Up

I can't say that I've been a monster fan of the Disney flick. After the vomit fiasco that followed Toy Story (projectile cotton candy chunks smattering the car, my family, and my best friend's leather jacket), I kind of lost my taste for The Magic Kingdom.  I never had a favorite princess; never insisted on dragging my love up to Space Mountain; never consumed my childhood favorite like comfort food. Just not my thing. However, the premise of Up promised too many creepy innuendoes to pass up--seriously, Old Guy locks Boy Scout in a house too far away for interference by the nosiest of neighbors? Awesome.

I must say I got smacked in the teeth by a shower that was never forecasted by any of the trailers forced upon me before every flick for the last year.  Even now, I have yet to find a review of Up that relates a reaction to it that was similar to my own: wracked sobs, hiccuping, near-vomit inducing, all-consuming sadness for days!  Carl meets Ellie who is as obsessed with explorer, Charles Muntz, as he is.  What follows is a silent depiction of their long life together montaging into Ellie's diagnosis and death, which occurs before Carl can fulfill his promise to take her to South America...(the ellipses represent me leaving to sob it out with my boy toy before resuming this review). I wept unabashedly by the end of this compilation, fearing that I'd have to leave to keep from disturbing my fellow, infantile moviegoers. Even my fellow-flick-fan, whom I've seen cry maybe three times in the four years since we partnered up, had to wipe his eyes on multiple occasions.  This intro is rough, reader!  But totally beautiful and totally worth it. Watch it!

What follows the heart-wrench is a heap of fun. Flying houses. Mediocre wilderness 'survivors' who win badges for 'Extreme Wilderness Survival Literature." Talking dogs--and you have to love those. Instead of falling prey to the usual Disney, schmoozey, doggy dialogue, we are introduced to a pack of killing machines rigged with collars that insufficiently translate their every thought: "I'm going to the bathroom" becomes "I will stride to the waste receptacle area and make use of it's facilities," etc.  While it has been said that the story that follows the saddest animated scene since ever is a collection of somewhat underdeveloped plotlines meant to capture the meandering attentions of five-year-olds everywhere, I thought these characters were surprisingly well developed, and that the events were as satiated as they needed to be.

My only complaint, realized long after the flick made me cry one last time before credits is that Pixar did not exploit the creepster potential of its premise. Not even little Russell's mother was skeeved by the idea that her son had spent days and hours and weeks alone with a lonely old man. Oh well. Maybe in the next one. For now, this flick is completely worth it.

Moral of the story: Life doesn't always work out as planned, but if you live well and are good to everyone you meet, you will not often be disappointed. AWE!

Point needing further emphasis: YOU WILL CRY! BRING A TISSUE...BRING A BOX OF TISSUES! AND SOME XANAX! AND SOME WHISKEY!