nonpro Nagai, exude a warm enthusiasm, and tech specifications could not be better. Michael Giacchino's full-bodied, traditional score is superlative, developing beautiful themes as it sweeps the action along on emotional waves.

[Coheteboy]

A negative Up review by Armond White (he's not white lol) of NY's "Our Town"

The Way of Pixarism : OurTownNY

Pixarism defines the backward taste for animation. Refuting Chuck Jones’ insistence that he didn’t create his great Warner Bros. cartoon for children, Pixarism domesticates and homogenizes animation—as if to preserve family values. The only exceptions have been Brad Bird’s Pixar movies The Incredibles and Ratatouille—both sumptuously executed in Bird’s belief that animation should show “how things feel rather than are. Indulging in the human aspect of being alive.” Yet their conceptual weak point was cuteness—same as Up’s glossing over Carl’s “public menace” court conviction and that inconsistently imagined dog pack.

After ripping-off Albert Lamorisse’s classic The Red Balloon, dispersing it into Carl’s thousands of colorful orbs, Pixar then literalizes the meaning of flight as a commercial icon: Up. Here, it’s simply the means to “adventures” and not an ecstatic elevation of individual identity. Last year, elitist film nerds forgot how Hou Hsiao Hsien’s Flight of the Red Balloon also dishonored Lamorisse’s beautiful tale—as they cynically overrated the entropic Wall-E. All this deflated cinema and Pixarism mischaracterizes what good animation can be, as in Coraline, Monster House, Chicken Little, Teacher’s Pet, The Iron Giant. Up’s aesthetic failure stems from its emotional letdown.

But don't worry... he liked Chicken Little.