Inside Out Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		5.0
Video		5.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		3.5
Overall		4.5

Inside Out Blu-ray Movie Review

No mixed emotions: 'Inside Out' is one of the year's best Blu-ray releases.

Reviewed by Martin Liebman November 5, 2015

"How do you feel?" was the one question that stumped a recently revived half human, half emotionless Vulcan Spock in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. It's no wonder the question confused him, but confusion is also more than a valid response, and a common response at that, for humans, too, humans who deal with the complex interactions of life and the resultant emotions that are, if one is lucky, straightforward and readily identifiable but that are instead, more often than not, knotty tangles that can leave an individual overwhelmed. And leave it to Disney and Pixar to take a shot at, and succeed in, sorting them out. Inside Out is the brilliant digitally animated movie that peeks inside one little girl's head for a look at how life can influence any, and often all, of five core emotions: joy, sadness, anger, fear, and disgust. The movie is a wonderful example of how the cinema medium, when it's at its best and crafted at the hands of master storytellers, can take a complicated idea and make it satisfyingly accessible, colorful, and fun for the kids while retaining all of the complex, interlocking, deeply personal, and endlessly insightful ideas on and realities of what it means to live and all of the complications that come with life.

Riley's emotions.

Young Riley (voiced by Kaitlyn Dias) has grown up a happy little girl in Minnesota. She's an integral part of her outdoor hockey team, has several close friends, and is loved by her parents (voiced by Kyle MacLachlan and Diane Lane). But her world is upset when the family moves to San Francisco. Their new house is small and dirty, the local pizza shop serves only yucky organic pie topped with broccoli, and hockey just isn't the same when played inside and without her familiar teammates. Her life of joy suddenly gives way to a wave of negative emotions, including sadness, anger, disgust, and fear. And her emotions aren't sure what to do with the sudden life change, either. They're personified in her head and work through a central control while filing her past emotions and experiences -- "core memories" -- that together make her who she is by way of a series of interconnected "islands of personality." But with the sudden change comes a desperate attempt to maintain her equilibrium. Joy (voiced by Amy Poehler) feverishly works to keep Riley happy, but her new surroundings, her growing uncertainty, homesickness, and other emotions lead Sadness (voiced by Phyllis Smith), Fear (voiced by Bill Hader), Anger (voiced by Lewis Black), and Disgust (voiced by Mindy Kaling) to take a greater role in her life that could change her forever.

Inside Out captures the essence of human emotion at its most fundamental and relatable level, though certainly with plenty of added flair and imaginative creativity in support. The film manages to explore one of the most complicated issues humans have ever faced: what, exactly, goes on inside the head, and even if the movie doesn't really touch on it in a tangible way, in the soul, when emotions run rampant, when life manages to influence -- for better or for worse -- the goings-on in the hear and now, the memories of the past, and the general perception of where one has been, where one is, and where one may be headed in life. The emotions are personified by cute and colorful characters but beyond that tangible, accessible façade is a very real, very well defined, very smart examination of life and how a person processes it, how memories are formed and reshaped by maturity and experience.

The film's core adventure that sees Joy and Sadness attempting to regain control of an emotionally wrecked Riley is filled with color and vitality, but the film manages to make practically every step they take mean something in the greater definition of human emotion: how emotions interact and influence and what they mean to one's equilibrium both individually and collectively. Perhaps most interesting of all is the idea that Joy is, essentially, an island surrounded by four negative emotions in Anger, Sadness, Fear, and Disgust. What does that say about the world and the way man is wired to live in it? That's 4-1 in favor of the negative responses to life, and the question, really, is how one's emotional equilibrium is satisfied when Joy need work overtime to compensate for the collective force of the negative emotions? The answer, as the movie suggests, may be in working together, in defining experiences and processing memories not only in the moment, but in an evolving way that colors them with life's forward momentum. The answer is also, without spoiling anything in the film, that joy isn't simply a product of itself. That leaves the individual better prepared, through experience, to process life, and the responses to it, more efficiently. Life, essentially, is the collected sum of experience and the individual's ability to better understand it through the collective prism of those five emotions and what they've helped the individual learn along the unpredictable, but always a little more practiced and prepared than the previous step, journey through life.

