By Brett Blake After a two year hiatus, Pixar Animation is back, this time with INSIDE OUT. I can’t yet say where - exactly - it ranks on the “Best of Pixar” list, but it would certainly be in the top tier. It hits emotional notes that are so identifiable and relatable, and does it in such a winning and compelling way, that you can’t help but find yourself enormously affected by it. No small feat, considering the bulk of the story takes place inside the mind of a 12-year-old girl and features anthropomorphized versions of the core emotions that govern human behavior. Needless to say, the premise represents one of the tougher sells Pixar has yet faced. As young Riley and her family make a cross-country move from Minnesota to San Francisco, the emotions inside her head - Joy (Amy Poehler), Fear (Bill Hader), Disgust (Mindy Kaling), Anger (Lewis Black), and Sadness (Phyllis Smith) - essentially squabble amongst themselves over how to adjust to the new situation. Through various shenanigans, Joy and Sadness find themselves cut off from the rest of the group, and must travel through the various sections of Riley’s mind (including such locales as Abstract Thought, Imagination Land, Dream Productions, the Train of Thought, and the Subconscious) in order to keep the core elements of her personality from disintegrating. Like I said, on paper, that’s a tough sell, and the very definition of “high concept,” but directors Pete Docter and Ronaldo Del Carmen (and the rest of their story team) manage to convey all the important information about the mechanics of the mind’s inner world in remarkably elegant fashion through visual storytelling. We almost instantly “get” the important elements, and how the emotion characters relate to each other. The actors voicing the five emotions all do some extremely effective work; Poehler is - as one might expect from her character’s name - a bright ball of enthusiasm, while Hader, Black, and Kaling get some tremendous moments of humor to play with. It is Smith’s work as Sadness, though, that is basically the heart of the movie; initially, her downbeat line deliveries are played for laughs, but it quickly becomes apparent that there’s a very gentle soul inside her, and her perpetual crestfallen, hangdog quality is absolutely key in providing the story with the kind of emotional heft it needs. There’s something I casually refer to as the “Pixar Difference,” and that is in regards to the idea that basically all of Pixar’s movies are genuinely concerned with real, tangible, non-phony or trumped-up emotion. Sure, other animation studios have released films with big emotional components, but Pixar strives for each of their movies to hit the audience first-and-foremost in the heart. That they’ve been able to do this so well for 20 years now without needing to resort to pandering to the audience to get a reaction is a testament to how strong their laser-focus on relatable emotion is, and that’s on full display with this film. Just how effective is the emotion this time out? Well, INSIDE OUT made me do something I haven’t done in many, many, many years: cry in a movie theater (the last time, incidentally, was another Pixar movie, 1999’s TOY STORY 2; they have my emotional number, apparently). The emotion contained in this film is so potent because it has a foundation in experiences and feelings anybody can relate to. Not even the famed opening sequence to Pixar’s UP (often heralded as one of the most emotional sections of recent cinema) got to me quite like a few particular moments in this movie. There’s a simply remarkable balance of tone here. Yes, the movie is very funny, but there’s an overriding feeling of melancholy, of bittersweetness hanging over everything, and it’s often highly moving. At the same time, though, never does the movie feel like a chore, or like a downbeat enterprise. There’s a vitality and a warmth, even as the movie deals with real, raw emotions, that keeps it consistently upbeat and affirming. This plays into the ultimate message of the film, which is that our emotions - even so-called “negative” ones like sadness - have a huge part to play in who we are, and in keeping us well-rounded personalities. Without getting into spoilers, the climax of the film is simply wonderful in the way it maturely deals with the important role sadness and melancholia have in our lives, and it lets the kids (and even the adults) in the audience know that sometimes it’s okay to feel down. This is a sophisticated film with some wise and knowing things to say about human emotion, and it does so incredibly effectively. In addition to the heart-tugging content, the movie also has some pretty fascinating things to say about our behavior as a whole, and there could even be readings of the film that see it as essentially rejecting the notion of free will. In the story, basically all of human behavior is accounted for through the actions of the five emotions exerting their control over the mind as a whole. A harsh reading of the movie could view them as being puppet