I wouldn’t say Pixar has lost their touch, but Up is not as magical as some of the earlier Pixar films. Still, it manages to deliver plenty of excitement, laughs, and emotion along with a good wholesome message. The main complaint is the questionable insertion of enough “grown-up” humor that it warranted a PG rating. Maybe it is just me, but I expect a completely for kids or suitable for kids movie when I watch a Disney Pixar film. If I were seeing Shrek it would be a different story, but thankfully they did not go that far with Up. It only strayed slightly towards an older crowd and still seemed suitable for our 20 month old daughter. If she had understood some of the humor and emotion though, it may have been less suitable. It is actually pretty sad in a few places.
The animation, as always, is quite superb. The colors are great and everything is very clean and neat. The Blu-ray was all checked out at Blockbuster so we had to go with the DVD, but even on our 80 inch screen it looked pretty good. The characters as you can tell from the posters are pretty… well, animated. I don’t know how else to say it, but they are more interesting that just plain straight forward real to life people. They stretch and squish as well as have extremely exaggerated emotions which is the perfect way to make the emotions more understandable for the little ones.
The story flows well with the exception of a few slow parts, but there isn’t much to complain about there. In addition to the good heartfelt story, the laughs were plentiful. My wife and I both laughed plenty and actually a lot more than we did when watching The Tale of Despereaux. We will get to that review some other time, but there really is very little comparison to a Pixar film. The jokes are spot on, the story has heart, and everyone can enjoy it rather than just the kids. Speaking of kids, our daughter loved Up. It is hard to judge whether there were very many scary moments in this one since our daughter is less scared than most I would say. She is just used to watching movies. I think there were a few parts that may have scared some and if they could understand the emotion; there were some sad parts as I mentioned. Overall, Up is a great movie for the whole family. I would recommend it for a great family night rental or even for those that just happen to like good, wholesome animated movies.
The Skinny Version
Raw Score: 802,883
Sharon Movie? Yes
Director: Pete Docter and Bob Peterson
Writer: Bob Peterson and Pete Docter
Genre: Animation/Adventure/Comedy/Family
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Dave’s Movie Reviews
The founder and senior editor of Dave's Movie Reviews. Currently working in the online benefits management industry while maintaining Dave's Movie Reviews. Dave has written over 275 film reviews since the site was established in June 2007. 
This is one movie we really want to see. We’re hoping to get it as our next movie, but it’s on a long wait…
Saw this over Thanksgiving break. I thought it was pretty good, but it definitely wasn’t a young kids movie.
There is definitely an age that would not work well with this film if I had to guess. It would have to be an age that was old enough to understand the emotional aspects of the film and at the same time young enough to not just blow it off as being a movie and nothing more. It all depends on the kid I guess, but it is something to think about if you happen to have a child in that age range.