UP - No PG rating?

Up - No PG rating?

There are times when kids cry at the movies. There are times when kids and their parents both cry at the movies. As to the first incident, parents console their kids. As to the second, kids and their parents console each other. We finally have a third group. When parents cry but not the kids.

The movie is UP.

If you were to have seen Eight Below - the story of sled dogs stranded in the Arctic you may have witnessed both adults and children crying side by side in the theater. If you are an animal lover, how could you not? Given all the anthropomorphism in the movies it would hard to fight against the notion that the valiant dogs braved the winter cold and worked with each other to eventually be saved by their human friends. Hard to pass up.

Then there's UP, the new release by Disney. There's something there for the kids of course. A wacky bird named Kevin (what else?), talking dogs whose attention is always capable of being diverted by the possible of a squirrel near by (true, true), and the boy scout trying to win his last merit badge.

But the underlying story will, I think, escape the kids. Carl, the leading figure in the movie - modeled after either Andy Rooney or the crotchety version of Spencer Tracy - is bound and determined to complete an adventure the he had promised to his wife. He teams up with Russel - a boy scout who needs his last merit badge - and begins a trek that will hopefully give each of them what they need. Pretty straightforward story line bound to reach its foregone conclusion.

But what makes this a movie not for kids takes place in Carl's private inward life's journey. His quest to fulfill a promise he made to his wife takes a dramatic turn that leaves adults - if they have any heart at all - taking a deep breath and perhaps shedding a tear or two. I don't think young children will get it. They may giggle at the talking dogs or the house floating over the countryside but they won't get the subtleties of Carl's journey.

Siskel and Ebert once remarked that what made a movie memorable for them was that when you woke up the morning after you saw the movie you remembered and cared about the characters. One cannot see this movie without remembering the experience that Carl had which goes to prove that telling a good story isn't restricted to the media that we are used to. In the past in order to be exposed to a story we had to listen to someone or read a book or attend a play or opera or see a film with real actors.

We now have another choice. Animated films.

First there was WALL-E and now there's UP.

Leave the children at home and go see a good film.