ANI-MOVIES, *Inside Out

Apparently, no one told Pixar that when they were making their first Inside Out animated movie that there already was a sitcom titled Herman's Head that they shamelessly ripped the idea off from. The concept of someone's entire self being controlled by different aspects of their personality in one big starship bridge right out of Star Trek isn't totally new as Disney had done this before in the 40s, even though this production stretched the idea out to a full-length feature which works against it in several ways as the film has to layout a lot of filler material to maintain a steady pace. This is one of those Pixar films that expects you to just believe a metric ton of things upfront in order to move the story forward, like how in Cars there are no humans or in Toy Story where all the toys are alive for no explained reason. This was an appealing idea for a movie, but most who saw it were distracted by Pixar's cliched attempts at humor to notice the gaping plot holes in it. Director Peter Docter pretty much recycled this whole move when he created the future Pixar movie Soul.

A young girl named Riley is moving to San Francisco where she has to deal with conflicting emotions of losing her old friends and surviving in a new home. This internal struggle takes on the forms of five beings operating a panel within Riley's head including Disgust, Fear, Anger, Joy, and Sadness who accidently lose some of their hosts core memories, so Joy and Sadness get shafted out of the control room to find the lost memories in the form of glowing orbs. Riley's head consists of different theme parks representing things she cherishes such as family and zaniness which all begin to crumble as Joy and Sadness fail to get back to headquarters and even results in the definitive death of her imaginary friends. Joy and Sadness do eventually make it back to the central hub through of Riley's subconscious and help her stabilize and deal with her new surroundings, even though the audience is never given any idea whatsoever the effect of having entire parts of her mind just disintegrated and why this poor girl isn't lying in a coma for most of the film.

Inside Out does make up for its bad pacing with Pixar's stellar animation. It's an entertaining enough feature for children with all its bright colors and fluid animation even if much of the material going over most kids' heads, and some adults can relate to their past experience growing up. However, there is little compelling to this story, and the main characters is slightly bland who has no control over her own life as it's under the absolute domination of bickering inner emotions. The obscure vagueness that Pixar decides to once again rehash when they create some new take on the common world with living toys or cars is getting stale. This film also misleads people into thinking that sadness can only be lifted if they get help from someone else instead of relying on yourself to find your own steady ground. Inside Out was a big enough hit for Disney to make a sequel to, but then they also never released that Dumbo continuation they were planning either.