Hola all. Massawyrm here.

The first 45 minutes of UP were not just the very best pieces of footage fest shown at BNAT – it was the VERY BEST THING shown at BNAT. Period. Long ago, seemingly in a galaxy far, far away, I was the guy who just wasn’t into Pixar like everybody else around here. But they keep getting better and better. As much as I LOVED Wall-E, this had me involved and in love within the first ten minutes.

Here’s the setup (since the trailers are remarkably vague.) When Carl, a 10 year old boy obsessed with the world’s most famous adventurer, stumbles across a 10 year old girl with the same idol, there’s little doubt that they will become fast friends. Together they concoct a plan to fly down to South America and explore the same plateau as their hero – the last unexplored place on Earth – and build a house atop the grand falls to use as a base of operations. One thing leads to another and we’re treated to a montage of the friends over the years, playing, falling in love, getting married and ultimately growing old together. But sadly, the little girl (now an old woman) passes, leaving our hero Carl alone.

Now a building development is encroaching upon the house these two built together and Carl, lonely and heartbroken, has no idea what to do. And then it hits him: before he dies, he’s gonna fly his house down to South America, land it atop the falls and fulfill the promise he’d made to his wife 60 some odd years before. Thus begins one of the most touching, delightful and melodic films Pixar has yet attempted. What follows is a daring flight to South America and then a wild adventure in the jungle. Along for the ride is an accidental stowaway Russell, a cub scout looking for his final “help the elderly” badge to become a full fledged boy scout.

Throw in a trusting but insane bird, a pack of dogs modified with collars that translates their thoughts into English, and copious use of the phrase “SQUIRREL!” and you have the makings for one hell of a film. What we saw was a healthy mix of storyboards, completed scenes and the occasional partial renderings – and yet it never felt “unfinished.” The key to UP is that the story is so touching, so engrossing, that the magic came through at every point along the way. So touching was the film that the audience was literally in tears within the first 10 minutes of the film – couples were tightening their grip on one another, people were grabbing for napkins and Kleenex and even men were openly letting tears roll down their face. It was like Pixar had found away to condense The Notebook into 10 minutes and put it at the beginning of the film.

And once you’ve sat through that, there’s almost no way to fall out of love with Carl.

If there was any film I was disappointed that it didn’t finish playing BNAT, it is this. While the Watchmen footage looked great and the Terminator 4 stuff convinced me that it could rock, this was the film every single one of use desperately wanted to see the end of. I have every confidence that this film will prove to be one of the best of 2009 and continue Pixar and Disney’s constant push for excellence in this new golden age of animated filmmaking. I didn’t think Pixar could cram this much heart into one movie. But they did. And it still gets me a little misty just thinking about it.

Until next time friends, smoke ‘em if ya got ‘em.

Massawyrm

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