Up

Last week I finally had the chance to see Disney's 2009 anmitaed film "Up" which everyone who had seen it loved so far.
Here is a very short summary taken from imdb:

A young Carl Fredrickson meets a young adventure spirited girl named Ellie. They both dream of going to a Lost Land in South America. 70 years later, Ellie has died. Carl remembers the promise he made to her. Then, when he inadvertently hits a construction worker, he is forced to go to a retirement home. But before they can take him, he and his house fly away. However he has a stowaway aboard. An 8 year old boy named Russell, who's trying to get an Assisting the Elderly badge. Together, they embark on an adventure, where they encounter talking dogs, an evil villain and a rare bird named Kevin.

www.media-file.net

So far so good. If the plot would have focused on exactly the bit pointed out above I'm sure I would have loved the film deeply. The scenes of Carl's past and his relationship with Ellie are done in such a wonderful and moving way I had to fight with tears more than once. You (or at least I) don't expect that sort of short and poignant portrait of an ageing couple and what happened in their life and to their dreams  in an animated film aming for a young audience. The scene where she gets told that she won't be able to have children on her own...nearly as sad as the worst bits of "The Lion King".
But then the directors have the urge to construct some sort of plot and that is the moment it started to lose big amounts of it's magic (same with "Wall-E"). I'm not a fan of any sort of action movie and my major problem with the Disney type of film is that there always has to happen something, always needs to be someone evil, it always leads to a big fight. I find that boring and disturbing at the same time. Guess I'm just childish and will always adore "Winnie the Pooh" for being so quiet, enchanting and harmless. Or arthouse films which don't lead to anything spectacular...
Anyway, it is a good film in general with some funny scenes, it's crafted immaculately and I would happily watch it again. But unfortunately for me the magic of the first 20min gets broken too much...

PS: The character of Charles F. Muntz looked familiar (weird to say that about an animated figure) - can anyone help me with that?