Interesting but not deep enough

Rating: 8/10 (12 August 2015)

This is not a film for little kids. I would recommend it for 10 years old up with a lot of guidance from parents on what this film is about. It would be a good lesson for 10+ kids about human emotions and what they can do to us. But you got to watch the film first, and explain to them, before they watch it or while they're watching it.
As an animation, I think this film is average on the quality to entertain. Yes, it's fun to watch and I enjoyed it alright, but it didn't leave much impression on me. Just average fun like a fine animation film should be. I wouldn't say it's boring, but I wouldn't say it's extremely entertaining, either.
As for the theme or the message of the story, or what it tries to communicate to the audience. I would say that the film has both good and bad points.
I really appreciate the effort of trying to put these abstract psychological ideas of human emotion into something fun and tangible. It's refreshing to see something new and it's good for people to learn how their emotion can take control of them and how experience of life can affect our memory. It's good to see how they portray good memory of early childhood and how loving parents can create that for their child.
There are many ideas that I like in this film. I particularly like the idea that "Sadness" can actually make us turn some happy memory into sad memory, but sometimes it is important to express our sadness so that we can understand ourselves and other people understand us. I agree that sometimes anger, sadness, and fear can have positive use if you know when to use them. I agree that it is absolutely scary when we are blocked from our emotions, when we are numb and can't feel a thing at all. (like in that scene when the control center stops working)
However, when you make such a deep subject into a movie, I'd rather suggest that you have to be careful and make sure that you deliver the right message. Are people totally controlled by emotions alone? Where is our "free will"? We do have our higher self that can rise above emotion and make good use of them. I think it's important that a film like this to communicate this point, otherwise it would be like telling people that "Oh well, we are under control of our emotions. We can't help it. We can do nothing about it. This is how human is." In my opinion, human is capable of choosing right or wrong, although our emotions can have a lot of influence on that. Reiley doesn't have to act like a little brat if she steps out of herself and see that her parents have it harder than her. Do imaginations and dreams have to be so pointless and illusive all the time? Sometimes they can contain something beyond what our brain is capable of. But this film makes it all look like they are all nonsense stuff.
In other words, if we get stuck to only what psychology books tell us, and we don't go deeper into spiritual side of our psycho, then it is very shallow. I wish that they will try to make Inside Out 2 or Inside Out 3 that will deal with all the deeper stuff, not just basic emotion psychology.
Anyway, I really appreciate that they create such a film, I just hope that they will somehow go deeper and deliver a more correct message.