Inside Out (2015), directed by Pete Docter & Ronnie del Carmen

All too often a movie with lots of hype fails to live up to it. Sad to say this is the case with Inside Out. The film deserves much credit for good intentions. It is intelligent, thoughtful, worthy – and dull. The concept – examining what goes on inside our heads – is so interesting, but seems really to be aimed at parents rather than children, as the sophistication looks to be well beyond most under 12. Joy, fear, sadness, disgust and anger; this is the first problem, with such a limited range of emotions and only one of them positive. A major theme of the film, that there is a place for the negative emotions, doesn’t really resonate that strongly, with Joy clearly the hero who should be in charge and all is lost without her. The best part of the film is the post-script, where the emotions are seen at work in all the other characters, showing the diversity of feeling in all the major and minor characters, but it’s too little, too late to really make it the film as a whole a success.