Up: 4 stars (you were right Teresa)

Plot: Widower Carl Fredricksen has nothing left to loose. While being forced out of his house and into a nursing home he decides to take the adventure of a lifetime. He turns his house into a flying one using thousands of helium balloons. However, he ends up with a partner and his adventure takes some unexpected turns.

Up is yet another fantastic Pixar animated film. Along with the eye-popping animation (the texture and animation in these films is starting to become out of this world), Pixar always seems to come up with characters and stories that would hold up just as well outside of the animated world, and Up is no exception. There really isn't much to complain about with this film. The one thing I could think of is that some areas lack common sense and realism, but that thought came while I was watching an eighty year old man fly his house to South America with helium balloons. I guess I can let the fact that he never eats or drinks slide.

The story is very touching and will probably hit the sweet spot of many viewers hearts. Pretty much any cliched adjective can be applied to this film, so I'll try to keep it to a minimum. The characters are all fantastic, but the scene stealers are the animals. The talking dog Dug and Kevin the bird are so fun to watch and attribute greatly to all of the films most enjoyable scenes. There are beautiful scenes, belly laugh scenes and some tense action scenes as well. Up has everything for every age group. I'm always impressed that Pixar can pull this off so well with every film. A two year old can sit and be enamored by the beautiful colors and simple humor and adults can enjoy the same things but also pick up on the subtleties meant just for us.

Up is presented in normal 2D or digital 3D. I was really impressed with my first 3D experience during Coraline earlier this year so was excited to see Up in 3D. However, I was disappointed with the 3D in this film. In fact the most exciting 3D came during a trailer for a different movie. Nothing really ever popped out on the screen like it did with Coraline. So don't feel like you're missing anything if you see Up in 2D. One thing you might miss if you don't go see this in theaters is the short film Partly Cloudy that precedes the main attraction. Sometimes they include things like this on the DVD and sometimes they don't. If you can, definitely go see Up in the theaters just to make sure you see this short film. It is very creative, and beautiful and not to be missed.

I would say Up is my third favorite Pixar film behind Finding Nemo and Ratatouille, but that is a personal choice and could definitely change with time. The bottom line is that Up is great. So go see it!