Last year, I sat in the theater for a screening of Disney and Pixar's Wall-E. I found it to be the best animated feature film I'd ever seen. It had all the similar features of an animated film: beautiful cinematography, comedic (and at just the right moments dramatic) characters, and great music. But Wall-E contains features that we had not seen in animated films - but more of that later.
I enjoyed Up, I did, but I found it less than original. Up is certainly no Wall-E. However, almost every review for the film praises it as much as Wall-E, giving them the film the same "grade" and similar praise. Up does not deserve the same amount of praise.
Dear Lisa over at Entertainment Weekly states that Up contains "breathtaking" features: the comedy, the animation, the balloons. She then goes further to say that the movie's great accomplishment is that the audience is not meant to see these features; that the audience is meant to focus more on what the characters are going through. Isn't this what every Pixar film seeks to accomplish? In Wall-E, we are carried through the beginning with no dialogue, focusing on Wall-E's lonely, hardworking personality. In Toy Story we view the interactions between each character and devote our time to the conflict between Buzz and Woody. Lisa, your statement is just as unoriginal as Up.
Ebert also lends a four-star review for the film, lending one unoriginal compliment after another.
It begins with a romance as sweet and lovely as any I can recall in feature animation.There. Even he states the movie's unoriginality; the story is just the same as others animated features! So why does Up deserve such praise? This statement sums up (pun intended) the film completely: there isn't anything truly original about it. There are funny animals, there are talking animals, there's a dramatic, touching plot weaved in with comedy. So what.
Kenneth Turan's review at NPR stated one of Up's achievement is tackling "one of Hollywood's taboos: old people" by having the main character a lonely old man who - as the reviewer states - carries a walker. But, how can this film tackle that taboo by also supplying this "old man" the strength to carry his home across a large plateau, literally running from talking dogs and birds? Don't tell me that this film is tackling a taboo; they're exaggerating the character to child-like form to make it less taboo.
Perhaps my review is biased; I am constantly thinking of Wall-E, which achieved an extremely high dose of originality: politically, the film tackled an incredibly important issue in the current world, forecasting the destruction of Earth and mankind. As an animated feature, the film used live-action in small doses to expose the issues expressed in the film, making the audience more attached and intertwined in the story. And, of course, providing an almost silent film with even more expressive emotion and story. Wall-E, it seems, will always be Pixar's greatest achievement, whereas Up tries to fly too high.
