Of all the studios to get into a rut, the very last studio I expected to fall into this kind of a slump was Pixar. I've come to expect this from Disney once in a while and Dreamworks has yet to get on a real role with their films. There are obviously more animation studios besides those three, but they've also never hit the same levels of success as these three. But Pixar's slump (at least in my eyes) began with one of the most anticipated films of all time: Toy Story 3. After this film was released, a string of iffy to poor animated films followed, resulting in an unexpected off year for Pixar. In 2015, however, Pixar was back in full force and released their next new film.
Much like how WALL-E and Up captured the imaginations of children with original ideas and unique and lovable characters, Inside Out manages to capture the hearts and minds of both children and adults and showed signs that even with "Sequel Syndrome" plaguing them (Thanks Disney), they can still come up with something charming and original.
Plot: A bunch of emotions live inside the mind of a girl named Riley from Minnesota. These emotions include Joy, Sadness, Fear, Disgust, and Anger. All of the emotions try to work together to keep Riley afloat, but often dismiss Sadness because they do not know her true purpose. What complicates matters though is Riley's family's departure to San Francisco, where she has to start her life all over again and the emotions try their hardest to keep her happy in this difficult time in her life. But Sadness's sorrow begins to cause irreparable damage to Riley's memories, prompting Joy to try everything in her power to keep the happiness from fading, but an accident knocks them both out of Riley's mind and into the far off reaches of the girl's memory. To make matters worse, the others try to keep Riley in good spirits and fail miserably, only to inadvertently cause Riley to run away back to Minnesota. Needing to set things right, Joy and Sadness must hurry back to Headquarters before Riley's memories collapse into misery and depression.
What's Wrong?: There are a few issues with the film, but the issues are not very major. One thing I noticed early on was how many emotions the film neglected to show us. I mean, surely there are more emotions than the five shown on screen, right? Like jealousy, love, common sense, etc. They obviously couldn't overinflate the film with characters, but still, it would have been nice to have some extra ones instead of others covering more vague levels.
What's Good?: This is one of those rare films that does not need a major sinister villain to get the plot rolling. More often than not, most films feel the need to rely on an antagonist like a Jafar or a Ratigan to act as a foil to the main character and drive the plot. But not in this film. The film allows circumstance and stereotypes to foil the good guys drives to keep things in order, which is a fresh idea over the lackluster villains we've been getting from Marvel and Disney recently.
The animation is also incredible once again. Showing signs that Pixar is indeed still a top dog in this animation race (though Disney seems eager to claim it with their recent animated films Zootopia and Moana). Even though many say they reached their peak in human animation in The Incredibles, I like to think of their animation as ever evolving. The humans in The Incredibles look very little like the humans in Up, and the humans in Brave look nothing like in this film. To put it bluntly, Pixar would need to make another movie about inanimate objects to really disappoint me on a larger scale.
One thing I would also like to cover is the colors of the world inside Riley's head. They look brilliant, alongside such sweeping films as Aladdin and Pocahontas. I love how colorful the designs of the emotions are and how they can range from all sorts of those colors. Like how Anger goes from crimson to maroon in some scenes. It's just beautiful to look at.
Overall: Inside Out proved to me that Pixar still has some magic up their sleeves. So long as they stay away from sequels, prequels, spinoffs, and otherwise stupid ideas, they should have no worries about falling into Disney's shadow once again. And Pixar would have to try pretty damn hard to shatter these expectations. Could they? Um...
Final Grade: 95 or A
The animation is also incredible once again. Showing signs that Pixar is indeed still a top dog in this animation race (though Disney seems eager to claim it with their recent animated films Zootopia and Moana). Even though many say they reached their peak in human animation in The Incredibles, I like to think of their animation as ever evolving. The humans in The Incredibles look very little like the humans in Up, and the humans in Brave look nothing like in this film. To put it bluntly, Pixar would need to make another movie about inanimate objects to really disappoint me on a larger scale.
One thing I would also like to cover is the colors of the world inside Riley's head. They look brilliant, alongside such sweeping films as Aladdin and Pocahontas. I love how colorful the designs of the emotions are and how they can range from all sorts of those colors. Like how Anger goes from crimson to maroon in some scenes. It's just beautiful to look at.
Overall: Inside Out proved to me that Pixar still has some magic up their sleeves. So long as they stay away from sequels, prequels, spinoffs, and otherwise stupid ideas, they should have no worries about falling into Disney's shadow once again. And Pixar would have to try pretty damn hard to shatter these expectations. Could they? Um...
Final Grade: 95 or A
I must admit, I liked how the movie ended up, but the basic premise of it was a little too outlandish for my liking- to the point that I'm rather hesitant to watch it a second time...
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