Up sees Pixar return to the former glory of Toy Story. I saw this version in the 3D format which was fun and well worth the extra $5 but by no way added anything to the story at all. It would be just as good in regular everyday normal format and on the small screen too.
Like all animation, the voices are a vital part of the movie. And perhaps for me this was the only slight downfall to Up. Ed Asner, a perennial TV actor, leads the cast as Carl. I haven’t seen Mr Asner in anything since he did a few episodes of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, the cult behind the scenes series that tried to take The West Wing plot and put it in the context of Saturday Night Live. Even here that sounds ridiculous but it worked very well for anyone with an IQ above room temperature. Network heads being network heads proved they don’t have this level of intelligence and the show was axed after one season. It was actually almost cancelled half way through but enough fans got behind the show and were able to get the network to at least wrap up all the story lines with a full season of 24 eps. (FYI The West Wing and Studio 60 were both created and in the main written by Aaron Sorkin – one of my favourite writers.)
The voice actor adds a multitude of layers to the character and a lot of those layers come from their real life persona. Up was not promoted with the usual fanfare of other animated features where the voice actors lead the way. This is typical too of most live action features as well. And for the first time it hit my that I wasn’t able to have any connection with the animated character because I didn’t know the human behind the character. Christopher Plummer lends his voice to the bad guy in a stellar performance.
I have the upmost (that’s deliberate) respect for Mr Asner and Mr Plummer and firmly believe that their and the other voice actors should have been better utilised in the marketing of this film. For the benefit of the adult patrons – kids couldn’t care less.
Also interestingly Up features a short animated film about a stork and the clouds who create babies. For parents who have ever been faced with the question from their child, “where do babies comes from?” this excellent short answers the question beautifully.
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