Pixar has always been making classic after classic. The reason as to why is how they make their films both for children and adults. Kids will laugh or be engaged by the visuals or jokes, while the adults might admire the maturity and themes of the film. Notice that the worst films from the studio tend to lean towards pleasing children rather than having a balance for age groups while challenging viewers with certain ideologies or themes. "Inside Out" is probably the best example of why Pixar is the most acclaimed animation department in the industry. Riley is an eleven-year old girl who's family has just moved into San Francisco. She, along every being on earth, is home to emotions that manage the inner workings of the brain and mind, being responsible for making Riley herself. During this sudden adjustment to life, her inner emotions start to react horribly to the change, despite Joy's attempts to stay in control. While she is fighting with Sadness, due to the latter's sudden ability to turn happy memories into sad ones, the two manage to get sent outside of the headquarters into long-term memory. While the two emotions try to get back to the base, the other emotions (Anger, Fear, Disgust) attempt to take over Joy's job, but the emotional imbalance is causing Riley to not only act like herself, but might make her life more complicated. The story is mainly the adventure of Joy and Sadness as they try to make their way back home while exploring the human mind. There's no antagonist involved, but rather the characters acting out of impulse. Sure, the story itself can be home to a few plot holes, with the biggest being the memory recall tube and the unhelpful mind workers, but it's made clear that the story is not based on logic, but rather, as the film's overall subject, emotion. This is where the tone comes in. While the film, at first, and for most of the runtime seems to be quite juvenile or childish in terms of design and humour, it gets really serious and somewhat thought-provoking by the third act once the importance of Sadness comes in and the Memory Dump. While kids might be a bit too young to comprehend the themes and instead feel worry from the gloomy imagery, it's the older viewers who can understand the emotional impact of what Joy is feeling. With that said, the comedy is more on the childish side, which is not something that should be changed. After all, it's a family film at the end of the day and the light-hearted and silly jokes are needed to balance out the deep themes.
Joy, voiced by Amy Poehler, is one of the best animated protagonists when it comes to their personality and journey. Joy just wants to make Riley feel happy all of the time, which causes herself to have a bit of an ego-centric problem as she feels that only she's responsible for Riley's life. She would go far as to leave Sadness in the corner as she feels that she does more harm than good. However, as she learns the importance of Sadness in herself, she not only changes as a whole, but matures to be more accepting for the other emotions and realize that all of them are equal rather than only needing one. Sadness, voiced by Phyllis Smith, is another great character that works off on Joy. Although she seems to be more of an hinderance in the group as she appears to be constantly negative, she manages to finally earn her own self-worth when she finally manages to have some say and control in the situation due to how powerful her influence is in order to have Riley have more positive experiences. From then on, you got the other emotions. There's Anger (Lewis Black), an emotion who's prone to madness and makes things in the HQ more complicated, Fear (Bill Hader), a straight-man emotion who's always bullied by Anger by his reasoning, and Disgust (Mindy Kaling), a popular girl-esque emotion who looks after Riley's fashion and social status. Aside from the emotions, there's Bing Bong, Riley's imaginary friend who's been forgotten and helps out Joy, Riley herself, an eleven-year old preteen who loves hockey and her family struggling to keep up with the sudden transition, and her parents, which are the typical stressed-out couple that have to focus on work and sorting things out with the move. I won't lie, the actual human characters aren't too interesting as the film never focuses too much on them, but the emotions as well as Bing Bong are really fleshed out. What I love about these particular characters is that they aren't exactly morally good per se. A lot of them are hoping to have things their way and hope to undermine others, but they have enough reason to believe why they do the things they do. Even though their personalities can be summed up by their names, they are much more deeper than their key character, especially when it comes to Joy and Sadness.
The animation presented in this film is probably one of the most distinct styles and uses of colour in a modern animated film. There's a lot to unpack about the animation alone, so I will just go over some highlights. The particle effects on the emotions look great, giving them a fuzzy yet glossy appearance to them. The textures of materials in general are really polished and feasible I love the details given in the real world and how the colour is sucked out due to Riley's feelings about the move. Then, there's the world-building of Riley's brain. It's just so damn creative about how the film portrays the functions of emotions, memories and so much more aspects. Long-term memory is a endless archive, the emotions use a control panel that are suited to all of their needs despite the small size, dreams are presented as movies being shot in real time, the memory dump is a depressing sea of forgotten memories, the train of thought is literally a train, and so much more details are layered in the world they create. The score by Michael Giacchino is yet another excellent score ranking with the soundtracks of the Pixar library. The main theme is both simple, beautiful, innocent, and mature, it's one of the best main themes in the animated field. The majority of his tracks tend to be on the playful, charming side, but when things get serious, it either gets really quiet or somber. Giacchino crafts a great score that remains as one of his best in his career. Pete Doctor always tends to be directing some of the best films in Pixar and this is no exception.
"Inside Out" is going to be coming down as an animated classic as time goes on. From a great premise, a tone that carries an extraordinary balance of childish innocence and earth-shattering depth, Joy and Sadness being great ploys and characters interacting off each other, the emotions in general being tied to great voice actors, the gorgeous animation that feels unique and stand out from the studio, the world-building of Riley's mind and how the animators/writers come up with creative and fun ways to portray the functions of the brain, and Giacchino's endearing score that both reflects the film's nature and identity while also becoming a great selection of music that joins the never-ending list of Pixar's catalogue. While the film shines in almost every corner in terms of quality, it's hard to ignore certain plot holes here and there, which I feel do keep the film from being perfect. While I still find "Coco" to be my favourite Pixar film, "Inside Out" is a close second.
Verdict: 9.5/10. An extremely strong contender from Pixar that's almost flawless if not for the noticeable plot holes. Besides that minor issue, it's yet another film from the iconic studio that will preserve over time to be a classic in its own right.
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