Sunday, August 9, 2015

Review: Inside Out

Seen 8/8/15

2.5/4

What feels like my first review in an eternity serves Pixar's newest polished, sparkling product, Inside Out. It is another Pixar breaking of barriers, reconfiguration of storytelling and animation, picture of terrific creativity and innovation. The thing is absolutely beautiful, visually (the studio takes another step toward perfection) and has a delicate Giacchino score to back it up. It also has a true emotional touch, driven by a personification of Sadness and raw displays of relatable mental activity. Beyond this, there is a progressive message motivating it all roughly concerning mental health. However, for all its beauty and melancholy and technical brilliance/innovation, Inside Out scores mediocre in many other ways. The humor, and its disappointing quality, is so inevitable. As the film started, I found myself dreaming about what it would be like if the movie were to remain in such sublime abstraction, such aesthetic grace and minimalism. But I knew that that was only a dream, as Pixar has an obligation. Unfortunately, the most brilliant and imaginative filmmaking team on Earth has an obligation to every shallow child in America. Thus, a brain-rotting humor took over a good part of the rest of the film, driving its wonderful premise and impeccable technical execution into weak commercialism. The script is unfortunate in many other ways, also. Some characters are cheap, dialogue is too fast-paced, kid-movie archetypes abound...

I did enjoy this film though, and I really appreciated its aesthetic and its emotional grace. Not all the humor is bad, either. Perhaps if Pixar didn't spend a billion dollars on every movie, they wouldn't mind trying one with a more complete quality.

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