REVIEW: Inside Out (2015)

The following is a review of Disney-Pixar’s Inside Out, a Pete Docter film.

I am a part of the Pixar-generation. You could say that I grew up with Andy from Toy Story, and thus Pixar has always been very important to me. In fact, Toy Story was the first animated feature film I ever gave a perfect score. Pixar don’t just make movies for kids, they make relatable animated feature films for people of all ages. And with Inside Out, Pixar have found some of the magic that made them special in the first place. 

Pixar’s Inside Out is about gigantic changes in your time as a young child, how you adapt to those changes, and how you struggle to find your footing when you’re growing up. On this level it doesn’t sound that unique, but this film is so much more than just that.

Meet Joy (voiced by Amy Poehler), Sadness (voiced by Phyllis Smith), Anger (voiced by Lewis Black), Fear (voiced by Bill Hader), and Disgust (voiced by Mindy Kaling) – personifications of the emotions that make us. This film attempts to explain how these emotions work, how special they can be – and, especially, how they are all important.

This film does a great job of taking these simple elements, then making them work in these more complex and abstract ideas or frameworks, and the outcome is extremely unique. It is a really smart project, and I would definitely call this film not only unique, but also imaginative and absolutely brilliant.

It has every Pixar-element you could hope for, including a couple of beautifully sad moments. While I would encourage parents to take their children to see this film, I do think that this film is so much more than it should have been. This is a masterpiece. Some moments will definitely go over the heads of kids, but these moments will be spectacular for all grown-ups.

This is a film you don’t want to miss, and another great reason why that is is the amazing voice acting performances. Sadness and Anger are my very favorite emotions in this film, and that is simply due to the outstanding voicework done by Lewis Black and Phyllis Smith.

This film is one of the greatest Pixar-films of all-time, of this there can be no doubt. We have a master of animated feature films working today, and that man is Pete Doctor, who has masterfully directed some of the very best Pixar-films (Monsters, Inc., Up, Inside Out).

Final Score: 10 out of 10 – Inside Out is a masterpiece and the best Pixar-film since the original Toy Story.

I’m Jeffrey Rex