I almost feel guilty for the fact that I only ever praise things when I write for The Scoundrel. Almost. But if I am to start sounding off about the things I hate in modern film, it certainly won’t start with the new Disney Pixar flick, UP.

UP is beautiful in its simplicity in the way that its simplicity is beautiful – and I honestly believe that sentence sums up the film more than the rest of this write up will. You see, for all its complicated and wonderful new technologies that easily make it the prettiest animated film to date, it deals with the most identifiable of human emotion: loss. We all know what it feels like to lose someone (Unless you’re lucky then its just something) and our leading character Carl Fredricksen (Edward Asner – Mary Tyler Moore) begins his film by meeting someone, loving someone and losing someone. It is a stout introduction that simulataniously sets up the plotline and attaches us to the Carl’s character. It sounds like such a simple thing to do on a ground level: make the audience like the main character. But its slightly more tricky when it comes to getting an adult audience to genuinely feel some emotion for an animated character.

After the film grabs your attention with its tear jerking introduction and makes evident its central theme, things really start moving. Town planners want to tear down Carl’s house, but he insist he isn’t going anywhere. We meet Russell, a young Wilderness Explorer (A Scout club) and incidentally Disney/Pixar’s first America-Chinese character and suddenly the pace really accelerates and it becomes more and more difficult to dislike the film.  Carl and his wife always had the same dream as children, to become famous explorers just like their idol, Charles F. Muntz. They wanted to explore South America, but a montage of a penny jar getting filled up and then repeated smashed open to pay for a series of unfortunate accidents (Broken limbs, fell trees, car tyres) explains that they could never afford it. These simple uses of imagery shorten any lengthy explanation, making the story simple and evident for the young, old and stupid whilst not taking up any screen time.  An incident with a builder means that Carl is forced into a retirement home, but he decides to take things into his own hand. He attaches thousands of balloons to his house and flies his house away. His wife placed a picture of their house on top of Paradise Fall’s and Carl intends to make his late wife’s dream come true. Unfortunatley, he accidentally takes Russell with him and all of the elements that are so rapidly put into place collide all at once.

The fact that we spend so little time in one place helps keep you hooked, but no matter which location you find yourself in it is so beautifully realised that you can’t help but just accept it. I can never help but find a sense of irony with 3D animated film. Animation as a medium is meant to be an extension of reality, but the ultimate goal of 3D animation is to try and make things look as real as possible. Well, UP certainly does take 3D visuals to a whole new level and the directors really make the most of these scenes. We are constantly looking over beautiful landscapes, just soaking in the wonderful view. After the gritty, grungy polluted Earth we saw in, Wall-E, its absolutley incredible that the company can just turn on their heel and bring us such an incredible pretty version our Earth, a version so nice infact that I think I would rather live in that world than in this one! But should I be surprised? It is Disney/Pixar and it is their job.

The great thing about UP is that something is always happening and you almost always have a smile on your face. The characters are so fantastically realised, both visually and in personality that you can’t help but find yourself caring for them and as the story unfolds. There isn’t anything particularly new here, its the basic Disney plot of self-discovery, but surely that isn’t the point. Disney/Pixar manage to get you involved in with the characters something that the vast majority of live-action dramas don’t manage to do these days. Here we have characters, that I as an adult know are not real, but yet I find myself caring for them more than I have ever done with say somebody from Hollyoaks or EastEnder. I meet a lot of Disney-bashers being an independent animator myself, but I can never quite grasp why. Yes, they are a huge conglomerate company. Yes, they pioneered the animation industry and pushed other companies into the background. Yes, fine. But maybe people just miss the point. When it comes to Disney films, it about the films, not the company that makes them.

The magic of Disney is that they make me feel like a child again. I see plenty of films, both animated and live-action that make me feel like an adult. But there are very few companies that produce things that make me feel young, that make me want to believe that these bizarre, magical scenarios could actually take place and no other company in the world makes me feel that way.