A movie with too much Soul for kids
Soul was recently released on Disney+. I did not watch any trailers for Soul before sitting down to watch. I had only seen a handful of images, movie posters and the like from recent trips to Disney World. My expectations for the movie were pretty high, being that Soul is a PIXAR film.
I think that Soul is one of the more “out there” ideas that Disney has come up with. Although parts of it aligned with my expectations, the movie was much more serious, and less kid friendly than I had hoped. It is not a film that I would recommend to children at all. The movie deals a lot with the topics of death, the afterlife, the meaning of life, living a good life and even touches on not being ready to die.
Story Summary for Soul on Disney+
Within the first 10 minutes of the Soul, the main character Joe falls down a manhole and dies. His soul leaves his body and appears on a road to the great beyond (aka eternity or afterlife). Joe, voiced by Jamie Foxx, panics and tries to escape by running in the opposite direction. He ends up meeting an unborn soul named 22, voiced by Tina Fey.
While Joe wants to return to Earth, 22 does not want to go at all. Joe and 22 travel to Earth together and end up in the wrong bodies. They work together and become friends while attempting to untangle the mess that they caused for themselves. It becomes apparent that Joe is too focused on his music career, and that he is missing out on life itself.
The two of them struggle to learn about the meaning of life, but in the end they live happily ever after. Soul had a lot of cute moments, and it even had some positive moral lessons.
Overall thoughts on Soul
I paused the movie about halfway through, and finished it the night after. It was a lot to take in and digest mentally. The movie could have almost been a live action at some points. It lacked a lot of the light-hearted humor that many PIXAR films have.
With that said, I think that the movie was good. It’s worth a watch if you don’t mind thinking about the above mentioned topics. If you have Disney+ you can watch it at no additional cost. Either way, Soul is definitely one of the more creative and crazy PIXAR films to come out recently.
Runtime: 1hr 40min
Release Date: December 25th, 2020
Rated: PG
Platform: Disney+
HFR Rating:
