Up, up and away!

We here in poor Blighty have had to wait nearly five months for Pixar’s latest movie to get a national release. I thought staggered releases across the world were a thing of the past, but it seems a few bean counters don’t quite agree with the one world policy.

I went to see Up with Lis and Em in 3D. Having spoken to Iain and Elsa who had recently seen it in 3D, I decided to give it a whirl to see how it would fare. The glasses you wear are just like the ones you get at themeparks, with the lenses designed to block out certain parts of the picture and not for others. The movie was preceded by an interactive 3D game, heavily sponsored by O2, though this was at the expense of the Pixar short that is usually shown before the main feature.

Up is an immensely likable movie. I’d like to believe there are some elements borrowed from Studio Ghibli’s Laputa, as well as Disney movies of yore (watch out for Dug’s tracking move). The animation is top notch, with the flesh transparency effect first introduced in Wall-e being perfected in this outing. The 3D effects are subtle, but offer incredible depth of field, especially in the South American scenes. There aren’t any dodgy things flying out of the screen at you like at themeparks, and you get used to novelty of wearing 3D glasses very quickly.

Overall, expect something as good as Monsters Inc, but not quite Toy Story levels of awesomeness.