Pete Docter and Kemp Powers’s Soul has so much potential, but it suffers from many of the same issues that have plague Disney and Pixar’s recent efforts. It follows all of the tropes of Pixar’s odd-couple buddy-comedies and has nearly every beat from their previous films. While it sets up very clear rules for how the afterlife works in this narrative, it proceeds to break those rules for the convenience of its predetermined plot points. And for a film that is eager to be trumpeted as Pixar’s first foray into Black lives and the Black experience, the lead character spends most of the film as a green, blob-like soul or trapped within the body of a cat – playing into the unfortunate Disney trope that seems to require all animated Black leading characters to spend the majority of the film in a skin other than their own. And it’s even more egregious that we have the voice of a middle-aged white woman coming out of the Black character’s mouth for most of the running time. There are still some interesting things going on here – I love the ways in which they visualize the process of finding yourself in “the zone” while creating, playing sports, or engaging in some other activity that gives you life. And I love the way they show how quickly that can become an unhealthy obsession. The music is gorgeous, the vocal performances are great, and there is this tantalizing idea that our main protagonist is so focused on this one vision of how his life should be that it prevents him from truly connecting with others. But most of the ideas in this film are underdeveloped or end up being undercut by yet another underdeveloped thematic thread that shows up. And the final beats undermine any sense of poignancy that the film was building toward by giving us an easy resolution, without actually resolving anything. It’s a frustrating film, because there’s so much possibility here, but the Disney/Pixar machine just won’t let the pieces fit together as they should.