TIME’s Richard Corliss wasn’t the only critic head over heels for Up. Each review popping UP for Pixar’s next film is extremely positive, in fact the film has a 100% on Rotten Tomatoes as of today!
The Hollywood Reporter was full of love for Up:
"Winsome, touching and arguably the funniest Pixar effort ever, the gorgeously rendered, high-flying adventure is a tidy 90-minute distillation of all the signature touches that came before it."
Read the rest of this review by Michael Rechtshaffen here.
Screen Daily had nothing but praise for Pixar’s 10th:
"A highpoint of ingenuity and storytelling in the Pixar canon and indeed the animated form, this is a fitting opening to this year’s Cannes Film Festival; indeed it will be hard for any other film there to match the storytelling genius and gorgeous 3D imagery which Docter and his team have achieved."
Read reviewer Mike Goodridge’s full thoughts here.
Variety is also hailing Up:
"[Up] proves disarming in its deep reserves of narrative imagination and surprise, as well as its poignant thematic balance of dreams deferred and dreams fulfilled."
Read Todd McCarthy’s full review here.
Roger Ebert enjoyed the film tremendously as well:
"This is a wonderful film. It tells a story. The characters are as believable as any characters can be who spend much of their time floating above the rain forests of Venezuela. "
Read his review from The Chicago Sun-Times here.
Check out more amazing review, and find out who said "As of May, Best Picture of the Year" over at Rotten Tomatoes!
Last modified: May 12, 2009
If a critic generally loves Pixar before, hardly see him dislike Up. So it can be guaranteed more than 90% fresh (to sound so easy).
First rotten review for WALL-E came after 15 reviews or so. I’m not gonna hold my breath but the usual suspects haven’t had their reviews out. Let’s see if Up can change their minds.
I know what you mean… Let’s cross our fingers! 🙂
Guaranteed to give it a bad review are Armond White and Kyle Smith. Not sure who the others will be to lower its score.
There’s always some critic who has to give a negative review of a Pixar film just so they can be the first to do so and get attention for themselves/their blog. I’m convinced that’s why they do it, not simply because the film wasn’t their cup of tea. I’m not being a biased Pixar fan either.
Phil Villareal from the Arizona Republic is sure to hate it as well. He gave bad scores to both Wall*E and Ratatouille, noting he thought he was the victim of some conspiracy because he doesn’t see the appeal.
Granted, he also liked Monsters vs Aliens, saying he “liked it better than any of Pixar’s offerings in the past 5 years” – he apparently just wants ha-has in his animated films and brain activity be damned.
Were you aware some of the release dates had changed? Here I had a giant countdown timer on my computer set for Up! on June 4th in Australia and they’ve pushed it back to September 3rd. martini833 you’re in Australia with me, you’ve gotta be peeved man. Why do they have such a huge variation in launch dates? I don’t know of any other film studio that does this. It’s not like it’s gotta be dubbed over. We speak English here too, you know?
Izaac.
I completely agree with Ebert’s review. Finally. someone else besides myself who’s not all that thrilled about the integration of 3-D into every living thing…..
Anonymous #3: Just for the record I am in the US bawpcnwn is in Australia, and yes I am aware of that change, it’s quite unfortunate but Disney must have a reason for it, most likely holidays and such.
Fair enough if some critics don’t think the movie is super-dooper awesome, but to say you wouldn’t even recommend it to anyone else (which is what the RT score is based on), I find that hard to believe with at least half of the ‘rotten’ reviews for Pixar films. Their motives are, to quote Skinner, highly suspect!
Izaac – I’m from Australia, too. And I feel your pain. I was happy that Pixar had supposedly penciled in Up for release here on June 4 (Yay, not even a week’s difference), but was not at all surprised when they delayed it till September. A lot of us are pretty annoyed by it. They did the exact same thing with Ratatouille and WALL-E. You can vent your frustration here if you want: http://pixarplanet.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3821
I got to see the movie last night at the screening for the San Francisco Film Society. The screening was right on the Pixar campus….what an amazing place it is! In any case, my immediate thought was that the movie made me FEEL more than any previous Pixar film….it was both very emotional and very funny. In fact, there were several times in the movie when I had just finished building up to having a tear fall down my face and then was laughing hilariously immediately afterward.
And Partly Cloudy is my favorite short ever. I was laughing so hard I actually missed some of it because I could no longer see the screen
Anonymous no.2, Phil attended a screening and actually liked it, called it “the best Pixar film in 6 years”. Don’t know what it’ll turn to on the paper but still. Maybe this time one rotten review less than usual 😉
Phil Villareal, to my utter surprise, gave the film a good review. What annoys me, however, is that he keeps on making all these really bold claims about Pixar, such as “When was the last time you walked out of a movie simply giddy” (as though people didn’t get all excited over WALL-E) and “I liked [Monsters vs. Aliens] more than anything Pixar has made over the last five years”. He’s still entitled to his opinion of course, but I honestly get the feeling that he’s making these claims just to garner attention, which I find somewhat irritating (I could be wrong, but I just have that gut feeling).
We are yet to hear from Kyle Smith (who seems to be suffering from a case of Pixar envy) and of course, the always “reliable” Armond White. Armond’s reliable because whatever he says, you have a very high probability of disagreeing with. He called “I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry” an “instant classic” for crying out loud.
And Mitch, I absolutely agree with Ebert’s review as well. Although I’m not a dissenter of 3D technology, I think it’s essential for a film to kind of “stand on its own” even without the 3D. From the filmmaker’s point of view, the excessive amount of attention given to 3D can often distract from the story, characters, and all the other important qualities of film.
more positive early reviews are coming in:
http://thewebgangsta.com/index.php/2009/05/movie-review-disney-pixars-up/
http://emanuellevy.com/reviews/details.cfm?id=13413