‘Soul’ Review

When Pixar is at its best, Pixar provides creative stories containing powerful messages that can be recognized for both kids and adults. Inside Out explored the importance of expressing emotions to show the importance of emotional health & the difficulties of growing up, while also having hilarious characters, bright imagery, and inventive ideas. 

Coco explored passion and purpose, as well as how to honor those who came before through a creative tale that pays tribute to Mexican culture and the day of the dead. Soul is a combination of the two films, while also doing enough to tell a unique message and utilize Pixar’s imaginative storytelling.

Premise

Joe Gardner is a music teacher who has an obsessive passion for jazz. When he finally gets his big break, an accident finds him trapped in the void between life and death. Trying to escape the great beyond, Joe finds his soul stuck in the “great before” where he’s now teaching a soul, who is hesitant about going to earth, the joys of life and how to find purpose.

Great animation and storytelling

First off, Pixar’s animation has never looked so beautiful. New York is completely alive, with the smallest details looking incredibly realistic. The streets, the busses, the trees, everything is almost photorealistic. 

The characters still have enough of a cartoon design to feel unique to this universe, but still seem like people. The “great before” itself is bright & colorful with 2d animation blending in seamlessly. It’s incredible how they blended different types of animation into the 3d environment.

The two characters we follow mostly are Joe Gardner (Jamie Foxx) and 22 (Tina Fey), the soul who is refusing to go to earth. Both Foxx and Fey do great voice work here and play off each other well. Joe is an incredibly passionate person who does become a bit self-absorbed. 

He’s so consumed by his love for jazz that he forgets about the world around him. 22 struggles to find a singular passion in life and Joe’s teachings create interesting moments that end up developing both characters.

This is what ends up being the main narrative of the film. In Joe’s attempt at getting back to his body, he ends up teaching 22 about earth, while also finding his own purpose. The message ended up being different than what I had anticipated it to be, in a wonderful way that Pixar always does well. 

Missing more emotional moments

It doesn’t have the trademark Pixar emotional moment that’ll leave you a crying mess, but it manages to be relatable. I can actually see adults connecting to this movie more than kids. There are definitely moments that kids will enjoy, but I wonder if the message & complexities in the plot may be too heavy for kids.

There’s also a lot of humor that works pretty well here. Some of it does fall flat, but there’s a couple of jokes, especially one involving the New York Knicks, that got a solid laugh from me, mainly because I wasn’t expecting some relevant references in a Pixar movie.

The music is also beautiful. Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross provide an often whimsical, but seemingly existential score that adds to the spiritual moments of the film. Jon Batiste provides the jazz scores for the moments in New York and the jazz sequences, along with some original songs. It’s a soundtrack that is worth revisiting and truly adds to Soul‘s atmosphere.

The ending is the one moment that missed with me. It’s not that I didn’t like what happened, it just felt rather abrupt. There isn’t much to linger on emotionally before Soul cuts to credits.

I’m also not sure how memorable these characters will be. I did like them all, but they don’t have the distinct personalities of a Buzz Lightyear or Mike Wazowski that’ll make them iconic in Pixar’s archive. They’re the most human, but it also makes them the least unique in a way.

Final verdict

Overall, Soul is another great Pixar movie. It’s not in Pixar’s top tier for me, but Pixar has so many gems that it’s almost unfair to compare. If Soul was made at any other animation studio, it would probably be one of the best movies they ever made. However, it may be one of Pixar’s best-looking movies and have some of their best music. The story is great, but didn’t connect with me as much as Toy Story 3 or Up. It’s still well worth your time and one of the best reasons to sign up for Disney+.

Final score: 4.5/5