Review: Inside out (2015) TAKE TWO!!

How have I not written a review for this yet, I actually thought I had included my thoughts on Allie’s review but it seems not.  Being 30 sucks, my memory is shot!! I feel bad repeated a post that we have just done but I couldn't not review this.  However, I am finally putting together my thoughts on this, at the moment they feel like they are going to be a mass mess of mushy feels….

Pixars’s latest offering follows characters that are effectively emotions in peoples head Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Disgust (Mindy Kaling), Fear (Bill Hader) and Anger (Lewis Black).  It’s mainly focused on Riley (Kaitlyn Dias) and the way she copes with moving house, a new school and growing up and how the emotions in her head are effected.  The changes lead Joy and Sadness on an adventure through Riley’s subconscious to get back to ‘HQ’ to stop her from running away from home.

Pixar tried something new and managed to absolutely knock it out of the park.  One of the key things my Dad has always said he loved about Disney/Pixar movies is that they don’t dumb down emotions for children.  In watching a Pixar and even some of the latest Dreamworks movies, the lead characters are actually dealing with real emotions.  This is something I know I said in my Toy Story 3 review and this film has just reiterated it so well.  The film is based on the emotions that Pixar isn’t afraid to shy away from.  There are some really clever ideas in the film that may be a little advanced for the younger audience but great for the parents and big kids like myself.  The idea that the short term memories are sent to ‘long term storage’ when Riley goes to sleep is in keeping with the theory that that is exactly what our brains do when we sleep. 

I thought there was a lot of feels in Toy Story 3 that made me well up and hide my face from my nieces and nephews every time I watched it but this was a whole new level.  I cried like a baby, it was genuinely heart-breaking and moving and you could easily forget you were watching an animation, I was just so caught up in it all.

Finally, I can’t post this review without mentioning the attention to detail.  The full scenes being played out within the memory balls (some of which I have since found out were Easter Eggs) plus how much of the way the brain works has been considered and accounted for inside Riley’s brain!  It’s far too complicated for any small child to understand but the bright colours and engaging characters will certainly keep them entertained, while the adults can ponder the deep and meaningfuls that continuously crop up (is it ok to be sad sometimes?).

Great for kids, even better for adults. Is anyone else a little bit concerned now about The Good Dinosaur between trying to follow this and the two How to Train your Dragon's we've already had, is it dead before it's even out?!

Review: Inside Out (2015) & Lava (2015)

It’s taken me a long time to get my thoughts on Inside Out into words. Let’s just say I hold this film in a very special regard! It’s extremely rare for me to see a film in the cinema twice, but I saw this once with a close friend of mine on the day I found out that my very poorly Granny was terminal, and then again with my family just a few days after she died. 

From the original trailer, it was difficult to determine a plot for Inside Out, but it made the film a complete surprise which rarely happens now. Too often a trailer gives away so much of the plot it’s barely worth even investing the time at the cinema. So, the plot is simple in theory, a young girl named Riley (Kaitlyn Dias) moves to San Francisco with her parents when her Dad gets a new job. Her emotions, Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Anger (Lewis Black), Disgust (Mindy Kaling) and Fear (Bill Hader) struggle to cope with the move, a new school, new friends, and a difficult life at home.

To begin with, let me quickly mention the short played before Inside Out, Lava. As a Disney fan, I get just as excited for the short as I do for the feature film, and although nothing will be able to top Feast for me, Lava was beautiful. Told in song, Lava is about a volcano in Hawaii who is lonely, and wishes he has someone to love just like everything else around him. This song is absolutely making it onto the wedding playlist somewhere my fiance won’t notice, ha.

Back to Inside Out, and one thing I can’t get over is how complex the whole thing is, but also how simple it is at the same time. I mean, any small child would love this. It’s bright, it’s colourful, it has plenty of funny moments, but as a grown up going through some stuff, this film really spoke to me. Riley has ‘personality islands’ which represent her core beliefs and loves, and I spent the car ride home trying to work out what my own islands would be. I’d have a blogging island, for sure!

Everything to do with your mind and thoughts are in this film. There’s a thought train, which is literally a train, and subconsciousness which is scary as hell. Down in long term memory are little workers who dispose of all the memories that have been disused for so long, they’re deemed no longer needed. That’s why I’ve forgotten nearly everything I was taught in Math class I reckon!

The casting for the main emotions was perfect, too. I know Amy Poehler from Parks & Recreation and she just buzzes with Joy. Phyllis Smith as Sadness was a great choice, too. If you’ve seen her in anything else you’ll know that she doesn’t put on any other kind of voice for Inside Out, that’s just her and she portrays it perfectly.

It was the lesson of the film that hit me the hardest. The fact that sometimes, we need to feel sadness to become happy again was something I’d forgotten all about, and it’s so true. Going to see this with my family whilst we all felt so sad was difficult, but we all said we couldn’t remember the last time we all went to see a film together. In fact, we weren’t even sure it had ever happened, and so that night will be a happy memory of mine forever.