UP Up, and away!!

One word: Wow!

Saw Disney's new animated film "UP" in 3D last night, and it was very, very good.

First, the bad news. This was (for me) an eye-poppingly expensive trip to the movies. For two adults, two kids, two sodas, a large popcorn and a bag of M&Ms, the tab ran to about $65! Yikes! The tickets alone were $45. We won't be doing that again soon.

The not-so-bad news: The incremental cost for the 3D version vs. 2D was only about $2 per ticket, and, to me, well worth it at least once.

The good news: This movie is classic Pixar greatness. I don't know what these guys put in their coffee, but they make some really great movies! I went into UP with low expectations, since I hadn't read much about it and the premise of the movie wasn't terribly clear to me. I expected it to be your basic animated kid flick. Boy was I surprised. The story is engaging, with a nice balance of fun, whimsy, and poignant moments.

The opening story tells how the old man Carl meets his beau, Ellie as a child and follows their romance (silently) from marriage to Ellie's death bed (handled quite well even for the young set). Immediately, you are engaged and feel for this guy. I found myself looking over at my wife and wondering how I will feel if I should be the one to outlive her after such a lifetime. That's good screenwriting when you identify with a character that quickly and deeply with so few words spoken.

The rest of the movie is a well-handled mix of pure fun and just enough seriousness. We follow Carl as he and Roger (a Cub ScoutWilderness Explorer with an absentee dad) as he uses a bunch of helium balloons and a clever bedsheet->sail arrangement to float his house to the remote Paradise Falls in South America. Here, he encounters a strange bird, a bunch of talking dogs ("Squirrel!") and a disgraced explorer who was Carl's childhood hero.

I won't spoil the plot for you, but this is definitely a must-see. It ranks up there with Pixar's best, and is quite engaging for the grownups, too.

Now, as for the 3D. This is some seriously cool technology. Put your geek hat on for a moment. A normal animated film is projected at 24 frames per second onto the screen. Both eyes see the same image, and it changes 24 times a second, creating the illusion of smooth motion.

For Disney Digital 3D (a brand of RealD Cinema technology), they make a few changes. First, they hand you a cheap pair of plastic sunglasses. The lenses are circularly polarized, but in opposite directions - so the left lens is polarized clockwise and the right lens is polarized counterclockwise. Polarized lenses only allow light that is polarized the same way as the lens to pass through.

Next, they increase the frame rate to 72 frames per second. A polarizing filter is placed in front of the lens that switches the polarization of the image for each frame. So, instead of projecting a single image on the screen every 1/24 of a second, six images are projected in sequence, like this:

1. Left Eye (clockwise)
2. Right Eye (counter-clockwise)
3. Left Eye (clockwise)
4. Right Eye (counter-clockwise)
5. Left Eye (clockwise)
6. Right Eye (counter-clockwise)

Whichever image is being projected, the "wrong" eye sees black, or nearly so. This all happens so fast that your brain can't really follow. What it "sees" is a pair of slightly different images in each eye, creating the illusion of 3 dimensional sight.

The end result, compared to earlier attempts at 3D, is nothing short of fantastic. The image doesn't just jump out at you. It appears three-dimensional, stretching both into and out of the screen, just as if you were viewing a real three-dimensional scene from a short distance away. All of this works quite well, and because it uses circular polarization instead of linear, you don't have to hold your head still for it to work correctly. Brilliant!

There are a number of movies already out, and many more on the way using this technology, and it really works - even with live action! You feel like you could reach out and grab some of the screen objects.

I will mention one subtle but very, very important thing that "UP" has over previous 3D attempts. The movie itself makes proper use of 3D. No gimmicks. No shots where something "jumps out" at you clearly for no valid reason other than to show off the 3D effect. Nothing cheesy at all. The three dimensionality quickly fades into the background and becomes just another part of the movie. Scenes where it makes sense to see 3D, such as when the fighter planes are circling the house are shown in 3D. Scenes where it doesn't make sense (such as close-ups) are not, and it all blends together into a masterful whole.

In short, this is an excellent work by some near-genius filmmakers and technologists. Despite the expense, I highly recommend checking this movie out in 3D if it won't break your budget. I'm not sure I'd spend the cash to see it twice in 3D, though when it goes to the "dollar theater" I'd be happy to see it again in 2D... and if the 3D version shows up at the dollar (not likely due to the extra costs for a modified digital projector and special screen), I'd pay a little extra to see that!