This time however I was convinced after several Sunday afternoons of watching Shrek and Monsters Inc that we would be able to make it through the whole film. So after being stripped of my hard-earned cash to the value of £16.10 on tickets and another £11 on pick n’ mix, popcorn and two drinks. We took our seats at the back of the cinema….

Up. This is Disney Pixar’s attempt to continue on a long run of recent successes (box office) which started with the over-rated Wall-E. I’m a big fan of Disney and especially the later Pixar films with Toy Story being the benchmark of any childrens film. I dont ‘get’ Wall-E’. Pixar’s latest offering combines all the elements of a brilliant animated feature film. Its focused around Carl Fredricksen, a grumpy old pensioner who defies the developers planning to knock down his home by tieing thousands of multi-coloured balloons to the roof and floating off on an expedition to south America followed by an irritating brownie boy scout called Russell.

The back bone to the film is the incredible start which builds the relationship of Carl and his wife from dreaming young explorers to silver-haired love birds. In this ten minute sequence you connect with the plot of the film and are more importantly, pulled by the heart-strings by an otherwise grumpy old man. Carl Fredricksen is the plot. The characters and the Carl plot flow at a steady pace with all the twists and turns you expect. The only thing I would say which makes this come second to Toy Story in the Pixar hall of fame would be its character ‘like-ability’ or commercial exploitation potential. I can’t see any characters you could run to the Disney Store to folk money out on. I’m thinking of a Buzz or Sully?

Up is an amazing film that I would recommend seeing and owning (not in 3D though…grrr!), I’m looking forward to the next from Pixar. I wonder when the first ‘Pixar World’ will be built……..