Inside Out:
Riley, an 11-year-old girl from Minnesota, moves with her parents from that state to San Francisco, California. During this time, the five emotions that live in her mind: Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust (which seems to me less of a core emotion and more of a specific feeling but whatever), begin struggling with how to regulate Riley's emotions during this time of change.
Despite being praised for its' originality, I don't see this as a particularly original concept, as I'm pretty sure I've heard of similar concepts before (Herman's Head, anyone?). The main voice cast of Amy Poehler, Phyllis Smith, Mindy Kaling, Bill Hader, and Lewis Black is fantastic, with Smith and Black being perfectly cast as Sadness and Anger, respectively. Richard Kind, Kyle MacLachlan, Diane Lane, Bobby Moynihan, Paula Poundstone, Flea, John Ratzenberger, Frank Oz, David Goelz, and director Pete Docter make up the supporting and minor voice cast.
And despite the impressive voice cast and entertaining way that the film represents the human mind, and some clever jokes, in this article: http://www.vox.com/2015/6/25/8840945/inside-out-mind-memory two philosophers explain why the film gets it wrong. I do somewhat excuse this under artistic license and because it's a family film, but ultimately I think Pixar could have done more of their homework.
The writing has some nice moments and is witty, despite some awfully predictable cliches, especially with one character, who I knew was going to make a heroic sacrifice five minutes after being introduced to them.
The animation is fluid and colorful, and the characters are fun. I excuse them having the characters expressing more than one emotion (i.e. Joy getting sad, or Fear getting bored) because it would be impossible to craft relatable characters out of literal caricatures of a single emotion.
The opening short, Lava, is formulaic but it was beautifully animated and scored, and I was actually a little convinced near the end it was going to end depressingly, before I reminded myself it is produced by Disney and therefore must conform to expectations.
Inside Out is definitely better than most of Pixar's recent outings, and may be a way of getting the studio off track of their current announced titles, including nothing but sequels and spin-offs, which is depressing coming from a studio known for its' fresh concepts and ideas. 4/5 stars.
A YMS review that explains all of the issues one could find with this film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXC_205E3Og
(Image: Wikipedia)
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