Soul Film Review

 

PIXAR fans the company that gave us the ongoing Toy Story franchise as well as countless other great films are back with a new film. You can bet that I was going to review this film the second that it came out it's just on Christmas day anybody who thinks that releasing a film on Christmas day is a good idea you need help because no one is going to be watching a film on Christmas day and so join my as I review the new PIXAR film which is called "Soul" enjoy.

The plot of the film is music teacher Joe Gardner gets the gig of a lifetime one day and on his way from getting the gig he falls down a sewer hole and when he wakes up he finds himself as nothing more then a soul and so he must team up with another soul in order to get back to his own body. I will admit that without giving anything away in terms of plot the synopsis that I just gave doesn't cover the entire film and that's because I want to keep the rest of the story as a surprise because honestly the story is so good that you have to watch this film without knowing what the full story of the film is.

Starring in the film is Jamie Foxx as Joe Gardner , Tina Fey as 22 , Questlove as Curley and Phylicia Rashad as Libba Gardner. Also starring in the film is Daveed Diggs as Paul , Angela Bassett as Dorothea Williams , Graham Norton as Moonwind , Rachel House as Terry , Richard Ayoade as Counselor Jerry , Alice Braga as Counselor Jerry , Wes Studi as Counselor Jerry and Fortune Feimster as Counselor Jerry.

PIXAR have a great knack for casting actors right for whatever role there cast to play and the same is true here because I feel that every one of these actors including those just doing additional voices are cast perfectly. Due to how well they are cast in this film all of the actors in the film do a great playing their respective characters so much so that after a while I stopped hearing the actors and started to hear the characters which for me at least is always a good thing.

This really doesn't need saying but doing the animation for this film is of course the greats over at PIXAR. I don't really think that this needs saying but the animation in this film is freaking stunning as all hell every character is animated with a great amount of care and effort and you can tell that the team making this film had a passion for this film and for the story that they are trying to tell and that is something that you see in every single frame of this film.

What I wasn't expecting was for there to be what seems like a mix of animation since all of the souls are clearly 3D CGI but the counselors (who are all named Jerry by the way) look like there animated in traditional hand drawn 2D animation. I very well could be wrong with that assumption and if so I apologize but if i'm right then I have to give the team at PIXAR credit for blending to animation mediums together in my opinion rather successfully.

One of the more bigger issues that I have with this film is the fact that it was released on Christmas day now I don't know about you but in previous years I haven't rushed to watch a new film on Christmas day. Now I know that Disney's hands were pretty much tied due to everything that's going on in the world but surely given the films subject matter then this film should have been released earlier in the year or perhaps summer of 2021 but not on Christmas day 2020.

Now there is something that I didn't like about this film and that's the fact that if you saw even one of the film's trailers then you know exactly where this film is going to go. As such when the film did go the way that I thought that it was going to go I didn't feel anything because I already knew that it was going to go there and so it wasn't that shocking to me when the film went to those places if the film makers wanted to hide where the films story was going to go then they should have done a better job at hiding where the film goes story wise in the trailers since even tho most of the story was kept a secret in all of the films trailers (of which I think there was two trailers for this film but I could be wrong) what they didn't hide was where the story was heading and that ruined the surprise for me personally but if you didn't see the trailers well then your in for a shock.

This film has a total running time of one hour and forty minuets and thirty one seconds which for me at least felt a little bit on the long side. I say that because plot wise there's not really alot going on to warrant a one hour and forty minuet and thirty one second running time and as such the film does tend to get a little boring since all your seeing are the characters wonder from one situation to the next while doing very little to advance the story but I do feel that this film would have been alot better if the film makers made this film at least an hour and twenty five maybe an hour and thirty or even an hour and fifteen minuets long just because story wise there's not enough plot to cover one hour and forty minuets and thirty one seconds in my opinion.

Now then boys and girls this is comedy and so that means that I do have to talk about the jokes that are in the actual film itself. In my opinion there aren't that many laugh out loud moments in this film but there are plenty of fun moments with Joe and the other soul called 22 and that to me is where the comedy in this film works best because these two characters have such chemistry together that they just work as characters and as such alot of the banter between the characters feels alot more naturel and not forced like in other films but that's just my opinion tho.

Overall yes this film was honestly worth waiting for in my opinion but at the same time I can't say that it's best film that PIXAR have done. I say this because as i've discussed in the review the film does have some issues but in my opinion has alot more going for it then it does going against it and in my opinion even the bad PIXAR films are only bad when you compare them to other PIXAR films and not when you compare them to other films and as such this film gets an 8.5 out of 10 from me.

All and I do mean all of the images that I used in this review were gathered from the official Disney fandom wiki page. Since I only went to one website for the images that I used in this review I have no choice but to recommend that you guys use the official Disney fandom wiki page since nearly all of the images on the official Disney fandom wiki page are all very high definition which for me at least is one of the things that I look for when i'm making a film review