Soul Movie Review
By Connor Iadevaia

On Christmas Day, 2020, Pixar Animation Studios released Soul, a movie about a middle school band teacher named Joe Gardner. While he is extremely excited about his big break as a musician, his soul and body are accidentally separated when he falls into a sewer. Joe then finds himself as a soul in the ¨Great Beyond,¨ which is where you go to heaven. But Joe does not accept that he has to die and escapes to the ¨Great Before,¨ which is where you get your personality and a spark, which means you can go to Earth. When Joe is in the ¨Great Before,¨ he sees that there is an Earth portal which he attempts to go in many times but it never works. His only other option other than dying is mentoring a soul which can help him get back to Earth. Although Joe thinks this will be easy, he gets assigned to a soul named twenty two.

Twenty two has had almost every famous person known in history for doing amazing things as a mentor and never got a spark to go to earth. Joe and twenty two go through every choice you can get as a spark but they never find one. Twenty two then shows Joe a soul that can help him get back to Earth. When Joe concentrates and opens a portal for himself; he gets too excited and falls in too early with twenty two. Joe successfully gets back to Earth but not in his own body. When Joe was a soul his body got moved into the hospital with a therapy cat. So when they go through the portal Joe gets stuck in the therapy cat’s body and twenty two gets stuck in Joe’s body!! All throughout the next half of the movie twenty two explores what it’s like being on Earth and ultimately twenty two likes it there. Towards the end of the movie Joe accepts that he has to go into the great beyond. But since there always has to be a happy ending the head staff in the great before let Joe have a second chance at life.

I would review Soul a good 5 stars. I think Soul really shows the importance of not taking life for granted and appreciating the little things. Although many Pixar movies aren’t so deep, this movie is great to watch with your family. This movie reminds you of how small things in life you will miss if you don’t value them now. I also like that it’s set in New York City and how it shows all the good parts and details about this famous city. Furthermore, Soul shows the importance of life and what great things it has to offer.