Soul is definitely Pixar’s most ambitious film to date, spanning many philosophical ideas across its 106-minute runtime. Development started in 2016 when director, Steve Docter was infatuated with the human personality. Docter started developing a screenplay alongside writers Mike Jones and Kemp Powers.
The result is one of the years and one of Pixar’s best films. It certainly is an enjoyable fun experience but does suffer from its exploration of its ideas. It tries to deconstruct heavy subject matter in a Disney way, which I feared happening.
The film follows Joe Gardner (Jamie Foxx) and his adventure to become a human once again after a tragic accident. In the afterlife, he meets the supporting character of the film, 22 (Tina Fey).
The main ideas being broken down is what makes each individual themselves and what makes us happy in life. It tries to answer how you should look out at life and yourself along the path.
Personally, providing an answer to a really broad problem is gimmicky. It wants you to feel like, if I focus on the smaller thing instead of the bigger thing, I’m going to be happy.
Onto the characters, Jamie Foxx created a fairly enjoyable character out of Joe Gardner. As for 22 played by Tina Fey, I think actresses should’ve been swapped. Tina Fey comes off as fairly annoying and a lot of the jokes don’t land.
The soundtrack by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross is exactly how I expected, really good. The duo has been behind some amazing pieces of work such as The Social Network soundtrack, which is considered one of the best of all time.
The screenplay was enjoyable and took a route I was not expecting at all and ended pulling it off. My only complaint with it would be it can be repetitive at times and sometimes the ideas overstay their welcome
Overall, Soul was a very fun and enjoyable movie striking an emotional chord with its writing. Lots of jokes fall flat and it has that classic Disney gimmick to it, but it’s made up with its mesmerizing animation, music, themes, and character exploration.
Final Verdict: 77