Inside Out is more than ideas. The personifications of them are terrific. It's a big world out there in people's heads, and the filmmakers have created for it an amazing landscape that's an approachable, understandable, well defined, and tangible reflection of high concept metaphysicals. The characters look terrific, of course, each of them relatively simple in construction but packed with little details. More than that, however, is the world in which they operate, where so many big details and little touches alike make the world tangibly believable in operation and execution, everything designed with function, purpose, and place in mind, not only look. The characters are very well voiced, too. The entire cast brings a familiar but, at the same time, unique cadence to each character, emoting their core emotional purpose in the voices while also making them friendly and approachable. Inside Out has it all, which is not unexpected from Pixar but the studio has outdone itself visually, aurally, and thematically in what is arguably the studio's best movie to date.

Inside Out Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Inside Out looks fantastic on Blu-ray. Aside from a few traces of banding, the image is pristine, delivering exactly as expected of a brand new digitally animated feature. Colors leap off the screen, dominated, of course, by Joy's sparkling gold, Sadness' depressed blue, Anger's fiery red, and Disgust's vomit green. The palette dazzles with a dizzying array of vibrant hues in support, but it's those core "emotional" colors that righty dominate and most deeply impress. Just as impressive, however, are well defined shadows and low light details both in Riley's physical world and some of the darker places in her mind. Details are endlessly satisfying as well. Character textures are incredible, both broad features and intimate little glittery details in hair, clothing seams and textures, and little nuances around both of the film's worlds. The transfer is stunning to say the least, an impressive gallery of high definition spectacle that dazzles even today, approaching a decade into the format's lifespan.

Inside Out Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Inside Out's DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 lossless soundtrack excels in every facet. Music is precisely defined throughout, whether light and airy piano notes or more aggressively styled music. Surround sound is constant and even, with full stage immersion and low end weight being amongst the track's signatures. The entire stage springs to life with any number and variety of sound effects, from hushed ambience to aggressive crashes. Real-world traffic din and "inside" world details, which are many and varied, are equally immersive and detailed, presenting with just the right placement, movement, bass, and definition. Dialogue delivery is rich and center focused with no issues pertaining to clarity or prioritization. This is a stellar listen from Disney.

Inside Out Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Inside Out contains supplements on two Blu-ray discs, the feature film disc and a dedicated supplemental disc. A DVD copy of the film and a Disney digital copy voucher are included with purchase.

Feature Film Disc:

• Lava (1080p, 7:12): A short, musically centered, volcanic love story.
• Riley's First Date? (1080p, 4:40): A short film from the world of Inside Out.
• Paths to Pixar: The Women of Inside Out (1080p, 11:22): A number of female cast and crew share stories from their lives, their work on the film, characters with whom they identify, their thoughts on human emotion, how they connect with the film, and more.
• Mixed Emotions (1080p, 7:17): A quick but detailed look at character design.
• Audio Commentary: With Director Pete Docter and Co-Director Ronnie Del Carmen.

Supplemental Disc:

• Story of the Story (1080p, 10:30): Voice cast and crew look at story origins and development, character and world design and evolution, story arcs, and themes.
• Mapping the Mind (1080p, 8:24): A closer look at designing and implementing the film's expansive main setting, the mind of an 11-year-old girl.
• Our Dads, the Filmmakers (1080p, 7:25): Elie Docter and Gracie Giacchino document their fathers' work on the film.
• Into the Unknown: The Sound of Inside Out (1080p, 7:09): A brief exploration of the sound effects used in the film and the process of finding them, fine-tuning them to the world, ensuring they elicit the intended audience reaction, and recording them.
• The Misunderstood Art of Animation Film Editing (1080p, 4:43): As the title suggests, this piece looks at the editing process, which is more complicated than simply adding scenes together.
• Mind Candy (1080p, 14:26): A compilation of extra character moments.
• Deleted Scenes (1080p): A Pete Docter General Introduction (0:55) is followed by several deleted scenes, including Riley Grows Up (4:45), Joy's Decline (3:42), Misdirection (4:12), and Construction (3:17). Docter also briefly introduces each scene. Note that scenes are presented in the form of early storyboard renditions and are not complete.
• Trailers (1080p): Remember (1:38), Experience (2:19), and Japan Trailer (2:30).

Inside Out Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Inside Out works perfectly on every level. It takes high concept and deeply philosophical ideas on human emotion and how life experiences shape one's approach to, and outlook on, life and presents and explores them smartly and captivatingly while at the same time making them charming and accessible. The animation is gorgeous and the voice acting is excellent. Disney's Blu-ray release is equally terrific, presenting superb video and audio to go along with a generous allotment of extra content. Inside Out earns my highest recommendation.