Soul

And so, everyone, we've finally arrived at the latest Pixar movie and one that I was looking forward to so much, Soul. This movie was another one of those many movies that was supposed to be in cinemas last year, but because of the Coronavirus, it got put on Disney+ instead. So, it was released on Christmas day and I was able to watch it then. And, so, after sitting down to watch it, I can safely say that I think this is up there with the Toy Story movies, the Incredibles movies, Finding Nemo and all the rest as another fantastic Pixar movie. I absolutely adored this film. And I wasn't expecting that much from this film. I thought it was gonna be really good, but not one of Pixar's all time best. But, thankfully, they proved me wrong. Everything about this reminds me why I love Pixar and why their movies are so incredible. The story is fantastic, the characters are so well written, the animation is maybe the best Pixar has ever done and the plot is genius. Also, since I'm kinda late with this review, I'm going full spoilers from the beginning. And so, what's the story? It's about a musician in New York named Joe Gardner. He's a music teacher at a school but he's not very happy with his job because it's his dream to be a professional pianist performing with a band. But, one day, he gets an offer from an old student of his who's in a band to play the piano with them. He gets the job but his family, especially his mom, aren't very happy about. He's still excited about it though until he falls into a manhole and dies. But then his soul is brought somewhere called the Great Beyond, where souls go after a person dies. He ends up in the Great Before though, the place where souls are created and sorted out before getting sent to Earth. There, he gets confused for a tutor for souls and meets a new soul named 22 who doesn't want to be a person. So, they make a deal. If 22 can help Joe get back to Earth, he'll make it so she never has to become a person. And, I'm gonna stop there for now. I'll get into the spoilers in a sec, but I want to stop the story there. So, I'm not gonna lie, like a lot of people, this film reminded me a lot of other Pixar movies like Coco and Inside Out. In fact, this film was directed by Pete Doctor, the guy who directed Inside Out, and it definitely has his style. He definitely knows how to make a story emotional and thought provoking. And the similarities between Inside Out and Coco are pretty obvious with the designs and ideas of the Great Before feeling like the things from Inside Out and there's the whole dying aspect and music idea from Coco. But it doesn't mean it's the same as those. It's still obviously its own thing. It's almost kinda hard to know where to start with this. First off, the animation is perfect. This is, in my opinion, the best looking Pixar movie ever. They already perfected textures and all that a long time ago, but you can tell they've really pushed the envelope more and more over the years and this is the pinnacle of it. Just the different look of the people and their clothing and the environment and even in the sorta cartoonier things like the designs of the souls and the look of the Great Beyond and Great Before look so good and they even use things in this that look like 2-D animation and that looks great to. The characters as well are all very likeable, very funny and very real. The cast is also perfect. Jamie Foxx voices Joe and he does a great job and Tina Fey does the voice for 22. I was honestly surprised by that because I couldn't tell if 22 was a guy or girl because the voice she does sounds like a kid who could have been either one. And because of their great performances, including the performances of everyone else, the emotional moments hit really well. The dilemmas of these characters feels so real and I felt for them. The message is also really heartfelt. The message is to live life and enjoy everything about it and don't stay focused on one goal for the rest of your life because if you do, you might not appreciate everything your life has given you. And it's shown really well in the film. And that leads to a lot of emotional moments. I'll get to that in a second though. First off, I want to talk about the Great Before scene. I really loved everything about this because, again, Pixar is able to think of these incredible things and make a movie really inventive as a result. Just the different ideas they have here like the designs of the 2-D characters and how they move, or the designs of everything around them and I like the sorta crazier animation things like there's a part where Joe is falling into the Great Before and he becomes 2-D and is just shifting in various ways and it was really cool to see that. But, now, let's get to the things on Earth because there's a part where Joe and 22 get back to Earth but 22 is in Joe's body and Joe is in the body of a cat. Not only did I find this really funny. But a lot of heart-warming moments that come from it like there's a scene where 22 has to act as Joe in front of his mom who doesn't want Joe to be a performer because she thinks it's too big a job. But 22 has to talk to her as Joe is telling her what to say and it's really heartfelt. It's really emotional as Joe is explaining why performing means so much to him and his mom begins to understand. And that all has to do with the fantastic voice performances I was mentioning. The movie's also really funny, the funniest part for me being anything with the character Terry. You could say he's like a villain for the villain, but he's really not all that much, but he's still really funny. And, in terms of the emotional moments, there's a lot of them. The biggest ones I can think of are when 22 has to pretend to be Joe in front of his mom like I said, or another scene where 22 is experiencing some of the joys of life through Joe's body like when she was sitting down and watching the helicopter leaves. I found that pretty powerful. Another big emotional moment is right when Joe and 22 say goodbye the first time because Joe is still trying to get back into his own body and when he gets the chance, 22 thinks he's taking her chance away because she's been through all the things as him that's made her realise that she does want to be a person. Sure, they have a bit of a fight, but it's made better when Joe goes back to Earth and begins to think about everything in his life and realises that he's had a lot of great moments, but he never fully realised it before. That part was pretty sad, especially seeing his different memories like with his dad and so on. And, thankfully, a lot of that is due to Pixar's amazing animation and traditional fantastic storytelling, especially since they've always been amazing at visual storytelling. But then, it's made all the better when Joe goes back to the Great Before and helps gives 22 encouragement and they're both able to go to Earth together. That was really sweet, though I do definitely wonder what happened to 22 when she got there because we never find out. And when I say together, they don't exactly go back together, Joe goes to the Great Beyond first and is ready to accept that this is the end for him until one of the Jerry's, basically the beings in charge around there, decide to let him live again. And it was nice to see him get another chance to live and he even says he's gonna live every moment of it, which ties greatly into the message of the film. Also, I haven't mentioned this yet, but, I also loved the relationship that builds between Joe and 22. Yeah, it's another one of those relationships where the kid-like character is kinda whiny and doesn't want to do anything and the adult character wants to get them into things or wants their help, in this case, Joe needed 22's help with being brought back, but she felt kinda uninterested in wanting to do anything. But, again, Pixar knows how to work around that cliché to the point where it still feels fresh and likeable. And really, just all the emotions they aim to hit in this, they do an amazing job at it. I will say though, the one thing I found weird in this, and this isn't a problem I have with the film, but something I found slightly odd is the whole time of when Joe first dies. Like I said, at the start he dies and becomes a soul. And what I found strange about this is just when this happens. It all happens in the first ten minutes of the film. I found that odd because usually in a Pixar movie, the main obstacle for the main character usually happens in the first fifteen or twenty minutes. Like in Coco when Miguel was sent to the Land Of The Dead, but I found it a little strange how this time, it was the first ten minutes. Again, that's not really a problem, just something I thought I should mention. Overall though, Soul is yet another amazing addition to the Pixar library. It's an amazing concept done in a fantastic execution, and I can't recommend it enough. So, yeah, I would definitely say see it. It's a really, really great movie and I can't wait to see it again. And so, everyone that's my review for Soul. And so, yeah, thank you all for reading and please comment down below to tell me what you think.