Film Reviews

June 14, 2024

It's curious that nine years have passed between "Inside Out" and "Inside Out 2." Because the original was such an overwhelming success and crowd pleaser—and Hollywood sequels are sometimes greenlighted before the first one has a chance to finish its opening weekend—you'd think the Disney-Pixar power team would want to capitalize on viewers' love and memory of it ASAP, lest we forget about it.

But the studio and filmmakers were smart enough to know "Inside Out" was hardly forgettable, and rather than rush "Inside Out 2" into theaters, their prerogative seems to have been getting the next chapter of this saga done right. They've also made a sequel that's not contingent on the audience being familiar with its predecessor. "Inside Out 2" is confident and intelligent enough to be self-contained, which is ironic given its underlying theme is that our lived experiences and personal stories all blend, and that our sense of self is an amalgamation of the past, the present, the good, the bad, and everything above, below, and in between.

Self-assured as it is, and despite the truth and wisdom it bestows, particularly upon younger viewers, "Inside Out 2" doesn't reach the heights of "Inside Out." This was probably inevitable, given the high bar the first one set, not to mention the original had the luxury of being novel. Even if you're walking into this series' world for the first time, "2" evokes the sense we've treaded this path before, and this "more of the same" aspect, combined with a resolution that feels too foregone and too on the nose, deflates the movie of some of its would-have tension and magic. Not that the movie doesn't still have a surfeit supply of charm, creativity, and humor, just as its topics are sure to recall loads of memories for anyone who's ever tried to make sense of being human, particularly when they were a teenager.

Speaking of which, the primary human character from the first movie, Riley (voice of Kensington Tallman), has just turned 13, and this milestone triggers a wave of new hurdles and uncertainties for the anthropomorphized emotions living inside Riley's mind. You remember them: Joy (Amy Poehler), Disgust (Liza Lapira), Fear (Tony Hale), Anger (Lewis Black), and Sadness (Phyllis Smith). They're the collectively rainbow-colored team of feelings all living creatures possess in one form or another and which function to express and regulate their host's mental state.

For the past year, the emotions crew has settled into a solid routine of making sure Riley maintains a relatively even-keeled temperament—not too happy, not too sad, able to uphold a Sense of Self, which is realized as a shiny blue orbit of rings, not unlike a trophy, that sits in the center of Headquarters, the platform from which the emotions carry out their duties inside Riley's mind. To ensure Riley's Sense of Self continues to shine bright, Joy has concocted a special tube that shoots Riley's bad memories, such as her getting a penalty during her beloved game of hockey, into the far reaches of her consciousness.

But, Joy may have overshot her reasoning for wanting to keep Riley's memory bank only full of the good stuff, because things are about to get hairy, and the emotions' Headquarters is about to get a lot more crowded.

Why? Puberty, of course, and with the big "P" comes a construction crew who tears the emotions' central hub apart to make way for the likes of four new moods, each just as colorful as the original five: the short, bug-eyed, and teal Envy (Ayo Edebirie); the tall, lanky, and deep-in-her phone purple Ennui (Adèle Exarchopoulos); the rotund, shy, pink Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser); and the orange, wide-mouthed, and ultra-hyper Anxiety (Maya Hawke), who looks like she could be the cousin of Animal from The Muppets.

Naturally, Joy and the gang are suspicious of and perplexed by these newcomers. Who do they think they are coming in here uninvited? But so goes puberty, an awkward, tumultuous time nobody asked for. And Riley is about to experience a whole lot of tumult when she and her two best friends, Bree (Sumayyah Nuriddin-Green) and Grace (Grace Lu), are picked by their hockey coach (Yvette Nicole Brown) to attend Hockey Camp to see if they're eligible for the high school team.

