Up review

 Number 134 on the top 1000 films of all time is Disney Pixar's family drama Up

Carl Frederickson (ken aster) has just lost his wife after decades of being together. Facing the prospect of losing his home too, he resolves to fulfill a lifelong dream of visiting the famous Paradise Falls. He is joined by wilderness explorer Russell (Jordan Nagari) who stows away unknown to Carl.

Up was released in 2009. It was the latest in the long line of successes from the prosperous animation studio. Like many Pixar films before it, Up had that rare ability to have you crying tears of laughter and sadness. 

The elderly Carl Frederickson is an unlikely hero, but that made him no less of an endearing character. His goals of wanting to fulfill an unrealised dream are relatable to all. He forms a touching father-son relationship with the wilderness explorer Russell - made all the more pertinent by Russell's rocky relationship with his own father and Carl's inability to have children with his wife.

Russell's good yet blundering personality provided a lot of the film's humour but also served as a great counterbalance to Carl's grumpy-old-man-ness. There is a lot of heart to back up the humour. We've already spoken about Carl and Russell's touching relationship, but there is also Carl's romance with his childhood sweetheart Ellie. The ten minute montage showing their relationship develop over the decades was more poignant than some whole two-hour films.

Up also has its share of interesting supporting characters from the bird Kevin to the "talking" dog Doug to the villainous Charles Muntz (Christopher Plummer.) All of these added something to this film.

And as you would expect from Disney Pixar, the animation was always on-point too. If you haven't seen Up yet, what are you waiting for? It was a brilliant feel-good film that will have you crying tears of laughter and sadness. 

MegaMind review

 Number 990 on the top 1000 films of all time is the animated superhero comedy 'Megamind.'

Megamind (Will Ferrell) is a supervillain in Metro City. He has a fierce rivalry with super hero Metro Man (Brad Pitt.) However, after Megamind seemingly kills Metro Man, he feels lost and powerless. That is until he creates a new super hero. But this super hero quickly becomes a villain which Megamind must beat to save Metro City.

I totally see what this film was going for. It's trying to be a clever re-invention of the superhero genre. But a parody of a cliche is still a cliche. Megamind pointed out plenty of the cliches present within the superhero genre, but instead of subverting them like arguably better film, it tries to put a funny spin on them and fails miserably. Like many superhero films, Metro Man and Megamind have a big dialogue in the build-up to their final confrontation. Yet this dialogue gets progressively sillier and it adds nothing to the overall plot.

That's also a prime example of the film's poor attempts at humour. Many of the jokes fell completely flat and Will Ferrell's lacklustre performance did nothing to help things. He tried doing an imitation of Vito Corleone in the Godfather, and it was one of the worse imitations I've ever heard. Brad Pitt was was surprisingly uncharismatic as Metro Man.

Megamind and Metro Man are in themselves parodies of Superman - both are alien refugees sent to earth as their own planet is sucked into a black hole. Metro Man is handsome and popular at school, while Megamind is ugly and bullied. He goes onto begin resenting Metro Man before fully embracing his role as a supervillain. 

And that's largely all I can remember from this film, as I kept falling asleep. I wouldn't even say it was a kid's film, because I don't think it would be that entertaining for children to watch. Or for anybody to watch for that matter.