The Critics: ‘Up’

Travel Blog  •  Eva Holland  •  05.14.09 | 11:01 AM ET

Pixar’s “Up,” an animated travel movie that we’ve been keeping an eye on, opened the Cannes Film Festival in 3D last night, making history in the process. Today, the reviews are rolling in—and, for the most part, they offer two thumbs, er, up.

The Telegraph’s Sukhdev Sandhu calls the movie “one of Pixar’s finest achievements to date,” and adds: “The film, in its aerial beauty and its melancholic undertow, recalls Albert Lamorrise’s The Red Balloon and Hiyao Miyzaki’s Howl’s Moving Castle. No recent animated picture has been quite so suffused with an awareness of human mortality.”

The Huffington Post says: “[G]entle, sweet even sublime.” Writing in the Guardian, Peter Bradshaw agrees: “It really is a lovely film: smart, funny, high-spirited and sweet-natured, reviving memories of classic adventures from the pens of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Jules Verne.”

The Independent’s Kaleem Aftab isn’t so sure. He praises the animation and opening sequences, but writes of the film’s take on South America: “Apart from the kooky animals (nowhere near as endearing as The Jungle Book ones), the destination is a boring land of plateaus and uninspiring forests. ... The nostalgic past is replaced by a horrible sentimental present that lacks emotional punch.”

I don’t know about you, but I’ll certainly plan on seeing for myself. “Up” hits U.S. theaters May 29.

Tags: Movies, Pop Culture Travel, The Critics, Europe, France, South America, News and Briefs

Eva Holland is co-editor of World Hum. She is a former associate editor at Up Here and Up Here Business magazines, and a contributor to Vela. She's based in Canada's Yukon territory.


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