Boring and depressing, with a couple good laughs mixed in

Rating: 4/10 (12 November 2015)

I will say that this movie did make me laugh out loud quite a few times. There is some great observational humor that captures the eccentricities of the human mind (or cats as can be seen in the credits), but overall I found the movie to be pretty boring and depressing.
To start with there is basically no story or development of any of the characters. Riley moves to a new town, and the five emotions in her head have to figure out how to find balance/happiness after the move. The problem is that the whole movie is based around 5 characters (Joy, Disgust, Anger, Sadness, and Fear) all of whom are stagnant and kind of annoying.
Most of the story takes place in the "control room" of Riley's brain, and it appears that the animators were extremely lazy or uncreative when deciding what the room should look like. It is basically an empty purple bubble with a computer in the middle, considering this room is the scene for about half the movie I'm surprised they didn't try to make it a little more exciting.
On top of this the movie is very depressing, and not in a "good cry" kind of way, but in a "growing up sucks, you are going to be unhappy for the rest of your life" kind of way. Despite the fact that Joy is the leader of Riley's emotional control team, we constantly see sadness (who should have been called depression) constantly pull Riley down into the pits of useless, apathetic despair. On top of this we see that the leaders of Mom and Dad's emotional control teams are Sadness and Anger respectively; oh the joys of being an adult.
Over the course of the movie Riley's memories go from those of mostly childlike happiness, to the bittersweet jaded memories of an adult. It seems that adults in the world Pixar created can no longer feel pure joy, their emotions are always tinged with a hint of anger, sadness, or disgust. Maybe this is true for a lot of people, but I think kids should enjoy their blissful naive ignorance for as long as possible. I would not bring your kids to this movie unless you feel the need to forewarn them of the depressing future they have to look forward to.