I want to like this movie but...

Rating: 6/10 (19 June 2017)

I have seen this film twice. Most people seem to love it and regard it as one of the best Pixar films ever. I can't and I never will. This film is based on a not so every day struggle of a little girl having to go through leaving her friends and home town to a new city across country. Her parents are trying to make the best of it but things just aren't going their way. The girl, Riley, has five main emotions: joy, sadness, anger, fear, and disgust (The emotions are portrayed as humanoid characters). They run into trouble resulting in losing what are called Riley's "core memories" in her mind and need to find them immediately. However, joy and sadness get separated and need to find the core memories and get them back to the main HQ of Riley's mind. With Joy and Sadness gone, the other emotions frantically try to work Riley through every day life while Joy and Sadness are absent. They end up making things even worse for Riley and drive Riley to running away from home. Joy and Sadness find the core memories and make the journey back to HQ and restore Riley's happiness and sadness which compel her to run home to her worried parents. In the long run, the emotions grow stronger and realize each one of them is important to Riley's every day thoughts and emotions, even sadness.
Now, while this sounds like a fairly decent plot, I can't say it was executed that well. Most of the movie is focused on the emotion characters, Joy and Sadness, and how Joy comes to realize Sadness is an important emotion just like her and Sadness realizes she is helpful and too, is important. But, we don't see this realization very clearly and it's kinda thrown at us at the end. Most of the journey Joy and Sadness endures is not very team building (between each other) and is pretty boring. While Joy and Sadness are missing, this should mean Riley can't feel those emotions because they aren't there in HQ controlling her expressions and thoughts. It's clear that Riley is not joyful or happy, but it is clear she is depressed, a form of sadness that she shouldn't be able to feel (a plot hole that is unexplained).
For a movie based around emotions, I can't say the emotions are evenly expressed by any means. For the entire film, probably 60-70% is sad, 20% is joy, and the rest is the last emotions. I would have liked to have seen a more even spread of the emotions in Riley's struggle. Fear, Anger, and Disgust feel so under developed and practically worthless it's easy to forget they're even there.
Not to mention, the imaginary friend, "Bing Bong" was not that much needed. He was needed because they needed a character to sacrifice for the "greater good". He was a well designed character and nicely developed, but was just a prop for one section of the film.
Overall this movie was pretty bland. For a movie based on such a nice range of emotions, it really felt lack luster and dull. I did tear up a little at the end where Riley and her parents reunite, but I felt no emotions until the last maybe 15-20 minutes of the film. I can't say this was a bad movie, but it wasn't very good either. It was fine and I could watch it again, but not for a while.