Chris_in_YEG

I wanted to like this movie. It had all the markings of a hit. Reputable studio, award winning writer, great talent and one of favourite composers. It had a lot going for it. I thought, going in, that this was going to be a tough topic to explore but they did a pretty good job on Inside Out exploring emotions and feelings so death shouldn’t be that hard right? Well, unfortunately exploring human emotions is a lot easier than trying to tackle the after life because this movie is a mess of tone, theme and tempo. Let’s start with tone. The parts on earth are nice and funny like most Pixar movies but when we go to the afterlife it has this almost anxiety inducing tone that I found unsettling. I also felt the portrayal of the celestial beings to be a disorienting. Maybe that was the point but I did not like it. And when the two worlds collided it was odd. There is a sense that time and space in the afterlife have different rules but those were never really clear to me as to what they were. Secondly the theme didn’t really come out like it does with other movies. And you can tell they were trying to do the same thing that they did with other shows like Up and Inside Out where the theme of the movie is revealed in the third act but in those movies there was more payoff because of the set up in acts one and two. This movie didn’t have the set up, or if it did I missed it (it’s possible and I’ll talk about that in the tempo section). As a result, the payoff in act 3 didn’t really grab me the way I expected and as a result I was expecting it to subvert my expectations but it didn’t do that either. In the end the theme of the movie was unclear and left me with more questions than answers. And finally tempo. I hate to admit it but this movie was not only confusing but didn’t capture my attention. And the children that I watched it with were also bored and distracted. I blame a lot on the surrealist nature of the afterlife. I get that they were trying to portray that time, matter and other universal laws work differently in the afterlife but it made some parts drag. The closest parallel I would have is the trip that Joy and Sadness to the various personality islands. The trip is at times disorienting but moves the story along and has its own interesting elements. The trip to the various parts of the afterlife are disjointed and lack interest in advancing the plot. It almost seems like they were trying to do character development but the characters weren’t needing development. I guess that is the risk of having a big name like Gal Gadot take on a really unimportant part. You need to give her lines in a script even if the character doesn’t really deserve them. I mentioned that I am a fan of Trent Reznor but while no enjoyed the soundtrack it was the wrong one for this movie. I don’t think that the soundtrack really accompanied the movie as well as it should have. So, it’s not the worst movie I have watched but I didn’t enjoy it as much as I was hoping I would. It had some good stuff and Jamie Fox did the best he could with the material he was given but I will likely never rewatch this movie.