Inside Out (2015) – Review

I’ve been dying to see this since it was announced. The hype wasn’t built up in an obvious way but those that wanted to know, knew. When I watched it, I wasn’t disappointed, not in the slightest.

It’s clear by now that Pixar have a clear format for their films, a format that works. They follow this format tightly. You’d think this would make the film seem “done before” and therefore boring, yet, even though they have followed the same sort of storyline throughout their films (main character lost, finds way back home), it still seems fresh and interesting due to the wide array of colourful characters that take over the screen.

Spoilers for this film, not any other films, this one.

11 year old Riley has moved from Minnesota to San Francisco. That’s the main plotline, in real life. Her mind, like the minds of everybody else in this film, is occupied by little humanoid figments representing her emotions. There’s Joy, the leader and an awfully jolly one at that, Anger, a hotheaded little volcano-y man thing, Disgust, a bitch, Fear, an overly safe, spindly purple thing that’s, you guessed it, scared of a lot of things, and Sadness, a depressing lump that ruins everything. Their main duty is to control Riley’s emotions and bank her memories. On occasion, a core memory is banked which constructs one of Riley’s “islands of personality”, a group of literal islands representing her personality. When Sadness starts polluting Riley’s memories during her introduction to her new class (Remember? She moved from Minnesota), she and Joy somehow get sucked up the long term memory tube and have to find their way back to HQ and the other three emotions. On the way, they meet a whole cast of fun people? I guess so. Sadness is useless, by the way, they should sack her. I hate her. I really, really hate her.

Did you avoid the temptation to look? I bet you didn’t! Don’t worry, no more spoilers here.

Spot the Ratzenberger.

Being a family comedy, the film does provide a lot of jokes, mainly thanks to Anger and his violence towards Fear. I must admit, when Anger punched Fear off of the screen, I subconciously let out a rather loud chuckle that echoed throughout the cinema, drawing the attention of some less than enthused moviegoers. The concept is very original, unless there has already been a film about humanish representations of emotions and their adventure through an eleven year old’s mind, and it’s brought to the screen very well without making things too complicated, but why would they? It’s Pixar, they know what they’re doing.

I know it’s unrelated to film itself, but I can’t go on without mentioning the Inside Out Subway advert. The likeness the girl playing Riley has to the animated character is scary. I couldn’t find a picture so find it yourself, you lazy git.

Lava: I was debating whether or not to write about this. It’s not really the film, but it’s part of it. This won’t be long. This is the heartwarming (volcanoes) tale of a lone volcano and his hopes of finding a soulmate. However, just as he begins to submerge, becoming extinct, an underwater volcano emerges, a lady volcano. Now completely submerged, he looks above in self pity at the lady volcano. Now, the lady volcano is singing his song! Oh, I didn’t mention there was a song? There’s a song and you will be singing it for the rest of your life. Anyway, long story short, the song revitalises him, he emerges, happily ever after, the end. Spoiler alert.