22. Soul

Soul is a tough movie to sum up and rank because, on paper, it’s great. In its story of protagonist Joe Gardner nearly dying and having to reckon with his belief in determinism, it has a lovely premise. Joe spent his whole life believing that he was meant to be a jazz musician, and was so steadfast in the notion that it was the reason he was put on the earth that he forgot to stop and smell the roses. It has things to say and is rooted in its protagonist’s life as a Black man, but trips up in its handling of some of these ideas. It falls into the unfortunate trend in animated movies of not letting people of color be the star without transforming them into some kind of animal or creature, and then for swaths of the film when we finally do see Joe on screen as himself instead of as a disembodied soul, his body has been overtaken by Tina Fey’s 22, so a white woman’s voice is coming out of his mouth. Soul stumbles on its way to saying something meaningful, and the victim is the same Black protagonist Pixar took decades to finally put in the lead. — KS