The release of a new Pixar film, once a major, all-attention-securing event, has received a notable downgrade in recent years, not just because of a considerable dip in quality (arguably just Inside Out and Coco are the only indispensable offerings in the last decade) but because of an inevitable change in release strategy. Just a month before the pandemic truly took hold, the fantasy caper Onward (yet another underwhelming effort) became one of the only 2020 films to get a wide theatrical release and as everything shuttered, Pixar’s next two films – Soul and Luca – levelled down to premieres on Disney+ even though the latter was released at a time when cinemas were fully operational again.
It’s a little odd that their latest, Turning Red, will also follow suit given the healthy state of the box office (a bright and zippy pre-spring Pixar adventure would have surely been a hit), but yet another sign of Disney’s bullish attempt to out-Netflix Netflix by forcing even the vaguest of fans on to its ever-growing streaming service. It’s also, perhaps, a self-aware demotion for another under-par film, one that’s not without merits and the occasional biggish swing, but a far far cry from the partnership’s wildly inventive heyday. What once felt organic has come to feel far too over-calculated from the wacky but-wait-what-if set-up to the but-wait-it’s-actually-really-about allegory and coming out less than a year after Luca, which had a similar transformation narrative, Turning Red feels like factory line Pixar.
