Disney-Pixar comedy about emotions seems to operate more on mania than anything else

Rating: 5/10 (12 April 2017)

Computer-animated family film from Pixar Animation Studios and released by Disney, about the emotional scramble going on inside the brain of a normal, healthy little girl, is extraordinarily bright and colorful--and yet hyperactive, with overlapping dialogue that rushes by at such a fast clip one might think the sound designers and everyone else involved with the film were feeling the effects of a sugar rush. There's not much to the narrative (trouble-causing Sadness and ringleader Joy have to find their way out of the kid's long-term memory storage), while most of the attention is focused on the child's five basic emotions (the girl, Riley, and her parents rarely come to the fore as actual characters). Kids seem to enjoy the film because it's fluorescent and energetic, like a cereal commercial on television. With so much slapstick and shouting, it could easily compete with a restless child's attention span--and win. ** from ****