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Elderly, grumpy widower Carl (voiced by Ed Asner) decides to fulfil his late wife Ellie’s dream and visit South America

Elderly, grumpy widower Carl (voiced by Ed Asner) decides to fulfil his late wife Ellie’s dream and visit South America.

So he ties hundreds of balloons to his house and floats up, up and away... This buoyant comedy adventure is another triumph for animation studio Pixar and deservedly won an Oscar for Best Animated Film.

However, unlikely hero Carl’s trip to Paradise Falls is soon interrupted when he discovers that he has a stowaway on board, eight-year-old, eager-to-help boy scout Russell (Jordan Nagai).

The pair fetch up in a lost world deep in the jungles of South America, where they encounter a pack of talking dogs, a giant flightless bird named Kevin and the famous, long-missing explorer (Christopher Plummer) who was Carl's childhood hero.

The tale's thrills and spills are handled with Pixar's customary wit and verve, but the film's best sequence is a wordless montage that movingly tells the story of Carl and Ellie's long, childless marriage.

Witty, poignant and wonderfully absurd, this is up there with the best animated films ever made.