Not my favourite Pixar film but colourful and thought-provoking nonetheless

Rating: 8/10 (16 January 2016)

When I first saw this film at the cinema, I found it a little underwhelming due to having already seen certain clips of it on YouTube although the scene where Joy is in the memory dump brought tears to my eyes. The second time I saw it upon purchasing the DVD I enjoyed it even more.
The animation is bright, colourful and up to Pixar's usual standards and it is interesting to see how it changes when Joy, Sadness and Bing Bong take a so-called shortcut while the inside of Riley's head is realistically designed. The characters that represent Riley's emotions give more depth to her feelings and this concept is reminiscent of a Beano comic strip called The Numskulls. Joy is playful and optimistic for the most part although it is heartbreaking to see her cry in the memory dump; Sadness is suitably glum and the revelation of her true purpose is a pleasant surprise; Fear, Disgust and Anger all personify the rest of Riley's emotions perfectly and Bing Bong mostly has a similar personality to Joy but he is also fairly naive as well as supportive to her and Sadness. Riley is a headstrong, determined human lead character that all pre-teenagers can relate to and I like how her feelings conflict with her adapting to San Francisco as well as her relationship with her parents. The story is unique for a Pixar film and like the Toy Story franchise it has its fair share of uplifting and poignant moments and the scenes shown during the closing credits of other characters' emotions are hilarious. While most of the music is not particularly memorable there are some effective pieces such as when a very young Riley expresses her anger in response to her dad saying she won't get any dessert if she doesn't eat her broccoli and when Joy shows the rest of the emotion characters how Riley's memories are made and I like the Bing Bong song. While I'm not familiar with the majority of the voice cast they all did a great job with the voice acting particularly Amy Poehler as Joy, Phyllis Smith as Sadness, Lewis Black as Anger and Mindy Kahling (also Taffyta Muttonfudge in Wreck-It Ralph) as Disgust. Bill Hader as fear wasn't quite as up to scratch as the rest of the emotions but he was decent nonetheless. Also this is the first time Poehler and Hader have provided voices in an animated film together since Hoodwinked Too, which I haven't seen in its entirety yet.
Overall not on par with other Pixar films such as the Toy Story franchise, A Bug's Life, Brave, Up and WALL-E but it is on par with Ratatouille and The Incredibles and better than Cars what with its colourful animation, thought-provoking story and relateable characters as its best aspects. 8/10.