Soul

I once knew a girl who had "Don't wait, live!" tattooed on her in that stupid curly font, and I'm convinced this is gonna be her very favorite movie. Soul is the perfectly animated combination of a paid therapy session and esoteric life-coaching, and a packet of Xanax will spontaneously appear in the cabinet behind your sink after you finish watching it. I'm giving it three stars for the sheer amount of animated closeups in the New York streets, and also because I expect more animated films with a similar message from Docter, so I need somewhere to drop my rating in the future. PS: notice how Pixar has been repeating the exact same jokes for ten years now (09/01/2021)

The new Pixar movie is certainly a very imaginative movie, with very good thought-provoking subject matter, which even provides acceptable answers to questions like "What is the meaning of life?". I really like the soundtrack, especially the jazz music and Trent Reznor's contributions (and you can tell it is him!), so I am definitely satisfied with that aspect. The animation is also excellent (albeit so very Pixar...). This is definitely quite a substantial movie in terms of subject matter, which is food for thought, however, for some reason, I did not enjoy this movie as much this time around as I just did not leave with that unforgettable feeling the Pixar studio's best animated movies left me with. Despite that, however, I am still awarding Soul a strong four stars, 8.4/10. (12/26/2020)

Although it was expected this time, it’s never been more painful to see the way creators are forced to compromise. The purely adult material is diluted by a child’s perspective that doesn’t fit the coherence of the story as smoothly as in the past. Think about this: Coco sent a normal young boy into a symbolic world of existential ideas, taking him through a visually captivating environment where he learnt through his own childish perspective, all lead by funny fictional protagonists who told an intellectually dense story in the style of a circus attraction. Soul, in contrast, has an adult protagonist who envisages a more mature view of the world and who remains an adult even while his soul is in a symbolic environment. It’s therefore clear that this film is meant mostly for adults, and it’s naturally hurt by the fact that the story follows pretty much expected paths and ends so contrived and lacking conflict. The world-building is great and the story is nice to watch, but it can never be fun, silly, or inspiring enough when everything is so broadly aimed at solid family well-being. It’s not a bad movie, it’s just lacklustre and rather rushed, which is quite surprising for Pixar. 70% (12/27/2020)

This has just the right soul. It’s playful, creative, original and everything is nicely underpinned by excellent music. But still, I felt it was missing something that would have helped me get better acquainted with the characters and I would have expected more of the same ideas that were hinted at the end. (01/17/2021)

It’s stiffly nice and it may take a little too much time to cut to the chase, but once it settles into its pleasantly adult and slightly surreal tone, it has moments of near-miraculousness. Pixar growing up is a good thing. It had a childishly playful core in its head, but this is more about adult creativity and the very personal theme of finding meaning and anchoring in the life that passes through the main character's hands. It's good that Pixar has abandoned the anthropomorphizing of nonsense for kids and started having a dialogue with parents in midlife crisis. God knows we need a caress like that more than our kids. (06/10/2021)