This trailer for Pixar’s Soul reveals an epic journey to find the joys of life

by · Critical Hit

Pixar movies tend to be big cinematic epics. That is changing though with Pixar’s forthcoming movie Soul forgoing theatres in the wake of Covid-19 and releasing directly to Disney+ instead. It’s a sign of Disney’s recent dramatic change in strategy to focus more on their big streaming future and an indication that even films that should be big crowd-pleasers could see a streaming future instead.

And to celebrate this announcement, the studio has released a new trailer for the film which gives us a bigger detail of the overall plot and what we can expect from this new film. Soul follows middle school music teacher Joe (Jamie Foxx) who dreams of becoming a jazz musician. Those dreams are cut short when he falls down a manhole cover and winds up in The Great Before and meets 22 (Tina Fey), a soul with no interest in the human world. Together they go on a mission to get Joe’s body back and fulfil each of their dreams. And as evidenced by this new trailer, the film continues Pixar’s trend of creating movies that deal with some heavy, sensitive material, but told in a way that is entertaining, funny and palatable to audiences of all ages. Check it out.

I really enjoy the ideas in this film and while it does mirror aspects of Pixar’s Inside Out – something which perhaps shouldn’t surprising, considering they share the same director in Pete Docter – it has its own great characters and a story that should prove to bring out the full gamut of emotions from its audience. Pixar set the standard for high-quality animation films and this one appears to be no different as it looks beautifully animated, to go along with its imaginative story.

Despite the film being a colourful marvel though perhaps the biggest disappointment that it isn’t coming out on the big screen will be hearing Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ score on loud, big speakers, the way it was meant to be enjoyed in a film all about music. The score will no doubt form a big part of Soul’s heart and it will be a pity that it will go to waste for many of us who don’t have a massive sound system at home to do it justice.

Soul is arriving on Disney+ on Christmas Day – which is perhaps inconsequential for us seeing as we don’t have Disney+ here yet – and also stars the voice talents of Graham Norton, Rachel House, Alice Braga, Richard Ayoade and June Squibb. Hopefully, we will get to see this movie soon in some way because it will be a pity to miss out on what looks like yet another Pixar epic.