Up is a 2009 American computer-animated comedy-adventure film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Pictures. The film premiered on May 29, 2009 in North America as the first animated film to premiere on the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. The film is scheduled for release on October 9, 2009 in the United Kingdom.
Up is director Pete Docter's second feature-length film after Monsters, Inc., and features the voices of Edward Asner, Christopher Plummer, Bob Peterson, and Jordan Nagai. It is Pixar's tenth feature film and the studio's first to be presented in Disney Digital 3-D, and is accompanied in theaters by the short film Partly Cloudy. The film was also shown in Dolby 3D in selected theaters.
The film centers around a grumpy old man named Carl Fredricksen and an overeager Wilderness Explorer named Russell who fly to South America in a floating house suspended from helium balloons. The film has received overwhelmingly positive reviews with a rating of 97% on Rotten Tomatoes. A video game of the same name, based on the film, was released on May 26, 2009.
Reviews
Since its release, Up has received greatly positive reviews from critics. As of August 11, 2009, Rotten Tomatoes reports that 97% of critics have given the film a positive review, based on 204 reviews, with an 8.6/10 review average. The film also holds a score of 88 on the review aggregator website Metacritic as of August 1, 2009. Film critic Roger Ebert has awarded the film four out of four stars.
The Hollywood Reporter lauded the film: "Winsome, touching and arguably the funniest Pixar effort ever, this gorgeously rendered, high-flying adventure is a tidy 90-minute distillation of all the signature touches that came before it."
Although the San Francisco Chronicle noted that the film "contains many boring stretches of mindless freneticism and bland character interaction," it also declared that there are scenes in 'Up' of "Such beauty, economy and poetic wisdom that they belong in any anthology of great movie moments...to watch 'Up' with any attention is to be moved and astonished by the economy with which specific visuals are invested with emotion throughout [the film]..."
Variety enthused that "'Up' is an exceptionally refined picture; unlike so many animated films, it's not all about sensory bombardment and volume...Unsurprisingly, no one puts a foot wrong here. Vocal performances...exude a warm enthusiasm, and tech specifications could not be better. Michel Giacchino's full-bodied, traditional score is superlative..."
Up ranked number one at the box office its opening weekend, grossing $68,108,790 in North America. This was a stronger return than analysts had been expecting. The film had a small drop-off of 35% over its second weekend, earning another $44,244,000. Initial estimates projected the film holding on to the #1 spot in its second weekend, but revised figures placed it in second, less than $1M behind the Warner Bros. comedy The Hangover, but over $25M ahead of the Will Ferrell remake of Land of the Lost. In its third weekend, the movie experienced an even smaller decline of just 30%, again trailing The Hangover by just a few million to place second. Making $30,762,280 that weekend, it is the tenth biggest third weekend ever for a movie. It currently has earned a total of $292,155,222 domestically as of October 4, 2009, making it Pixar's second highest grossing film domestically, following Finding Nemo. It is currently the fifth highest grossing animated feature of all time in the U.S. Overseas, the film has earned $214,430,493.
Dug, the talking canine, was awarded the Palm Dog Award by the British film critics as the best canine performance at Cannes Film Festival. Dug beat out the fox from Antichrist and the black poodle from Inglourious Basterds.
In addition to the positive critical reviews the film received, Up highlights Pixar's corporate image as an altruistic company through its charitable acts. In June 2009, a 10-year-old girl from Huntington Beach, California was suffering from the final stages of terminal vascular cancer. It is reported her dying wish was to "live to see the movie" despite the advanced stage of her disease. However, due to her deteriorating condition, the girl was unable to leave the family home. As a result, a family friend contacted Pixar and arranged for a private screening. A Pixar employee flew to the Huntington Beach home with various Up tie-in toys and a DVD copy of the film. The child could not open her eyes, so her mother described the film to her scene by scene. The young girl died approximately seven hours after the screening ended.
