Originally slated for wide release on June 19 of this year, Pixar's newest film Soul was one of my most anticipated of the year. Obviously, things didn't go exactly as planned this year, so it was possible the movie wasn't even going to be released this year. Now with Disney's struggle to stay afloat with its theme park closures and entertainment venues being mostly shut down or limited in their capacity it was important to bring more attention to their new streaming service. So Soul was released gratis on Disney+ on Christmas day as a nice little gift for its subscribers. So... was it worth the wait?
Soul follows its main characters (Joe Gardner voiced by Jaime Foxx) struggle to find his big break as a Jazz musician. Not satisfied with his current life and job, he doesn't want to settle for anything less than becoming a full-time musician playing jazz gigs with other great musicians. Just when all seems lost he gets one last shot to get a full-time position on a band by playing a Jazz Club show. Just as he receives the big news, he dies. Here the story takes a strange twist as he enters the afterlife, or more appropriately, The Great Before? He accidentally finds himself at a place where souls are prepared to enter Earth for the first time and enter as new-borns. He is paired with a soul named "22" (voiced by Tina Fay) who has been around for centuries and still hasn't been able to enter Earth. She lacks the motivation to start a life on earth but instead decides to help Joe get his body back in the hopes she can finally stop being pushed to live on earth and leave The Great Before. This sets up the unlikely partnership that carries the rest of the movie.
This movie definitely has more ups than downs, but it does suffer from a few things in my opinion. It has a lot of similarities to two previous Pixar films in "Coco" and "Inside Out" where the characters exist in or enter a fictional place in order to learn a lesson or grow as people. This movie was directed by Pete Docter, who made "Inside Out" so it kind of makes sense that could be the case. The difference here is that Soul feels more mature in the way it tackles its subject matter as well as feeling a bit more subtle in the message it's trying to get across. I don't really think there's just one lesson in the movie though, but what I took away from it is the idea of living every day like it's your last. The fact that most people take just the simple thing of living and breathing for granted, but also interacting with the world around you as well. Making connections with other people or just having more appreciation for the things we consider mundane that we see every day. The movie does this by having the main character Joe step outside his body and watch someone else live his life, someone who's never lived on Earth before. Seeing the way this being experiences Earth for the first time makes him realize just how good it is just to be alive (that and dying I suppose). And no you probably won't be crying in this one, which is pretty nice for a Pixar movie to not make you cry for once. Just kidding, you'll cry.
So there is a moment around the start of the second act where Joe and 22 head back down to Earth, and the movie turns into this body-switch comedy style story. Honestly, when that first happened I got really worried because I really didn't want to see that kind of overused trope in this movie. While it wasn't always the best, it did end up working out in the long run. It made a lot of sense why the movie decided to go that route to tell its story, though maybe there could a been a more inventive way to go about it? Also, the movie, or at least the trailers, made it seem this movie was going to a lot more about Jazz and music, but that didn't really end up being the case too much. I guess that's not really a problem, but maybe I was just excited to see more Jazz music?
Joe Gardner is maybe a little too obsessed with Jazz, as he pretty much thinks about it non-stop and really has a one-track mind. His idea is that if he doesn't get a full-time jazz gig, he's failed at life and he didn't accomplish his only goal. While it's good to be as dedicated as Joe is to his dream, the movie shows you why that might be a problem. His obsession leads to him ignoring the people around him and all the things the rest of the world has to offer. Which are all revealed to him as he watches someone else live his life. It's an interesting lesson to see in a movie, about focusing so hard on one thing you leave out any other possibility in your life, which can lead to disappointment and even an empty feeling when you finally accomplish it.
On top of all of this you get the top-notch Pixar animation, in this case, split into two styles. The first one is the real world, New York City to be exact. Pixar knocks it out of the park here with some of the most detailed and beautiful sights you'll see in any animated movie. The city looks so real, the only thing keeping it from actually tricking you into thinking it is are the very cartoon looking humans that walk around it. It's stunning from the buildings and all the signs and details of them to the lighting and sounds. I felt like I could be robbed at gun-point at any moment, it was fantastic. (I've never been to New York by the way.) The other side is not so breath-taking. That's the after-life/Great Before scenes with the soul version of Joe. It's a lot less pretty and detailed and a lot more simplistic and colorful. It's honestly fine, but I really just wanted to get back to New York to see all the detail again. So I think those soul sections kind of feel more boring in a way because of it, plus the story at that point tries to be a lot more humorous which is usually pretty hit or miss. Lots of historical references that aren't as funny as maybe the movie thinks they are?
At the end of it all I was left with a bit of a mixed bag here, but one that I think I really enjoyed more than disliked. The good outweighs the bad and there are enough strong moments and emotional scenes that still get you invested in the characters and world. While "22" as a character starts off pretty disappointing, she really grows throughout the movie to be much more likable. By the end, you're rooting for these characters to make the right choices and I think that's important in a movie like this. So it's a very good Pixar movie, not near their best in my opinion, but probably just below that.
Overall Grade I'd give it a solid B
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