Highly Unique and Inventive, this may go down in Western Animation History as one of the Best films for Creativity and Emotion next to Toy Story, Finding Nemo and Up

Rating: 10/10 (2 August 2015)

Even the great Pixar seems to be underwhelming audiences after Cars 2 Brave and Monsters University failed to please. (Though I like 2/3 of those okay) This is were "Inside Out" comes in. This is an idea that has been done before,so the concept of people inside a body controlling things we don't even think about isn't new at all. However,director Pete Doctor (Up, Monsters Inc) has taken this idea and added a fun, new brilliant creative spin on it that is just too wonderful for words.
Inside a baby's head, we see a glowing figure emerge, yellow dress and blue hair. bundle of Joy. The person presses a button to which the baby smiles,thus creating her first emotion Joy.Years later, we see Riley Anderson growing up and doing what most girls do, play, laugh, hang out with friends, have some family time and Joy (voiced by Amy Poehler,)watches it all and loves it. There have also been more emotions that joined "headquarters" in that time, a timid blue girl in a turtleneck named Sadness (Phyllis Smith, The Office who deals with Riley's problems the easy way, a red brick man named Anger (Lewis Black,) who helps her to achieve things even if it be through forced, Disgust,(Mindy Kaling,)a cute girl clad in green who helps Riley to refuse foods such as broccoli or picking the wrong outfit for school and a thin purple man with large worried eyes named Fear (Bill Hader) who stops Riley from hurting herself or getting into danger. Together the emotions work together, even if they don't all get along to keep their girl happy and healthy. Until of course she reaches eleven and the trouble starts after the family move from Minnesota to San Francisco,and new problems arise.
The film's animation is just-Spectacular. There's really nothing else to call it. They show memories in the form of multi coloured orbs each a colour for a different emotion, e.g. Joy yellow, Anger red. There is a scene in which Joy and Sadness wander through Long Term Memory which is just an endless twisting row of shelves full of different coloured memories. Someone got to animate that, draw, paint and render every single frame.
The characters are all brilliant, colourful and memorable. Maybe not Toy Story memorable, but people would still recognize them. Joy is well...joyful. Amy Poehler as Kaling puts it "is light incarnate" and she's right! She adds such a warmth and upbeatness to the character while not ending up being annoying. Phyllis Smith as Sadness is one of the best casting choices I have seen in a long time. She is morbidly funny, she is adorable, cuddlesome and very smart, (she was the only one who bothered to read the manuals) Lewis Black as Anger. Spot On! You could feel the energy in his voice, yet you still loved this gruff,grumpy character who could still be funny in his own way. Mindy Kaling as Disgust was great to! Very sarcastic and shallow but not in a mean way, almost in a "It's my job, deal with it," kind of way. Bill Hader as Fear was golden! His nervous voice fit so perfectly with his character's comical movements and delivery that you just felt so sorry for him while laughing as he screamed.
Bing Bong, a half cat, elephant, cotton candy, dolphin, candy crying hybrid who was Riley's friendly and loving imaginary friend when she was little. Although she doesn't have use for him now that's she's eleven, he still stays in her Imaginationland. When we first see him he is stealing memories and appears to be far more cute and willing to help than anyone else. At first glance, you would go "Oh, well much like Lotso, King Candy and Hans he's a villain because of his deceiving appearance." You would be very wrong. Bing Bong wants to help Joy and Sadness back to headquarters so they can help Riley as her islands of personality start to collapse. He is a pure, Winnie the Pooh meets John Candy type of hug-gable, funny character voiced by the amazing and warm. Richard Kind. Richard Kind certainly is a very kind man in interviews and even more so as Bing Bong.
The most powerful scene in the movie is in Memory Dump. Joy and Bing Bong have fallen in. Joy sits in a pile of fading stones, picks up the memories she can still see and begins to weep. "Do you remember when she used to stick her tongue out when she was coloring? I could listen to her stories all day." She realized what it is like to be sad and breaks down from the years of her being patronizing to Sadness who she sees no use for. Joy remembers Bing Bong's rocket was thrown into the dump and they use it to escape. Unfortunately, Bing Bong is fading. Joy is an emotion- she cannot be forgotten. He however fades away after jumping off the rocket. "Take her to the moon for me...okay?" I was sobbing in my seat. Pixar I thought Dory's Monologue was sad and the beginning of Up and Jessie's abandonment but you made me cry over an elephant cat hybrid who's imaginary!
I'm shocked by the user reviews on here with such negativity like it was too sad or too dark or little kids couldn't understand it. Well,it's not for little kids, it's aimed at older children, perhaps even those around Riley's age in the film. It's far too complex for a three year old. An eight year old would probably be able to understand it, but I would put this film at a 10+ to be honest. It's just so smart. I enjoyed this, and let me just say, your own emotions will be running around headquarters going haywire after watching it. Welcome back Pixar, we've missed you!