release date: 19 June 2015 (Canada)
run time: 94 mins
rated: G
considered: Animation, Comedy, Drama
director: Pete Docter, Ronaldo Del Carmen
starring: Amy Poehler, Phyllis Smith, Richard Kind, Bill Hader, Lewis Black, Mindy Kaling, Kaitlyn Dias, Diane Lane, Kyle McLachlan, Paula Poundstone, Bobby Moynihan, Paula Pell, Dave Goelz, Frank Oz, Josh Cooley
movie summary: After young Riley is uprooted from her Midwest life and moved to San Francisco, her emotions – Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust and Sadness – conflict on how best to navigate a new city, house and school.(www.imdb.com)
my thoughts: I may be one of the few people, out of millions, who won’t give this movie 9 or 10 stars. The marketing companies did not do enough to get me excited to see Inside Out, which meant I wasn’t overly concerned to catch it when it opened. My original thoughts was this film would be on the second tier of animated movies, the one below such epic movies like How to Train Your Dragon, Frozen, and Big Hero 6. In some aspects I was completely wrong, but on other levels I was completely right.
Inside Out is new, fresh, creative, and unique. Who ever came up with this idea is sitting back and watching the dollars roll in because this movie will be a hit with not only the kids but adults as well. There are many things to like about this movie such as the story, the characters, and how they interact with our emotions. There are five main emotions, Joy, Sadness, Fear, Disgust, and Anger. Everyone will pick out a favourite and root for them to take control of the little girl, Riley. This may sound a little biased but I love Lewis Black as a comedian and actor which had me loving his Anger character the most. Quite honestly I can’t think of anyone else that could have been casted as that little red ball of hate more than Black himself. His stand up routines always involve yelling and screaming at the tops of his lungs which really fit the anger character perfectly. The story may focus around Joy and Sadness the most, but other emotions do get their fair share of screen time.
The main reason I refuse to get this film a perfect rating is because the story becomes very repetitive and made me lose interest in Joy and Sadness’ journey. These two get stuck outside of “headquarters” and must fight through the obstacles inside Riley’s brain to get back. These two will fight tooth and nail against each other while climbing and crawling their way back to save Riley from having a complete break down at the age of 11. Just when you think they made it, a new hurdle presents itself which forces them to regroup and star over. After about five obstacle I was like come on, this is just getting crazy. On top of all that, I can honestly say I didn’t care for Sadness character and felt she was the major problem in the whole story. If she was supposed to be sad, just be sad, don’t keep doing the same things you’ve been told not to do over and over. She said “sorry” like every other word, but was she really sorry or just stupid? It was very annoying and to have that piled onto the never-ending list of hurdles and obstacles, it was just so repetitive.
It makes you wonder if characters like this really exist in our mind and spend their whole lives controlling our emotions. I understand from various readings that humans may never be able to comprehend all the functions of the human brain, which forces Inside Out to come up with unique ways to explain how things get stored and recalled. The whole concept of this story was something you would have never expected going in, which was a pleasant surprise and grows on you as the movie rolls along. If you group everything together with beautiful animation, a great cast, and your imagination, Inside Out is a full length movie that will please a wide variety of ages.
my final thoughts: Inside Out is a great look into the life of a young girl who has her world turned upside when she moves across the country. As with any kid of a young age, sometimes her emotions will get the best of her. This film had a lot of things I loved that I could relate to on a personal level, like moving, hockey, and the fact I am a very emotional person. There may somethings in the movies kids won’t fully understand, but they can just eat their popcorn and enjoy the silly characters while the adults enjoy everything else.
my star rating: 7 out 10
imdb: 9.0 out 10
metascore: 93/100
rottentomatoes: 98% out 100%
roger ebert: 4 out 4
richard crouse: 4.5 out 5
Ten Stars or Less 