A Swashbuckling Return To Form For Pixar Animation Studios!

Rating: Null/10 (1 July 2015)

A swashbuckling return to form for Pixar Animation Studios, Inside Out arrives as a strong jolt of freshness from the talented minds responsible for groundbreaking classics like Toy Story, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Ratatouille & WALL·E, commences the studio's long- awaited resurgence towards its lost glory, and in the process also reaffirms why Pixar is the most beloved, respected & finest animation studio on the planet.
One of the most original, creative, intelligent, stunning & brightest ideas to come out from Pixar's repertoire in a very long time, Inside Out brims with sufficient dosage of intriguing concept, engaging storyline, rich characters, heartfelt emotions, gorgeous animation, stellar voice-cast & evocative score, and is an amalgamation of everything that has contributed in this famed studio's meteoric rise to the pinnacle of the animation film industry.
A heartfelt tale about the difficulties of growing-up, Inside Out follows Riley: a young girl whose life hits a bumpy road when she is uprooted from her Midwest lifestyle after her father begins a new job in San Francisco, following which her emotions — Joy, Sadness, Anger, Disgust & Fear, work together in an effort to navigate her through this tough phase and help her adjust to her new life in the new city, house & school while Joy does her best to keep her happy.
Co-written & directed by Pete Docter, Inside Out hits a third consecutive home-run for the director of Monsters, Inc. & Up, for it not only works as an inventive & imaginative feature film from the creative filmmaker but also succeeds as one of the most ambitious & audacious film projects undertaken by Pixar. The screenplay also wonderfully intertwines the two story lines set within the same picture; one concerning Riley while other following her emotions.
Production Design team does a splendid job in creating the world for the emotions to reside in. Even those emotions are cleverly imagined, designed & rendered on the screen, and it's easy to identify one from its shape & colour alone. Cinematography makes excellent use of camera to capture every action in fine detail while its colour palette makes exquisite use of five different hues, each associated with a certain emotion, whose shades are applied to the whole world within the mind.
Editing unfolds its narrative steadily & its 94 minutes of runtime is briskly paced. The score is composed by Michael Giacchino but isn't as memorable as I expected. The performance by its voice cast continues Pixar's tradition of coming up with a fitting ensemble that infuses new life into its animated characters and amongst all, it's Amy Poehler & Phyllis Smith (the voices of Joy & Sadness, respectively) who impress the most, share a wonderful chemistry, and are the very soul of Inside Out.
But despite getting most things right, Inside Out isn't without its flaws for there are a few elements that don't work out in its favour. First is its attempt at humour which at times feels forced. Next up is Riley's imaginary friend Bing Bong who is pretty annoying for the most part. Michael Giacchino's score is a letdown too as mentioned above. And finally, there's this contrast between its seemingly childish humour & the subject matter that's more oriented towards grown-ups, which hinders the overall enjoyment on few occasions.
On an overall scale, Inside Out is the strongest Pixar film to surface on the big screen since Toy Story 3 that guarantees to take its viewers through every emotion and absolutely delivers on that promise. It shows that growing-up isn't always a fun, carefree experience and also illustrates the importance of sadness in our life as well as the changes any emotion can trigger in our behaviour. I'd been waiting a long time for Pixar to come up with a cinema like this & while it may not be as perfect as their finest works, it's destined to become a Pixar classic in the years to come. Don't miss it.