Review: Soul (Special Viewing)

Hello, everyone! We recently watched Soul on Disney Plus. It’s the latest film released by Pixar. Here we share some of our thoughts on this movie with you. As always, you don’t have to worry about spoilers in this review (although we hope all, if not most, of you have had a chance to see it). Read on!

A Quick Review of Soul

Megan’s Thoughts

It was fun to hang out in the world of this film with the exploration of what it means to have a soul, and the implications of finding, losing, or failing to find your “spark.” I found a lot of similarities to Inside Out with how the worlds were created and seemingly intangible concepts like emotions and souls were explored.
Also fun? New York City! Having spent about five years working/living in New York City, I feel like the animators and sound designers really captured what it feels like to be in such a crazy city: the dead-inside look of everyone on the subway, the cacophony of noise when you first step out onto the city streets, even pizza rat made a cameo! I think anyone who’s ever experienced New York City will appreciate the attention to detail in this film.
Is it weird that I’m kind of disappointed this latest Pixar movie didn’t make me cry? I mean it definitely made me laugh out loud at several points, but for something that deals with concepts of souls, birth, and death, I was pretty surprised that I didn’t cry. There was definitely a moment where I thought I was going to cry—I could feel the warmth behind my eyes starting up—but then all of a sudden the moment was over and the next moment kind of robbed the emotion from me, so my eyes didn’t even water.

Kevin’s Thoughts

I really enjoyed this one, and I couldn’t stop laughing all throughout it. Jamie Foxx delivers in his performance as Mr. Gardener, and I also loved Angela Bassett’s portrayal of Dorothea Williams. Her sass was impeccable!
I appreciated the message the movie was going for and how it tied jazz into it. Pixar has generally done a good job showing different aspects of humanity and bringing it to the screen.
Without giving too much away, the casting of Tina Fey as 22 ends up being problematic thanks to a very controversial moment around 35-40 minutes into the movie. If you’ve read our review of The Castaway Cowboy or have been reading or listening to people’s thoughts on this movie, you might already know what I mean. Note, Tina Fey herself is not the issue, but rather what has been an ongoing problem with how the entertainment industry has treated actors of color, particularly black actors.
The ending was a little bit anticlimactic. I get what it was trying to go for, but it seemed a little too simple. I was also reeeeeally hoping we would discover something about the future of one of the main characters (again, trying to avoid spoilers here!), and was just a tad disappointed we didn’t see it.