Turning Red (2022) Review

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well for a Saturday. Last night I watched the new movie released by Pixar, Turning Red, on Disney+. And I want to talk about it, so let's get into it.

 While I've never been the kind of person who rushes out to see every single movie released by Pixar Animation Studios, there have been certain ones that I've been excited to see whether I see them in theatres, on VHS/DVD/Blu-ray, or on Disney+. Turning Red was one of them. Simply because the teaser trailer featured "Larger Than Life" by the Backstreet Boys, which came out in 1999. I mean if the movie was going for a late '90s/early 2000s vibe I would be all for it. And it did not disappoint.

The big draw of the movie for me is that it's set in early to mid-2002, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. I live in Ottawa, but the fact that it's set in Canada at all is awesome. Also, Mei and her friends are in grade 8 in the movie, getting close to finishing grade 8 and moving onto high school. Well, at the time the movie is set in, I was in grade 9, about to finish it off and I had friends who were in grade 8 and getting ready to move onto high school. But it's more than that though.

I was in grade 8 the previous year, facing the same challenges that Mei and her friends faced with being made fun of, finding their own identities that are separate from their parents, while at the same time trying to honour their parents. All the while feeling like nothing you do is good enough for them. In fact, it took me until adulthood to realize that my parents's expectations weren't higher than what I was capable of, and that it's not them you have to impress, it's yourself.

The music in this movie is awesome. Apart from "Bootylicious" by Destiny's Child, most of the songs in the movie are by the fictional boy band, 4Town, and it's that same kind of bubblegum pop that was pretty prevalent in the late '90s and early 2000s after it was popularized by the Backstreet Boys, Spice Girls, Nsync, Christina Aguilera, and Britney Spears. And I love that the writers created their own fictional boy band, because there were so many obscure boy bands that popped up at the time, with almost none of them existing anymore, that 4Town could actually be a real band.

I really enjoyed this movie. It was fun, it was relatable, even for a 35-year-old white man such as myself, and it felt personal. Ever since Soul came out at the end of 2020, it seems like Pixar is allowing young directors to come in and make movies that are personal to them, but don't necessarily fit the corporate formula that has been in place since Toy Story. And I'm sure there are some of you out there who will try to tell me that Pixar has always released movies that are personal to the people making them. And maybe that's true for a film like Soul and Luca, but it's not true for most of earlier films released by the studio. Simply because at one time or another a director has been replaced, Pixar was producing the movies to fulfill their contract with Disney, or the corporate side of things, a.k.a. Disney, has come in and requested changes until the finished film barely resembles the movie the people working on it envisioned.

I definitely recommend you watch this movie. It's on Disney+ because of Disney's decision to pull it from theatres and place it on the streaming service, which is a better decision, because I don't think the masses are ready for this movie. I thought I was when I sat down to watch it last night, but I wasn't. But I'm asking that you give it a shot, because, I think you'll find something to relate to if you do. 

 I think that's going to be it for me for today. I'll be back sometime during the week for my review of the 1973 animated feature film, Charlotte's Web. So until then have a wonderful weekend and I will talk to you all later. Take care.