It's going to be tough for "Soul" viewers to keep the upcoming twist under wraps, but for the sake of scrutiny, let the duo surprise on Earth. Joe is desperate to get back into that jazz club, and 22 is willing to put up any single-minded and obviously selfish mission that doesn't get swept up in order to fulfill his jazz dreams soul review. (He prefers the comfort of non-existence to the attack of the overwhelming sounds and smells of New York City.) But now that she's alive, 22 is beginning to realize that things aren't quite as bad as she thought.

It's not a message kids should hear, though there's certainly no shortage of adults who wish they were "never born," and Soul has the generous, magnanimous quality of many previous Pixar films. This makes even a mediocre life seem worthy of appreciation. Docter and co-writers Mike Jones and Kemp Powers (the latter also co-directing) fill the second half of the film with scenes that lift and prick the receptive soul.

The first is the barbershop, where Joe realizes that his obsession with music hinders his ability to form meaningful friendships. A one-on-one show with stern loving mom Libba (Phylicia Rashad) brings some of his parenting struggles to life. It's a truly magical moment when Joe sits at his piano and starts to play, floating into what the movie calls "the zone." As British talk show host Graham Norton put it when he played the mystic Moonwind, "When pleasure becomes an obsession, you're disconnected from life."

That being said, there's a neat comedic twist midway through the movie that lets "Soul" start to hold back, and it's best not to spoil anything here (though the trailer and announcement already do). It's fair to say that 22 has finally found its spark, though it took a lot of effort and more than a few crazy mishaps to get there. Joe revisited his years on Earth as a calm and docile teacher and found them lacking. He hasn't made the friends he deserves and worries that he's given up on his childhood dream of becoming a professional jazz artist to lead a more ordinary life. (Joe's mother, played by Felicia Rashad, doesn't support his music.) On the downside, this made Soul a series of animated films (including The Princess and the Frog and Spy in Disguise) Another part of . For most of the film, a rare black protagonist turns into something else.

Is this Pixar's first midlife crisis movie? Possibly, though Woody in the Toy Story movies also seems to have hints of this pain. The myth/rules of this movie are a bit hairy and disjointed, and Pixar is usually so meticulous about it that it's fascinating. I don't believe how much it will add to the grand scheme of things when the final sequence comes out. The film's message can be summed up this way: "Don't get so attached to ambition that you forget to stop and smell the flowers." A birthday card can tell you that. Some of the jokes have a bit of a DreamWorks feel to them, like lost souls returning to earth and realizing they've wasted their lives working for hedge funds; relentless international corporations like Disney, which last year kept most of its 20th Century Fox repertoire in a " Vault” to push people to rent or buy new Disney products, and once sued day care centers for putting your characters on murals without permission, you don’t have to teach other people the moral vacuum of materialism.