Up? No more like really down.

How is it that an animated movie by Pixar (a Disney owned company) creates one of the most depressing movies I have seen in a long time? Well for those who have not seen the movie lots of spoilers lie ahead, but here is how you take an animated movie and make it horribly depressing.

First start off with a brief explanation of how our hero meets his wife as a young child and how they both want to travel to South America to be explorers. Next start showing a montage of your hero's life in which you grow up, get married, want to have lots of children with your wife for her only to find out that she can't have kids at all. Now montage your dream of going to South America by slowly saving up money and have it crushed time and again by random bad luck occurrences (broken leg, car repairs, etc.) If that wasn't enough lets say you finally do save up enough money in your old age to buy a plane ticket and go see Venezuela but by now your wife's physical condition isn't too good and she is on the last legs of her life. And this is all within the opening 20 minutes of the film.

Now lets just go ahead and fast forward and list through the rest of the depressing things: young boy sidekick's family is basically in shambles; he tries so hard to get one badge ala boy scouts just to see his dad; despite getting the badge he still doesn't get to see his dad; the older man's childhood hero, the reason he wanted to travel to South America in the first place, tries to kill him and the young boy sidekick.

Talking dogs and a lovable colorful ostrich type bird cannot cover up the entirity of the depressing nature of the film. There was no light at the end of the tunnel. It did not even end happily.