"What's That in the Sky?"

Not only is Pixar’s latest film, Up, a magnificent piece of art, but the title lends itself to all manner of fantastic puns that describing soaring, flying, and the sky’s the limit. Fortunately for the viewer – and unfortunately for the reviewer – these turns of phrase don’t do the film justice by a long shot. It wasn’t quite as good as Wall-E for me (blame that on being a sucker for romance) but it comes within a hair’s breadth of matching it.

In the hands of any other studio, a film about an old man – Carl Fredricksen (Ed Asner) – who ties a bunch of balloons to his house so he can float down to South American to fulfill a promise to his dead wife, could have easily turned into a farce or just plain schmaltz. In this studio’s able hands, it instead becomes the wonder film of the summer. No other picture will dazzle your senses, pop out your eyes visually and still manage to be uproariously funny and moving at the same time.

The plot is pretty simple, as stated above. I should mention that Carl picks up a passenger on his journey, one pudgy wilderness-camper named Russell, who provides much of the film’s more obvious humour. Add in a delightfully adorable talking dog named Dug, and you’ve got a live one on your hands. There are plenty of laughs and thrills to delight both children and adults – and how many so-called “family films” can actually achieve that?

The real power of Up is its focus on the realities of life. Pixar’s films have never talked down to kids, and have often handed down pretty heavy subjects to those in the single-digits. In that regard, Up may be Pixar’s darkest film to date (the opening of the film – a dialoguess story of a married couple’s life - is one for the time capsule, despite its darkness), but by showing viewers that life can be cold and hard sometimes, the filmmakers only increase the power of the love and life that carries the movie along. This isn’t just film making for children – it’s a movie for people, in the grandest tradition of the term.

In a summer full of movies that promise wonders galore (Terminator, Harry Potter, Transformers), Up is the real wonder; a film that never lets its magic get in the way of the human story. Tie a balloon to it and let it fly you away.