If you’re a regular moviegoer like me, it’s hard to not feel like the direction of Hollywood is going the same way. Hollywood has turned to superheroes, trilogies, and remakes of older classics for all of the major budget productions. The originality, the creative new ideas have mostly been pushed to the small budget indie productions in limited releases. But every now and then a major studio creates a movie that’s so new, so innovative, that it’s actually shocking. 

Disney Pixar released it’s newest film Inside Out to this reaction. Pixar veteran Pete Docter (known for Up, Monsters Inc., and helped write the first two Toy Story films) wrote and directed Inside Out. Pixar has been a great studio for most of it’s existence (now 15 films, with two more to release within the next 12 months), but has missed on its last few films; Cars 2 underwhelmed, Brave was fine, Monsters University was unnecessary, none of these maintained the incredible standard set beforehand, until now. 

Inside Out is built on the concept that every decision made by someone comes from one of five emotions; joy, sadness, anger, fear and disgust. The movie is set inside the mind of an 11-year-old girl named Riley as she moves with her family to a new city, and the emotions (voiced respectively by Amy Poehler, Phyllis Smith, Lewis Black, Bill Hader, and Mindy Kaling) try to lead her through the difficult time.  It becomes even more difficult when a mishap sends Joy and Sadness far from the mind headquarters where the emotions are located, to another part of the memory far away, from which they must rush to get back before Riley’s emotional state gets thrown off. 

Don’t worry this movie is hilarious, as the animators found a genius way to personify every part of the mind and brain (memories are spheres, colored for which emotion they were and are stored in a large warehouse for just one great example). The movie never stops throwing a new brilliant animation for a complex concept at the viewer, simple enough for a child to understand and intelligent enough for an adult to truly appreciate. The jokes are plentiful in this movie, but like all Pixar movies this isn’t just a laugh fest. It takes a turn into becoming a very heartfelt story on how always being happy isn’t possible, but it’s okay to be sad sometimes (when I saw this film, at least half of the theater cried at some point, also almost all of the audience were small children and their parents). 

This is a great movie, a return to form for Pixar after a few years off. It can’t be missed, take your family or a friend to go enjoy what is probably an Oscar lock for Best Animated Movie, and has a really good chance at getting a Best Picture nod as well. 

Inside Out is in theaters now.