Disney and Pixar's Soul is a visually stunning masterpiece that teaches you a lesson or two (and more) about life.
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Joe Gardner (Jamie Foxx) is a middle school music teacher with a life-long dream of performing jazz music onstage who finally gets a chance after impressing respected jazz musician Dorothea Williams (a perfectly cast Angela Bassett) during an audition.
Things take an unfortunate turn when human Joe falls down a New York manhole and finds himself a Casper look-alike in The Great Beyond. Not ready to see his life ended just yet, Joe escapes and enters The Great Before, being the first soul to have done so in centuries and catching the attention of one Rachel House’s cubic soul counter Terry.
In The Great Before, Joe is tasked to mentor soul 22 (Tina Fey) and prepare it for earth. This proves to be a difficult task as 22 has been around for ages, having had mentors such as Muhammad Ali, Mother Theresa and Marie Antoinette but none has successfully convinced it to see the appeal of earth and go willingly.
In true Pixar fashion, the polar pairing of Joe and 22 result in an interesting adventure of finding one's self, discovering a world of possibilities and a whole lot more.
Disney and Pixar’s Soul is rich in theme and tackles very real world scenarios that viewers are bound to takeaway a lesson or two from. It’s probably its more mature film to date, if not most.
Having been one of two of the studio’s releases in 2020 (yes, we still remember you Onward), Soul couldn’t be more different in terms of animation style and story. This is a testament to the animation studio that is clearly more than capable of delivering distinct features for children and adults alike.
Taking a page from their very own Inside Out and Sony Animation’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse, Soul explores multiple styles of animation that almost makes it look like a different movie altogether - if not for it being seamless woven together - without losing sight of being one of Pixar’s more visually stunning work. To pair that with Academy Award winning composers Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor’s beautiful score? Genius.
Pete Docter has also proven time and time again that he has mastered the art of storytelling, nailing it with Soul by repurposing a basic story told many times before into an interesting tale featuring a jazz teacher.
It must be difficult for Pixar to live up to its name after being put on the pedestal for its track record of beloved animation but they never fail to deliver.
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