Folks, the blockbuster movie season is almost ending.

But two movies this week should provide you a last hurrah.

First is the $175million action spectacle G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra that packs all the wallop you would want in a popcorn movie. Directed by The Mummy director Stephen Sommers, it follows the adventures of an elite task force that uses high-tech military equipment to take down the bad guys. And it comes with a good-looking cast that includes Channing Tatum and Sienna Miller.

Second is the terrific Pixar animation Up that tells a sweet, sad and funny story of a lonely widower who decides to go to South America. So he fills up 20,000 balloons with helium and ties them to his house. The balloons miraculously take him up in the air and towards the adventure of his life.

Which to watch? We say both.

Up

Moviemaker used to say: “You can’t predict whether a movie you make will be a box-office success or not. If you could, you’d be Steven Spielberg”. Well, that statement needs an update. Instead of “Spielberg”, it should now be “Pixar”.

Pixar hasn’t made a box-office dud ever since it debuted with Toy Story in 1995. Its animations have only gone from strength to strength. From Monsters Inc to Finding Nemo to The Incredibles to Ratatouille to WALL-E, Pixar seems to have found the right formula of heartfelt drama and hearty humor, injected into its all-too-human universe of rats, fish, monsters and robots.

Pixar’s new movie Up begins the way most of its cartoons do, with a devastating tragedy. A cranky 80-year-old codger (Ed Asner) has just lost his beloved wife of 60 years, the only friend he ever had. In loving memory of her, he decides to visit South America, something they had always planned to do but never got round to.

Instead of taking a plane, Ed ties 20,000 helium-filled balloons to his house and off it floats into the sky. What a hoot! The only problem is that a little Asian-American boyscout (Jordan Nagai) was on the porch when the house lifted off. So poor Ed now has to deal with the unintended company.

But as you might expect, the two slowly become friends as they experience the adventure of their lives…

Directed by Pete Doctor and Bob Peterson, Up is a feat of heart, humour and imagination. What begins as a completely strange story (old man ties balloons to house and flies off!) transforms into a sweet and unforgettable one about hope, friendship and love.

Those 20,000 balloons lifted Ed’s house up into the sky, and with it, our regard for Pixar.

Paramount Pictures’ last big-budget spectacle Transformers 2 got a (arguably unfair) trashing from critics who called its big, dumb and loud. So now the studio had refused to show G.I. Joe to critics before its release date. The studio spokesmen say they want the audiences to “define the film” before the critics do.

Now usually when a studio refuses to show a film to critics, it means the film is lousy. But not in this case. We got to watch G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra on Tuesday night, and we think it’s a perfectly fun popcorn movie. Laden with special-effects and terrific action sequences, it is just what audiences would want before the 2009 summer blockbuster season comes to a close.

Directed by Stephen Sommers (The Mummy, Van Helsing), it stars the hot Channing Tatum and Marlon Wayans as two talented soldiers who are recruited into an elite GI Joe team which has been tasked to stop evil Cobra arms dealers from taking over the world. Armed with high-tech spy and military equipments, the Joe soldiers track the Cobras to their base in the South Pole for a ferocious battle.

G.I. Joe the movie makes no pretence of being an important film. It is big, loud and dumb, and is irresistibly so. From the first reel to the last, it delivers pure adrenaline thrills with some spectacularly choreographed fight scenes to boot. Cast members like Channing Tatum, Sienna Miller and Rachel Nichols were obviously picked not so much for their dramatic acting skills but for how good they look in tight outfits. And the script is always secondary to the action.

For unadulterated thrills and spills, G.I. Joe is your man.