However, what Riley anticipates will be a happy moment turns out to be anything but. For starters, she blows up at her mom (Diane Lane) and dad (Kyle MacLachlan) for no other reason than that's what teenagers do, and she learns some upsetting news about Bree and Grace. As she tries to deal with her new emotions and hormones, she grows increasingly lost and obsessed over being liked by the older high school kids, especially the team's rock star, Val (Lilimar Hernandez).

Of course, Riley's rude awakening to her new feelings of inadequacy is a direct result of Joy and her trusted cohorts losing control of Headquarters, specifically Riley's Sense of Self, which Anxiety has tossed out to the far reaches of Riley's mind. And like the first film, the plot finds the heroes cast out of Headquarters, determined to find their way back and restore what they believe is the right order and balance of emotional distribution.

Joy and company wind up in the Vault, which sets up a funny encounter with some of Riley's early and long-forgotten childhood memories, each represented by a quirky, nostalgic figure that will ring familiar for anyone who ever watched children's TV or played video games. Among them are the happy-go-lucky Bloofy (Ron Funches), a purple beagle with a blue baseball cap who talks like Barney; Pouchy (James Austin Johnson), an animated Fanny Pack of sorts who appears to have a bottomless assortment of useful items buried inside him, not unlike Mary Poppins' leather bag; Lance Slashblade (Young Ye), literally a video game character who resembles a hero from "Final Fantasy" minus the fancy agility and skills; and Deep Dark Secret (Steve Purcell), who's dark, brooding, and faceless—his shape calls to mind an abominable snowman with a cloak.

One of the delights of "Inside Out 2," more than most movies, is that each character strikes a different nerve and triggers a different memory, depending on the viewer. It expects each audience member to bring his or her own baggage to the table but cheerfully reminds us that we all have baggage. It also reaffirms that even though aspects of our childhood and personalities are hidden, they're never gone, and we can always recruit them to mitigate the issues we're dealing with in the present. And even though it may not seem like it, the ability to use our experiences to our advantage is up to us.

Another obvious message of "Inside Out 2": the circumstances our emotions must adapt to and the constancy at which some either step in or step aside—these are temporary, and there will always be more. Such is life. The key, the movie suggests, is to let the emotions come, be, and do their job as best they can so our minds and bodies can achieve and maintain homeostasis until the next disruption or moment of relaxation.

As valuable as its messages are, the movie often makes it too plain to see what it wants viewers to take away, and so it's not as exciting to watch. We know where it's going—that Joy and Anxiety's differing opinions on what's best for their beloved Riley will assuredly come to a head and that their respective teams will ultimately have to find a way to coexist. Adults will likely pick up on this predictable trajectory more than kids—after all, adults have lived long—and it's not the say the movie still doesn't have worth, but it does make us wish the filmmakers had branched out beyond the safe and clear message that we should all strive for an integrated self, one in which we realize and accept that our sense of who we are is tenuous and that it's a lifelong effort to keep ourselves in check. Perhaps because we are all aware of this truism deep down, having the movie spell it out for us feels a little patronizing.

That being said, "Inside Out 2" is a solid family movie that's always moving, either narrative-wise or visually. The series has been handed over from directors Peter Docter and Ronnie Del Carmen to Kelsey Mann, who co-wrote the story with Megan LeFauve that served as the basis for LeFauve and Dave Holstein's screenplay. We applaud Mann and her fellow artists for keeping the energy levels up, and despite how prolific computer animation movies have become, we recognize the Disney-Pixar ones still deliver a sharpness and brightness that feels unmatched. There have been some failures here and there during the pair's nearly 30-year-old relationship, but no entry has ever come across as a cheap technical exercise. Beneath the glossy presentation is a desire by the storytellers to say something interesting, reflective, and useful.

"Inside Out 2," even with its foreseeable conclusion, is no different. Conceivably, the saga could go on for all time, because the emotions in our heads will never cease running around, confronting new challenges, even during times of mundanity. Hopefully the next phase of life the filmmakers let the emotions take on will tell us something about ourselves we might not have already gathered just by living through it.