Review: Pixar’s Lava And Inside Out

****SPOILERS AHEAD****

I was fortunate enough to be able to see the Pixar film Inside Out along with the Pixar Short Lava a week before they are released nationwide.  If you are a fan of Pixar, than you will LOVE both of these.  From the amazing animation to the dialogue, these are both excellent and you will not want to miss them!!!

First, I will talk about the short Lava.  The short was teased out some time ago showing a Volcano that is sitting in the middle of the ocean.  He’s all alone and sings his Hawaiian style song all day everyday over the span of millions of years.  One thing Disney and Pixar have always been amazing at is pulling you into the characters, even in this case a Volacano.  They give him a personality and you actually start to care about him quickly from his words and expressions.  This one will tear you up, but in the good old fashioned Disney way, the story ends on a wonderful note.

So lets talk about the feature film, Inside Out.  Have you ever wondered how people can change their attitude in the blink of an eye?  Or the outlook on things that go from happy to very sad and back to happy just as quick?  Well Inside Out shows us just how that happens in the body. Well, maybe not the scientific way that it happens, but a good explanation of it anyway.

At the beginning of the movie, we see a little baby, this is Riley (Kaitlyn Dias) and she is the center of the entire film.  Quickly we start to meet the different emotions in Riley’s head.  First from the start we meet Joy (Amy Poehler).  Joy gives Riley happiness through her laugh, even from the time she’s small.  Joy and the other emotions are able to see the world through Riley’s eyes.  Next we are introduced to Sadness (Phyllis Smith), when Riley is screaming as a little one, it’s Sadness, as something is wrong and she is unable to communicate it.  Next we meet Fear (Bill Hader).  Fear is afraid of everything and a good day for him is when everything is completely safe and there are no worries about anything going wrong.  Disgust (Mindy Kaling) is the next emotion that comes in to play.  As Riley starts to get a little older, Disgust is what saves everyone from such things as Broccoli.  Disgust is also the emotion that finds the wrong in everyday life.  Last but certainly not least, Anger (Lewis Black).  This is the little fire plug, that when things are not going right, Anger unleashes on everyone in his path.  Even his head turns to flames.

The movie picks up once Riley is 11.  She is a normal girl living in Minnesota, a hockey star that has her friends and loves her life.  Her emotions have made her life as great as can be, till one day they see a For Sale sign in their yard and all the emotions wonder what is going on.  Riley’s dad has taken a new job and forces the family to uproot from their very familiar and happy lives in Minnesota and relocate to San Francisco.  During the drive we start to see how the emotions pull out things from your imagination and make you remember things, like what our dream house would be.  Sadly though, when they arrive at their new home, it wasn’t one of the houses in Riley’s imagination.  The house is nothing spectacular at all, and due to other issues, their moving van is late with their things.  Just as Riley starts to get sad though, Joy kicks in and cheers her up which in turn makes her parents happy.  You really see how Joy is the much needed and most important of all the emotions.  Even while Riley sleeps, the emotions work to make sure her dreams are great dreams and influence her coming day.  They make sure all the memories from the day before are filed away for safe keeping and a new day starts.

Riley is about to embark on the first day of school in a new city with no friends. While sitting in class, she scans the room for the other people to become friends with.  The emotions are telling her who to pay attention to and also what to do and not do in front of the other kids.  The teacher starts class announcing the new student and asks her to introduce herself and this is where Riley’s change happens.  She talks about leaving Minnesota and Sadness takes over and starts turning all her memories into sad ones to the point of tears.  Joy in an effort to save the day and to get Sadness from taking complete control, ends up getting shoved out of the body’s control center and now she has to find a way to get back.

We see Riley go through emotion after emotion, becoming more and more angry with every turn, but not understanding why.  Joy and Sadness can’t get back to the control room and get Riley to be happy again.  Her world is starting to collapse around her.  Joy and Sadness are looking for any way they can to get back to the control room, but as the time goes on memories and core memories are destroyed.  This is stopping Joy and Sadness from getting back to fix this.  We see how the body disposes of different memories along the way.  We go through her imagination, even meeting her imaginary friend from her even younger years.  In the end, it’s the love of her imaginary friend that sends Joy on the right track to saving the day.  You learn that all the emotions and things that have happened in her life, care so much about making her life better.

By this time though, Riley’s other 3 emotions have taken over and have really sent her down the wrong path, but what do you expect from Disgust, Anger and Fear?  They did the best they could.  Anyway, Joy realizes that you need all the emotions to be balanced and she fixes everything.  This makes her realize, it’s ok to be sad about memories, but there is plenty of room for new ones.  Joy along with Sadness, help Riley get back on track and fix the issues that were causing the problems that she was going through.

This movie is by far one of my absolute favorites.  Before today, Up was hands down my favorite Pixar film ever, but now Inside Out is up there with it.. The way you get pulled into the characters and actually care about them and what they go through, it’s just amazing.  I would highly recommend going to see this film.  From the previews and trailers I admit I wasn’t that excited about it.  It reminded me of the old sitcom that was on Fox Sunday’s back in the 80’s called Herman’s Head, if you remember that show.  The emotions run the body and dictate what the person does.  The emotions in Inside Out were played perfectly.  As a big fan of Lewis Black, he is Anger.  Some of the lines he used in the film are exactly what you would expect from Lewis. The emotions working together set the tone for  some great laughs.

Another thing I liked about the film is you see that everyone has the same 5 emotions in them.  They act differently according to the person, their age, gender and what they are doing in life.  It makes for some really great scenes throughout.  The movie opens on the June 19th and honestly I’m looking forward to going to see it again.

What I took away from the film, is that we all can’t be happy, sad or angry all the time.  We can’t just go on a couple of emotions because you see quickly how bad life can go.  You need to be balanced and, to except all the emotions that come.  At the end of the day, the happiness or Joy should outweigh the others, but without the others, we would have no need to look at anything in a joyful and happy manner.

Thank you for reading my review, I hope you will go see the film.  After, please share with us your opinion.  I find that the critics don’t usually get movies right and that others talking about what happened is the best way to learn if you will enjoy the film or not. Have fun watching Inside Out! I know I did.

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Scott

Co-Owner / Webmaster / Business Relations / PT Writer
As co-owner and co-creator of The Main Street Mouse.Working in a technical support position for 18 years, it was time for a change.As the Webmaster and Project Planner, I spend most of my time researching everything from the latest Disney News, technology advances and of course keeping up on all the Marvel news that comes out.I never considered myself a writer but I’ve come to like blogging and sharing news with all.I feel blessed everyday that I get to spend my days working with my best friend and love of my life while we continue to grow and expand what started as a hobby all those years ago.

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