Pixar and Disney keep delivering

Rating: 8/10 (9 October 2015)

It has been quite some time since "Up", the last full feature movie Pete Docter directed, but he hasn't forgotten anything in these past 5 years. "Inside Out" runs for slightly over 100 minutes and is a most creative take on what is going on inside a young girl's head when she has to leave her home state Minnesota to move to San Francisco. There are 5 states of emotion inside her head, all in different colors: Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger and Disgust. I have to say I was quite wondering for a large part of the film why 4 are negative and only one is positive. My explanation is probably that from the filmmaker's perspective it made sense as the positive one and one of the negative ones are absent for a while and this is when the girl is at her worst.
I thought this movie needed a little while to really get going. It got better when Joy and Sadness left the central and we actually had one positive and one negative emotion in the center of the movie and also the characters they meet on their journey together. The most memorable of these is probably Bing Bong, an imaginary friend the girl had when she was younger. The disappearance of Bing Bong is also one of the most emotional moments down in the dark valley of lost memories. This valley was an inclusion as smart as the one that all memories are stored in balls. Another part I liked from a more positive perspective was the one scene where we see the girl ice skating and we see Joy do exactly the same in a synchronous manner, possibly my favorite moment from the first half of the movie.
The ending is absolutely brilliant again, Pixar at their best. It already starts with the Bing Bong scene I mentioned earlier, but it keeps going until the very end. The moment we see Joy let Sadness touch these balls of the past, so these memories stop being pleasant, but become sad memories is something that will wet your eyes. It's necessary to see these as sad in order to make space for new positive memories. And the home sickness scene that follows right afterwards is at least as good with the girl and her parents hugging it out.
It's tough to find any criticism with this movie. Maybe one would be that I did not like the first half as much as the second half and that with all the displays of great animation and creativity, the movie sometimes had long sequences that lacked being really funny. Or that they were some childish scenes early on like the constant monkey imitation game, which certainly elaborates on the characters' relationships, but may have been enough once or twice. "Inside Out" is the big front-runner for animated movie of the year and very likely to win the Oscar in that category. Deservedly so. This is on par with Pixar's best, especially towards the end. I saw that there will be a little short film that follows the feature film and I am curious about how this is gonna look like. Oh yeah, I also liked how they went into other people's heads occasionally, such as the parents, or some others during the closing credits. This really brought some nice comic relief.
All in all, "Inside Out" is another triumph for both Pixar and Disney. The younger audiences will have a fun time with all the colorful and entertaining characters and the grown-ups will as well because of the emotional impact this movie makes. Highly recommended and finally also a quick word on "Lava", a short film that is shown before the movie in theaters and has a beautiful storyline and music as well: I did not like the German dub as much as the English original, but it was still an entertaining 5-6 minutes. Do not miss out on these two, because you would really miss out on a lot of awesomeness.