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Pete Docter was the first guy at Pixar to direct a film that John Lasseter wasn't in charge of, and his return to the job is a successful one. I didn't like it as much as Wall-E or The Incredibles, but it was still strong throughout and showed the studio's increased maturity and ambition to do something besides make kids laugh for an hour and a half. It's actually very deliberate about tugging at the heartstrings in the beginning, as we get a glimpse of protagonist Carl's entire life to explain why he decides to take off with a bunch of balloons in the first place. It honestly felt a bit manipulative, but it was still a well executed and fairly moving sequence. There's another scene later on that revisits the same idea that I actually thought was more effective.

But this is a family comedy, so most of the time is spent with Carl and young Russell the wilderness explorer floating on a house/airship and wandering through a strange jungle. If there's one thing Pixar can do, it's breathe new life into the simple slapstick humor of old cartoons. Normally a character like Kevin the bird would be only funny to little kids, but its movements are just so perfectly timed that I found myself laughing out loud at its antics repeatedly. And I loved the execution of the talking dogs. They could have been too silly, but the fact that they remain 100% dogs the entire time that they're acting like henchmen and servants just works perfectly.

And really, only maybe Hayao Miyazaki's films can match Pixar's for its incredibly inventive, unique, and exciting action sequences. It seems weird talking about an adventure movie starring an old man with a walking stick, but that's really what it is. The villain could have been developed better, as he goes from Carl's friendly childhood hero to murderous psychopath without much transition. I guess you can see how decades spent fruitlessly searching for something could make a man desperate and unstable, but some of his actions made me think "Really, you're doing this?" Oh well. Carl and Russell are likable characters with an interesting dynamic to their relationship, and overall the movie is quite funny with several moments of brilliance. Somewhere between the studio's fairly successful early work and their more genius stuff a bit earlier this decade.