Pixar’s “Soul” premiered at the London Film Festival this past weekend. The reviews are in from those who were lucky enough to attend the public screening, and they are all positive, albeit with a few critics having some reservations. The Rotten Tomatoes score, based on 14 reviews, is 100%. and the 7-critic tally over at Metacritic has resulted in a 91 Metascore. Will “Soul” be screened digitally for critics in the coming days? Will I be getting a copy for review soon? One can only assume that will be the case. Regardless, “Soul” is now officially an Oscar contender for Best Animated Feature and is set for a Christmas Day release on Disney+
Here some of the reviews:
Wendy Ide (ScreenDaily): “Visually glorious, frequently very funny and genuinely profound, this is a picture which cries out to be seen on the big screen.”
Kevin Harley (Total Film): “Moving ever-onward from the sequels years, Pixar gets right back in the zone with Soul. Deep, witty, and fast on its jazz-loving feet, it doesn’t miss a beat.”
Leslie Felperin (The Hollywood Reporter): “This densely packed, exquisitely executed and just a teensy bit batshit film is peak Pixar. It’s a vintage mix of the company’s intricate storytelling, complex emotional intelligence, technical prowess and cerebral whimsy on dexamethasone.”
David Katz (The Film Stage): “Soul likes jazz very much. That’s a rare certainty in this ambitious film, which attempts to contemplate nothing less than the root of all human experience on this planet.”
Jason Solomons (The Wrap): “Soul is perhaps the most existentially ambitious film ever attempted by Disney and yet it pops with colorful visuals and gentle wisdom while the story clips along despite the dizzying height of the concept. Only in the final stages do the knots of plot complexity get the better the characters, but audiences will have been well won over by then.”
I should warn you: based on everything I’ve heard, this teaser is a total misdirection. The movie is not at all what it’s being portrayed as here. In fact, most of the footage in the teaser comes from the first few minutes of the film.