masters, with Riley herself unknowingly following the orders of the tiny beings inside her mind; this is a metaphorical representation of the hold our emotions have over all of us, and this particular element is very much in the background, but I foresee papers in psychology journals one day being written about the situation. In that sense, INSIDE OUT is nearly as intellectually stimulating as it is emotionally affecting. The animation is strikingly beautiful, from the way the locations inside Riley’s mind are depicted (often whimsical, colorful, and just slightly off-kilter), to the designs of the emotions themselves, who have a slightly fuzzy-around-the-edges look which gives them a sort of effervescent, magical quality. INSIDE OUT looks distinct; visually, one could never confuse it with any of Pixar’s other movies, and it’s a sign of the company’s continued growth and experimentation with the art form. Composer Michael Giacchino continues his stellar run so far this summer (after TOMORROWLAND and JURASSIC WORLD), and his score for INSIDE OUT is his best of the year so far (and the best of the year, so far). Sometimes playful and charming, sometimes ethereal and dreamlike, it’s a lovely score, totally heartfelt without being saccharine or cloying. The movie’s main theme, which is alternately delicate and soothing, wonderfully underlines both the story’s sad elements and its hopeful ones. Giacchino won an Oscar for his last collaboration with director Docter (2009’s UP), and he’s got a real shot at getting a chance to snag another with this score. As I said, it’s hard to rank where INSIDE OUT stands with the other Pixar films; how, for instance, do you compare it to something like THE INCREDIBLES when the goals and tones of the two films are vastly different? I can say this with certainty, however: you will not find many animated films of higher quality than this one, and if you open yourself up to the possibility of having a genuine emotional reaction, you will be rewarded with one of the richest and most touching examinations of the human mind ever put to film. INSIDE OUT is 2015’s best film so far.
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By Brett Blake JURASSIC WORLD is far and away the best movie in the franchise since the iconic, original JURASSIC PARK (and that is coming from someone who’s an avowed and avid defender of THE LOST WORLD: JURASSIC PARK). There is a sense of giddy fun, of youthful exuberance that permeates every frame of what director Colin Trevorrow has created here that - even as it doesn’t reach the untouchable heights of the original - still feels respectfully of-a-piece with that first movie. It is not perfect, and it may fall victim to the too-lofty expectations of some audience members, but it is an enormously exciting time at the cinema. Picking up 22 years after the events of JURASSIC PARK, WORLD opens with John Hammond’s dream finally a reality: a fully-functional, populated, bustling dinosaur theme park featuring rides, experiences, shopping, dining, and lodging. Into this scenario come two brothers, Gray (Ty Simpkins) and Zach (Nick Robinson), on a weekend visit to see their aunt Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard), one of the park’s chief administrators and the overseer of a project to create a genetic hybrid dinosuar - the sternly-named Indominus Rex - to generate a bump in attendance. As often happens when scientists overstep their bounds, the Indominus Rex is much more dangerous than anticipated, and when it escapes, Claire must call upon the services of Owen (Chris Pratt), the park’s Velociraptor wrangler, to help her rescue her nephews, track down the dinosaur on the loose, and keep the park guests from (for lack of a better phrase) being eaten. The storyline exists primarily as an excuse to deliver some dinosaur mayhem (and there certainly is a lot of that in the movie), but that is not to say it’s thin to the point of being a problem. The narrative chugs along at a nice pace, and it’s packed with setpieces, most of which are a fantastic amount of fun. Director Trevorrow - formerly the most indie of indie directors - proves adept at staging thrilling and suspenseful action beats, and there are moments in here (particularly the first few sequences involving the I-Rex and its escape from containment) that feel completely worthy of the action standard set by Steven Spielberg on the original film; there’s a particularly striking bit involving a hapless victim being plucked up from the ground to above tree-level, from which a flurry of leaves and blood rain down that should make any self-respecting monster movie fan grin. And that’s even before we even get to the finale, which is crowd-pleasing, rousing, and cheer-worthy in the best way possible, and features some legitimately amazing interaction between digital dinosaurs, real actors, and real sets that are being crushed, smashed, burned, and otherwise destroyed. Trevorrow and the filmmakers also do a great job of walking the very fine line between giving the dinosaurs