Weather Tonight: -2°c Clear Night Morning: 3°c Mostly cloudy

Five of the Best...Films
1. Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll
Andy "Gollum" Serkis is astonishing as the late polio-afflicted punk Ian Dury
2. Precious
Lee Daniels’s astonishing film, beautifully acted by Gabourney Sidibe
3. A Prophet
A stone-cold masterpiece from French director Jacques Audiard about an Arab convict in with the Corsican mafia
4. Avatar
James Cameron's epic is unsubtle but the technical achievement is awesome - see it in 3D if you can
5. Youth In Revolt
Well-scripted comedy of adolescent longing

Critics' Choice

Film

Andrew O'Hagan

quotePrecious is a new-style weepie but one that is much more bracing than depressingquote

Andrew O'Hagan Precious Theatre

Henry Hitchings

quoteIan McKellen is captivating throughout. He delights in the play’s gallows humour, yet is also maudlin and poignantquote

Henry Hitchings Waiting for Godot Theatre

Fiona Mountford

quoteSlight quibbles notwithstanding, this will set the West End’s stock riding highquote

Fiona Mountford Enron

Reader reviews

Film

Simon, London

quoteUtterly, utterly brilliant. You really are in for a treatquote

A Prophet Theatre

Ella, London

quoteThough 'Trilogy' has won rave reviews, I personally found myself exasperated after about an hourquote

Trilogy Restaurants

Dave A, London

quoteWe went on a quiet sunday evening and the food was excellent, but the experience let down by the service and ambiancequote

Mansons

Film news and reviews London,

Up

Your rating
one startwo starthree starfour starfive star
Click on a star to rate
Cert:

Evening Standard rating Evening Standard rating
Evening Standard rating Reader rating
 Add your review

 
Please wait the page is loading extra content
  • Showing at

Cannes is Up and away with Pixar’s 3D cartoon beauty

Nick Roddick, Cannes Film Festival 13.05.09
 
House inflation: widower Carl and stowaway Russell escape to South America  in a flying home in Up

House inflation: widower Carl and stowaway Russell escape to South America in a flying home in Up

Other reviews

Related links

Pausing only to allow the hordes of photographers to get this year’s money shot — a Cannes audience decked out in wraparound 3D specs — the Festival du Film got underway today with the Disney/Pixar film Up.

This is not the first time Cannes has shown a cartoon, but it’s the first time the prestigious opening slot has gone to an animated film.

It’s also the first time Cannes has opened with a 3D movie, bestowing the ultimate cinematic respectability on what will, hereafter, no longer be referred to as a gimmick.

Like other recent 3D flicks, Up doesn’t waste time throwing things at the audience: it simply uses the new format to give depth— in every sense of the word — to the story, and the result is stunning.

Forget the slightly iffy premise —grumpy old widower Carl, voiced by the estimable Ed Asner, ties helium balloons to his house to avoid being sent to an old people’s home and flies off to South America accompanied only by a cute if chubby eight-year-old stowaway, Russell.

Directed by Pete Docter, Up is a delightful combination of wry humour, deft characterisation and adventure (believe me, the 3D format really pays dividends when it comes to exploiting the many vertiginous possibilities provided by aerial pursuits at 20,000ft).

Though there are occasional dips into sentimentality — this is, after all, a Disney film — the real reference points are such classic crowdpleasers as The Wizard of Oz and Raiders of the Lost Ark.

With the shots of the house in flight there is also more than a nod towards Terry Gilliam’s short film, The Crimson Permanent Assurance, in which a City insurance office likewise goes on a trip, albeit under sail and as a pirate ship.

The South American scenes add in a 13ft multicoloured bird called Kevin, a pack of talking dogs (think the seagulls from Finding Nemo, but with deeper voices) and a hissable villain voiced by Christopher Plummer, who is intent on caging Kevin (who turns out to be a female) and getting her back to New York.

Running a mere 89 minutes, Up has one or two moments when it threatens to deflate (a gag involving the butch lead dog’s voicebox malfunctioning and making him squeaky isn’t as funny as the film-makers seem to think), but otherwise vies with Monsters Inc and Wall-E as the best and most inventive of the Pixar films — with, as it were, added depth.

Indeed, some scenes, like the floating house dropping slowly out of sight through the clouds, have an element rarely associated with Hollywood cartoons: great visual beauty.

Related articles

More


Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.

 

Other reviews

[ 1 ] [ 2 ]

Reader reviews (0)

 Add your review

No comments have so far been submitted.


Add your comment

 

Your email address will not be published

Terms and conditions make text area bigger You have  characters left.


 
 
 
London's Weather
Tonight
Clear Night
-2°c
Morning
Mostly cloudy
3°c
5 day forecast
 
 

Daily Mail Mail on Sunday Travel Mail This is Money Metro

Loot | Jobsite | Homes & Property | London jobs | Educate London | Holiday Villas