UP

I was hopeful about the UP app because I love Pixar movies. We look forward to a new one each summer and it’s always great to go to a family movie without worrying about what kind of explaining we’ll have to do on the car ride home. My husband and son have seen UP and loved it and I’m planning on taking my girls in the next couple of weeks. But I was really disappointed in the Up app. It just seemed so pointless to me, as if someone decided the movie needed an app for promotional reasons and they just threw it together.

The whole point of the game is to pop as many balloons as you can in forty-five seconds. You do this by tapping on the balloons with your finger. This gets old quickly and your finger gets tired. That’s it, no levels to pass, nothing but a high score to earn and then attempt to beat over and over. Now I haven’t seen the movie yet, so I don’t know if popping balloons is a key plot element, but it seems silly to me that a game about popping balloons goes with a movie where balloons are needed to make a house fly. I’d think that popping balloons would be a catastrophe in this case.

More entertaining than the game are some of the extras that come with the app. You can watch the movie trailer and additional videos or read character biographies. You can also save wallpapers from the movie to your photo album and then put them on your iPhone. But all of that isn’t enough to make me recommend the UP app.

Price when Reviewed: Free

See the app at iTunes

Seller: Disney