Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past couple weeks, you’ve probably heard the news that Inside Out is a wonderful movie and perhaps one of Pixar’s best. Inside Out, Pixar’s 15th feature-length film, is about 5 emotions – Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Anger (Lewis Black), Fear (Bill Hader) and Disgust (Mindy Kaling) – living inside of Riley, an 11-year-old girl who recently moved with her family from Minnesota to San Francisco. Riley is typically a happy, positive thinking girl, but when Joy and Sadness cause Riley to lose her core memories which power her personality, they have to do whatever it takes to return them to Headquarters and fix Riley’s mood swings, incurred by being guided by Fear, Disgust and Anger.
What is so perfect about Inside Out is how unique every aspect of the story is. The concept of beings inside a body helping to control a person isn’t a new concept at all. Disney went down this road before with the Epcot attraction Cranium Command in the Wonders of Life pavilion.
What is unique is writer and director Pete Docter’s take on every aspect of the mind starting with the control center where the emotions can do their job to how personalities are developed, the imagination, the subconscious, and so much more. Every piece of this movie was carefully thought out by the creative team and story crew and it really shows.
Pixar is well known for making excellent movies for the entire family, but Inside Out really feels geared more towards adults than kids and it is refreshing. Children will love this film and laugh their way through it, especially at some of the recurring jokes, the emotions and one of Pixar’s greatest characters ever – Bing Bong, Riley’s imaginary friend who is mostly cotton candy, but also part cat/elephant/dolphin.
However, adults will walk away from the movie reflecting on their own emotions and thinking about how they got through portions of their life, especially the hard times and try to dig deep for those fond memories in the past that are hard to reach.
Being a Pixar film, the animation is second to none. The voice acting featuring some of today’s best comedians is right on spot. Early trailers and sneak peeks showed how perfect Amy Poehler was for the role of Joy, but Phyllis Smith kills her performance in every way, shape and form as Sadness. Also, the Michael Giachinno score does an outstanding job filling the charming and magical landscapes.
Inside Out is definitely the funniest and goofiest, yet emotional movie Pixar has done (and would deserve a special place on Goofball Island) since Up, which makes perfect sense considering Pete Docter was also behind that 2009 Best Animated Feature.
The best part of Inside Out, by a mile, is the fact that it is such a great movie. Pixar has struggled with its past three films (Cars 2, Brave and Monsters University) and needed a return to its former greatness. Since John Lasseter has started focusing more and more on Walt Disney Animation pictures and bringing them back on track, Pixar hit a few bumps in the road.
Judging by Frozen and Big Hero 6, it seems like Walt Disney Animation has found their way and Inside Out shows promise for an upcoming slate of Pixar films that includes mostly sequels, but also production-plagued The Good Dinosaur.
Pixar cannot underestimate how important it was for Inside Out to be as good as it is.
Overall, I cannot recommend Inside Out enough. Paired with the sweet, heartbreaking, romantic Lava short, Inside Out is a perfect event to see in theaters. Parents and kids will both take away something completely different from the movie, but I can guarantee practically everyone will walk away with a smile on their face.
Inside Out shows that sometimes the happiest moments come from sadness and when we embrace all of our emotions the memories we can make are endless. I personally think Inside Out is the most creative Pixar idea since Monsters Inc. and would give it a 9/10 rating.
Pick up a pack of Tripledent Gum and get to a theater to see Inside Out as quickly as you can.
Photos: © Disney
