This past sunday at the NY Comic Con, I was fortunate enough to be one of 300 people to get a 46 minute and 15 second preview of Pixar’s newest film Up.

As most of us know, Pixar has joined back up with Disney, which in turn meant a full body cavity search for any electronic recording devices….well not really, but it was close.  All phones, cameras and camcorders were collected, tagged and placed in a bin.  I further knew they weren’t screwing around when one of the security guys told me they had six guys posted with infrared scopes.  Knowing Disney they probably had at least one sniper, just incase.

With few introductions, the Pixar guys let us know that we were the lucky first 300 let in to view a large chunk of their new movie Up and they started rolling the film.

Up starts off with a young Carl Fredricksen, donned with aviator cap and goggles, watching a news reel in a theater about an adventurer who travels the world in his zeppelin discovering new places.  You can obviously tell Carl admired the adventurer as much as a young kid idolized Babe Ruth back in the day.

This base feeling of adventure sets the tone for the rest of the movie.  Pixar has honed to a razor point their skills of reaching your emotions, as some of us recall from Wall-E whether we want to admit it or not.  They do a quick job of getting all the sad out in 10 minutes with a silent montage of most of Carl’s life.  With us like putty in their hands and at rock bottom, this is where the upward momentum begins….get it?  Upward?  Oh nevermind.

From the trailer we see the part where a myriad of brilliantly colored balloons are released from Carl’s roof as his colorful home is torn from it’s foundation and starts its ascent up into the sky.  Let me tell you, this part of the movie is going to be a visual overload when seen in 3-D.  What we aren’t privy to from the trailer is that Carl’s home has been surrounded on all sides by developing skyscrapers.  Being the curmudgeon that he is, Carl refuses to sell his patch of memories for any price that the Mister Smith looking developer throws at him.  This is when his years of being a balloon vendor come in handy.

What Carl didn’t count on is Russel, the chubby adventure scout who got stuck on Carl’s porch when he decided to lift off.  The dynamic between these two plays so well.   It conveys whatever you might think being in your 70′s and stuck in a floating house with a 8 year old could be like.

Eventually, they do touch down in South America where Carl decided to uphold a promise to his wife of  settling down next to a waterfall called Paradise Falls.  The only problem is when they land they’re about a few days away from the falls, which are in viewing distance.  The trek  through the jungle is where this movie really starts to shine and Pixar once again comes through with hilarious scenerios and dialog that are sure to keep us beaming for the rest of the film.

The total film is going to run a little over 87 minutes and I for one was exstatic about being able to view close to half of it.  It’s a shame it’s a bit over three months away, but it’s definately going to be worth the wait to see it with its final touches and in 3-D.  This being their 10th film, I don’t think I’ve been dissapointed once with Pixar and this will definately hold true with Up.

This entry was posted by Alex on Friday, February 13th, 2009 at 12:02 am and is filed under Entertainment, Events, Movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.