That was an excellent one.

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

This short animation tells the story of a happy blue umbrella in the crowd of unhappy umbrellas. He meets a red umbrella by chance, and they fall in love.I cannot quite believe that a film that is only seven minutes can still be far too long. It can easily be cut into just two minutes. I was honestly thoroughly bored by the lack of things happening most of the time. The only time when things get a little exciting is when the umbrella gets blown over. Other times it is just plain boring. The story is not convincing or likely either. The only good point is that no human faces are shown, even though the film is actually related to the owners of the umbrellas.

I know this is animation and we're supposed to be dazzled, but I had the opposite reaction. I did love it, I do marvel at it, but it's so well done I allowed myself to believe it was real. That's the goal, I think, of this kind of animation work, this advancement and it was so advanced beyond what we've come to expect I said YES and went along with it. Of course, I know the truth ... but my 7-year old nephew who watched it with me did not think it was animation. For him and for children, inanimate objects can come to life, they can have faces, they can have drama. So I watched from his perspective and it was marvelous.I hope this kind of work continues and becomes so accepted that audiences will stop talking about the technical and come back to the story. (Or as much.)I will note that in my opinion, the storytellers worked very hard to prevent any decision of male or female for their humans. There was only one moment when I thought "that's a woman" -- otherwise, it could have been two men, two women, one of each ... I wonder if people are assuming male/female because of the colors of the umbrellas and boots? Or because the umbrellas' faces have been rendered with choice of male/female? Then again, that's ME making an assumption, that long eyelashes and coy looks are female. And that's not necessarily so!As far as the idea of coupling it with MONSTERS UNIVERSITY, I think it's a great idea. As I said, I watched it with my nephew and he has watched it over and over and over again, making my purchase of the DVD even more worth its value than if he was just watching an obviously animated movie. I'm happy for him that he also got a smaller packaged gift of suspension of disbelief.

Amidst a sea of black umbrellas, a blue umbrella falls for a red umbrella and risks everything to be with her.Holy cow, just looking at the almost unanimously glowing reviews here you would think that The Blue Umbrella was a work of both pure genius and originality, revolutionary in terms of storytelling and in technical execution. It's not. It's an overly twee short blessed with excellent CGI animation that frequently verges on realism but saddled with a predictable narrative and a saccharine sweet ending.I'm also rather surprised that no-one has mentioned just how weird it is to see umbrellas—inanimate objects with zero control over where they go—fall in love; it's a bizarre concept that just doesn't work for me (and one that raises too many questions in my mind about how they might take their relationship to the next level).5/10, largely for the technical skill that went into creating such photo-realistic animation.

Grade: BB / 60%My screening for Monsters University began with Pixar short called 'The Blue Umbrella'. Not surprising as Pixar is known for screening a short film before its main features, but Indian theaters never played one perhaps, until today.A typically touching Pixar short on a blue colored umbrella (with little eyes) enamored with a red colored umbrella-ina (also with little eyes) one rainy night, The Blue Umbrella is a familiar tale yet Pixar livens up this film with its little magical moments. Its not just about to umbrellas here, but about two people - the owners of these umbrellas - who meet for the first time, after the blue umbrella chases after it's or rather his lady love, using the wind to move.And the entire street -the drain pipes, the traffic signal, the street lights, the building windows -  witnesses this incident with their little eyes. When a car threatens to mangle the blue umbrella that's helplessly lying in the middle of the road, the drain it's lying on blows out steam so it can avert the accident.It's not Pixar at its best; for that you'll need to catch 'Geri's Game', 'Knicks Knack', 'Lifted', 'For The Birds' and ''Presto'. But you'd surely shed a tear or two at the very end because you'd find 'The Blue Umbrella' simple yet very heartfelt.