This Way Up (2008)

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Many films have attempted to make movies on death with humour that certainly will not appeal to everybody, but those who like it will probably really enjoy it. This is one of them. However, for me personally, this was not a triumph. We follow a duo of father and son who work in the undertaking business, but run into trouble when a chain reaction causes a huge rock to fall on their car. There are some nice references in here about death such as the river Styx or also that the protagonists' death is so close to them when that rock hits the car and a couple more. Still I have to say the humor did not appeal to me too much. Apart from that, the plot was also not well-constructed. It was never really clear if the old lady was dead or even if the two undertakers were still alive in the latter parts of the film.Also the parade scene did not work for me at all. It stood so much in contrast to the whole atmosphere before that and the ending was not my cup of tea either. Why would they jump in the hole as well? So random. The final song was nice, but I cannot really make a connection between the music there and the 9-minute short film before that. The animation is fine. The Academy quite loved it as they granted it a nomination in the Best Animated Short Subject category. There, it lost to the (in my opinion far superior) Japanese entry. I kinda like the title though: "This Way Up". But that alone is not enough to let me forget about all the negative and mediocre aspects here. Not recommended and I cannot say I am too surprised that Foulkes and Smith, the two filmmakers behind this, have not worked on more movies in the last 7 years according to their IMDb filmography. I hope when they start a comeback, they will have improved.

I sort of found this by mistake while browsing youtube. I loved it, honestly it was a laugh-riot, reminded me of some of Tim Burton's works, with flawless animation, catchy soundtrack and a creative and lovable pair of characters, despite the fact that they work in a rather dreary business.The plot follows two morticians as they struggle to get one of their "clients" to his final resting place, and they have to overcome a variety of obstacles. It's very short but still really effective and memorable. It deserves a 10/10, I loved it and I highly recommend it! Not all animation has to be that happy cheery Disney crud to be good, sometimes it's much better to be original.

When watching this short it is easy to think that it takes Pixar style design and Tim Burtonesque plot. The focus of the short is on two funeral directors who have to pick up a recently deceased person. However there hearse is destroyed and they have to take the coffin through a hell of a lot of obstacle course to get her to her resting peace and do it in respect.The animation was beautiful, so much better to some feature length films and television programmes. The characters could easily fit into a Pixar film like the Incredibles. The plot is comedy, but funerals is not an obvious subject for comedy. It in not a short for really young kids.I personally enjoyed this film.

Two gentleman must lay their dearly departed love one to rest--but circumstance largely forbids it. From an interesting chain reaction to bumbling mishaps while carrying the coffin, the two men go from the heights of hilarity to the depths of Hades just trying to get the damned woman into some holy ground. Jeez, if only it could be made easy by burying it somewhere else...This animation is a pretty witty and hilarious take on funereal ceremony. On the other hand, as fun as it is to watch, it didn't really add anything for them to go into the Land of the Dead and have to climb their way, Dante's Purgatorio-style, out. Frankly, it could have ended right as they got crushed by the giant boulder, making a pretty consistent and to-the-point comedy of ill-fate. Instead, even a short animation such as this can drag under the weight of the dead horse they were beating. Nonetheless, fun to watch and equally well-animated! --PolarisDiB