I contemplated not writing about Disney Pixar’s Soul because it was such a joy to watch without any expectations. But then I would be concerned that ya’ll might try to watch Wonder Woman 1984 and skip Soul and that would be a tragedy on both ends. I will not talk about how appalled I am that anyone working on WW84 calls themselves story tellers. I will not talk about how shocked I am that anyone could ruin characters that badly. And I will not talk about how angry I am that WW84 even exists. I will not.

I digress.

I knew next to nothing going into Soul. It was about a guy who liked music and he died and got stuck in some sort of limbo. That’s it, that’s all I knew.  And I think the creators knew that was all viewers would know, because they played with that in such an interesting way, almost telegraphing his death so it made it ok that you knew this information coming into the movie. A lot of movie trailer editors could take a couple notes from this.

But from the moment of his death, I HAD NO IDEA WHAT TO EXPECT. There were a ton of things that surprised me on the surface. The art was breathtaking, both in the “real world” and the “Great Before.” The mixture of almost photorealistic 3D animation, to the otherworldly, soft-around-the-edges animation of the Great Before to the 2D animations of the Jerrys and Terry, it was amazing and like nothing I have seen before.

The music was so good and I’m not even a big fan of jazz, but it was beautiful and I could appreciate it. Also, it was cool knowing that John Baptiste was used as the musical references (in addition to composing original pieces for the film).

The voice casting was great. Tina Fey just gets my humor (or maybe I get hers … whatever. She’s funny). Jamie Foxx, Questlove, Phylicia Rashad, Daveed Diggs, Richard Ayoade, Angela Bassett… all wonderful. And I would have given anything to have Terry say “mainframe” just once.

And that doesn’t even touch on how impactful the messages, big and small, were. It deals with spirtuallity without being religious, determinism and extistentialism and the importance of family influence and life experiences. So good. It also did a great job at targeting young people just getting ready to go out into the world, but the 30 and 40 something year old message hit a lot closer to home. You know, being one of those 30 or 40 something year olds.

The barber shop scene was by far my favorite in the movie. It was very funny, heartwarming and very philosophical.

Anyway, I could wax on and on about this film, but just go watch it. Anddontwatchwonderwoman.