UP is a Hit at the Box Office…Great In 3-D!

Last weekend was the perfect weekend to take the family to the movies. It was cold, somewhat wet (a heavy mist in San Diego counts as rainy weather to me) and the little league field was too muddy to play baseball, so off to the theater we went. Friday night we went to see the most recent Pixar film, titled “UP” and we entered the theater not knowing anything about the movie other than the images of an older man floating his house away with an endless amount of helium balloons.

Being a huge fan of Pixar Studios, this didn’t bother me at all. Take past concepts like a cast of talking cars (Cars) or talking fish (Finding Nemo), or aliens (Monsters Inc.) or a variety of children’s toys (Toy Story) and you will find winners in every one of them. Kids can grasp the concept of floating your house away with balloons better than adults can, but the animation is so brilliant that even as an educated adult (not necessarily a positive attribute) you can totally relate to the characters and the storyline. I especially like the way that they can convey difficult situations for children to understand without the use of confusing dialog. They use music and video images to tell the story in a way that tugs at your heart strings while the message rings out loud and clear without ever saying a word.

To say I loved this movie goes without saying. The people at Pixar also created a version in 3-D to give yet another dimension of the brilliance of their creative team. Having seen several 3-D movies without being impressed, I would actually recommend seeing this one in 3-D. They don’t stoop to the gimmicks of pointless things reaching out to grab you; instead they use the 3-D images to add depth perception to every scene. When some characters are in the foreground, you actually feel like they are in front rather than on the same field. We returned to the theater two days after seeing UP the first time, to watch it in 3-D and were very happy with the result. The glasses are a huge step up from any 3-D glasses I have ever used, as they were very comfortable to wear for the time we spent at the movies. They even showed previews (about 15-20 minutes of previews and a new Pixar movie short) in 3-D which was very cool.

So my advice to you is to grab the kids and head over to Edwards Cinemas this weekend and take in the best movie out for the entire family. The only concern for protective parents is the topic of death is brought up in a very sweet, touching manner as described above in the second paragraph. Still, I took my 6 year old to this movie twice, and I will more than likely add it to my video collection when it comes out on DVD as well. I just hope they send the same 3-D glasses with the 3-D video! Go see UP, and you will know why it is #1 at the box office.