Inside Out Review: 8 Reasons It's Pixar's Best Film Since Up

5. The Visual Style Is Surprisingly Varied

Although each new film has seen technological leaps forward - Monsters, Inc. created fur, Finding Nemo perfected both realistic water and human features, Up revolutionised clouds - the visual style of Pixar has stayed pretty consistent throughout their twenty years at the top; the humans from Up are of the same general design as those from The Incredibles. Cars mixed things up a bit in design terms, but the look of the world was still overbearingly Pixar. In many ways Inside Out follows this tract. But once you get inside Riley's brain it's a totally different matter. The creation of the emotions is Pixar's most abstract sequence, wisps of light swirling to form figures and orbs spinning around to represent memories. It's pure visual beauty. Even when Riley grows up and the system is better defined, things are still operating on a heightened plane. Being in the mind means the rules of reality itself can be broken on a whim. One sequence sees Joy, Sadness and imaginary friend Bing Bong head through the machine of Abstract Though, in which they get broken down into increasingly simple, 2D animation. It's the most eccentric choice in a Pixar movie since Wall-E's live-action segments and serves to make the unlimited possibilities within the brain fully tangible.