personalities (especially the raptors Chris Pratt’s Owen is training) and making them goofy or anthropomorphized. Just as in JURASSIC PARK, these creatures feel (mostly) like real animals, with the Indominus Rex being the obvious exception as it’s something of a test tube Frankenstein Monster, necessitating a characterization that’s a bit more extreme. There could have perhaps been a few more species featured, but that’s little more than a nitpick. Trevorrow also makes Jurassic World feel like a distinct and believable theme park; everything from the production design to the omnipresent corporate sponsorships is on-point, and strongly reminds one of the Disney and Universal parks around the world. Chris Pratt as Owen again demonstrates (if GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY wasn’t proof enough) that he’s the real deal, a charismatic screen presence capable of handling straight action and humor in equal measure, and he’s a cool character type we haven’t seen in the franchise up to this point. For as much as the marketing has been focused on Pratt, the movie’s strongest character (certainly from an arc standpoint) is Bryce Dallas Howard's Claire; it’s a standard character progression she undergoes, but Howard sells the hell out of it, and is every bit as heroic a figure as Pratt is by the end of the movie. Ty Simpkins and Nick Robinson do fine work as a pair of shockingly un-annoying kids, and their interaction is believably brotherly. The supporting cast is kind of a Murderers’ Row of neat character actors, and having people like Vincent D’Onofrio, Irrfan Khan, Judy Greer, and Jake Johnson show up goes a long way towards giving distinctive personality to characters that - on the page - might be somewhat thinly drawn. D’Onofrio is clearly having a blast as the closest the story has to an antagonist, while Johnson plays the best kind of comic relief: one that doesn’t play to the cheap seats and whose humor comes from character moments rather than situations. One of the movie’s other key components is the music. John Williams’ score for the first JURASSIC PARK remains one of his most recognizable, and it casts a very long shadow. Luckily, JURASSIC WORLD has Michael Giacchino on board, and he rises to the occasion. His score respectfully doffs its hat at the Williams themes - which are quoted at several points - but Giacchino mostly blazes his own trail with themes both emotional and thrilling (one cue, underscoring Owen and his team of Velociraptors riding into battle, so to speak, boarders on swashbuckling) and action/suspense writing that is intense and sinister. But what of the dinosaur effects? Here’s where things get a little tricky. As good as the effects are (and they are), they're not as effective as those found in the original. On one level playing the comparison game of PARK to WORLD is unfair. The original exists for me with the golden hues of nostalgia surrounding it; when I saw JURASSIC PARK at age 6, the dinosaurs in that movie were completely real to me, and that perception still colors the way I think about the effects of that film to this day. However, even taking that into account, and trying to be as objective as possible, the digital effects in JURASSIC WORLD do not immediately stand out as being as impactful as those in the original movie, and I think a huge part of that has to do with the almost-complete lack of physical, animatronic dinosaurs. In the first movie, there are more shots of animatronic puppets than there are shots of CGI dinos, and it is the blend of those two techniques (a revolutionary blend at the time) that allows the effects work of JURASSIC PARK as a whole to still hold up to scrutiny, even to this day. At best, there are maybe six or seven shots of animatronic dinosaurs in JURASSIC WORLD (mostly in one - tremendous and surprisingly moving - scene), and while the CGI used to pick up the slack is very good, the movie as a whole lacks that monumental feeling of verisimilitude that made the original movie’s dinosaurs so convincing. In one sense, that’s symptomatic of the movie as a whole. Let’s get real, here. JURASSIC WORLD had no chance of matching the awe-inspiring impact or the intangible, spine-tingling “magic” of JURASSIC PARK, no matter how good a film it was. So those out there requiring this movie to equal its predecessor in order to be considered a success are surely going to be in for a disappointing ride. It would be best for all parties concerned to appreciate JURASSIC WORLD for what it is: a monster movie romp with just enough heart to feel like a worthy successor to the classic original, while also feeling almost entirely like its own thing. It is certainly a fun film, an above average blockbuster, and the best JURASSIC PARK sequel. That’s all it is though, and for some, I fear that won’t be enough. Or perhaps I’m not giving fans enough credit; after all, you will not find a bigger fan of JURASSIC PARK than I am, and I had a great time with JURASSIC WORLD. |
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