Jonah Naplan June 13, 2024
Though the expectations probably couldn’t have been any higher, “Inside Out 2” is a wonderful animated film from start to finish. Building upon what made the first so great, this sequel explores mature themes that appeal to audience members of all ages, examining our core belief systems, the new emotions we begin to face as our lives change, and how we identify with ourselves as we grow older. Sending an important message to both children and the adults that came to the theater with them, “Inside Out 2” is the special kind of movie that works so well because we can clearly see ourselves in its characters and their feelings. Even if it doesn’t necessarily do anything to break new ground or innovate in a way that its predecessor did, the movie is still a wondrously entertaining adventure for the mind and soul and Pixar’s best in years.
2015’s “Inside Out” was a landmark achievement of animation, and nine years later it remains a staple of modern cinema. Rewatching the film recently, I cried two different times (it’s one of the only movies that can do that), but I also teared up at random moments throughout just because of how beautiful the movie is even when it’s doing nothing at all. As I’ve gotten older, I think I resonate with it even more now for different reasons than I may have nearly a decade ago. It’s almost like a completely different movie. The world was never really clamoring for a new “Inside Out,” as the first one seemed to wrap itself up so perfectly, and a sequel could possibly be a soulless cash grab intended to bank upon the success of its origins, but that’s not at all what this is. The critical success of “Inside Out 2” may be slightly boosted by how much we love that first movie, but this is a very necessary continuation of these lovable characters’ stories instead of a rehash or retread of old paths, despite visiting similar locations and referencing similar jokes from the predecessor.
The movie opens shortly after where we last left off. Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Anger (Lewis Black), Disgust (Liza Lapira), and Fear (Tony Hale) man the control console of thirteen-year-old Riley Anderson’s (Kensington Tallman) mind, deciding which emotion is appropriate at any particular moment. With aging years come all-new gadgets and gizmos to “headquarters” as well as the entire utopia that is Riley’s cranium (the brain seems to be completely out of the picture, as its functions are carried out by varieties of living, breathing “somethings,” that resemble a cross between tiny humans and virtually abstract ideas). There’s now a forest of luminescent strands representing Riley’s core belief system—“I’m a good friend,” “Homework should be illegal,” etc—as well as several new personality islands, and a new gadget that can slingshot any embarrassing memory to the “back of the mind,” which is personified by a dark, gloomy dump of collected memories in, well, the back of Riley’s mind.
Everything seems to be going well until a couple of new troublesome emotions arrive at headquarters, just before Riley is to leave for a summer hockey intensive with her best friends Grace (Grace Lu) and Bree (Sumayyah Nuriddin-Green). The sudden appearance of Anxiety (Maya Hawke), Envy (Ayo Edebiri), Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser), and Ennui (Adèle Exarchopoulos) screws everything up, throwing away Riley’s core belief orb and destroying her chances of impressing her idol, Val Ortiz (Lilimar) and all her other cool hockey friends at the camp. The screenplay by Meg LeFauve and Dave Holstein gives each new character something to do, even if Anxiety is definitely the prime focus.
Like Joy and Sadness in the first movie, “Inside Out 2” is primarily a duet between Joy and Anxiety about how each of them believes that the other isn’t what Riley needs at this moment in her life. After Anxiety quite literally “bottles up” Joy and the emotion gang and exiles them far away from headquarters, the film turns into a three-way narrative. The first central plot is that Joy and company must journey to the back of the mind, retrieve the core belief orb, and return to headquarters to foil Anxiety’s plans for turning Riley into a “better person.” The second takes place back at headquarters, chronicling all the ways that Anxiety is unknowingly screwing up Riley’s life, and the third is Riley’s life from her perspective; the friends she makes, breaks, and everything in between. Even though the first movie spent good time developing this character, “Inside Out 2” dives deeper, better defining her as she learns to define herself.
As per usual, the physical journey is just as beautiful as the metaphorical. Pixar remains on a completely different level of craft than any other animation studio, and “Inside Out 2” showcases some of their best work since “Coco.” There are so many marvelous, creative setpieces that our characters travel through on their trek back to headquarters that at times can blend multiple animation styles in the same shot, recalling other projects like the “Spider-Verse” movies, “Soul,” and even “Blue's Clues,” and I’d love to tell you about all of them. But I won’t because the film will work best on you if you approach the meat of this story completely blind.
Director Kelsey Mann seems to understand human psychology really well. Each scene in “Inside Out 2” presents a good idea in a clever way so that kids can understand its meaning visually, and adults can understand it viscerally. The movie is not just for kids, in fact, the grown-ups in the audience may get more out of its message than the minors. There’s lots for children to dig into, between the colorful animation and the cartoonish nature of the comedy that hinges on both screwball and satire. But the third act in particular will likely speak more to the mature viewers who have gone through these emotions themselves, perhaps during difficult times in their lives when they were most prevalent. One striking image of Anxiety creating a sort of whirlwind around the control console while the character remains fixed in a trembling position is especially powerful, a visual that I probably wouldn’t have been able to comprehend had I seen the movie at an earlier age, but one that would have sat with me as years passed until I finally understood it.
But even if they may not be able to grasp all its messaging just yet, “Inside Out 2” is an important movie for kids to see because, possibly in response to criticisms of the last film, it denotes that while our emotions are certainly important, we aren’t defined by them and that sometimes we need to make decisions based only upon rationality or common sense rather than our feelings, which is a valuable lesson in life. And, like the first, it poses that certain uncomfortable emotions (in the last movie it was Sadness, in this it’s Anxiety) aren’t necessarily “bad,” so much as they’re necessary to help us survive like Disgust, Anger and Fear.
Of course, none of it is especially subtle. “Inside Out 2” has the tendency to blatantly tell us the themes it’s promoting instead of allowing us to consider them after the fact, and the movie is crammed with so much content in 96 short minutes that it often rushes through great moments that could have been even greater had they been allowed more time to breathe. As a result, the slower scenes stand out among the pack, and not in an intentional way. Even so, “Inside Out 2” finds enough of a consistent rhythm throughout, juxtaposing between multiple worlds all at once, that it succeeds despite itself.
If you’re like me and love the first film and were, in turn, skeptical of this sequel, you’ll be glad to know it successfully recaptures the magic of the original without directly relying on it to drive the story forward. As of this writing, there’s still so much to unpack visually and emotionally that can only be satisfied on repeat viewings, but that’s the grand impact that Pixar movies used to have. I didn’t have confidence before in “Toy Story 5,” but now I do.
Now playing in theaters.