Inside Out Review
PG: Action and Thematic Material
Disney/Pixar
1 hr and 35 Minutes (+5 Minutes due to a new Pixar short called Lava)
Voice Cast: Amy Poehler, Phyllis Smith, Lewis Black, Bill Hader, Mindy Kaling, Richard Kind, Kaitlyn Dias, with Diane Lane, and Kyle MacLachlan
Editor’s Note: This review was originally published during my adolescence. Outdated language might be seen in these old posts. Since then, my thoughts and values have grown. This review is being presented as they were originally written, grammatical errors, shitty sentence structure, and typos galore. Because to do otherwise would be that same as claiming these flaws never existed.
BACKSTORY: Friday May 29th, I go with my family to the SVA theater to the east coast premiere of Disney/Pixar's Inside Out with my family. I was of course early being almost in front, but once they started letting people in at 6:00 my family was a no show. I tried my best not to use vulgarity at a family premiere, but Jesus Christ by the time it was 30 minutes afterwards I was cursing up a storm. Anger literally was in control of my mind, but when they showed up, a nice guy saved me seats. And the film began followed by a Q&A with Pete Docter and Jonas Rivera. Though I should've stayed longer to take a poster, I was so lucky to take a picture with Docter and thank him for directing Up and Monsters Inc.
STORYLINE: Growing up can be a bumpy road, and it's no exception for Riley, who is uprooted from her father starts a new job in San Francisco. Like all of us, Riley is guided by her emotions - Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust and Sadness. The emotions live in Head quarters, the control center inside Riley's mind, where they help advise her through everyday life. As Riley and her emotions struggle to adjust to a new life in San Francisco, turmoil ensues in Headquarters. Although Joy, Riley's main and most important emotion, tries to keep things positive, the emotions conflict on how best to navigate a new city, house and school.
REVIEW: Pixar for the past several years have been on a soul searching journey after the crash that was Cars 2. With Brave and Monsters University we clearly saw them slowly picking up their pieces, and now with Inside Out they finally found themselves and reclaimed their territory that is being the best storytellers in animation. Hearing how the director/producer had concept trouble finding what the film should to be about feels really unbelievable because, the movie flows so smoothly. What makes Inside Out amazing is that it is the perfect introduction to psychology because the film is literally a deconstruction of childhood and growing up. If you didn't think Pixar could subtly show growing up is They managed to create a deep topic for adults and still at the same time, cater to kids with silliness and a crap load of creativity. The movie visually explains why our mind do certain things such as forget memories, feel sad at joyous things, and even why we get jingles stuck in our mind. There is a moment where the film halts to alter dimensional animation styles that is stunning to look at. You have all these comedians voicing these emotions in this [Riley's] head, so there's a lot of funny lines from this commentary Riley experiences. But the main focus of the film is the relationship of Joy and Sadness who are the true emotions of the film. By the time you get to the final 20 minutes, you'll be crying like you did in Toy Story 3 (don't deny you didn't we all cried). The only problem that it had for me is that though the humor in the beginning is very slapstick than verbal, it's a little unbalanced with the narrative that's at hand, but when the 2nd act kicks in, the humor finds it's place.
LAST STATEMENT: Inside Out is Pixar's triumphant comeback that of course has stunning visuals, genuine touching moments, non stop creativity, and most of all depth and intelligence.
Rating: 5/5 | 97%
Super Scene: Bing Bong's Big Moment / The Shortcut to Imagination Land
