INSIDE OUT 2 REVIEW
“A more than suitable and satisfactory follow-up that makes one think Pixar is making its return to greatness.”
I’m not usually the type of critic who will immediately snub my nose at a sequel sight unseen, suggesting that there’s little point for its existence, other than the obvious one… money. In the case of Pete Docter’s Inside Out – which I recently watched again, and confirmed it to be pretty much a perfect movie, one with a terrific premise – sure, it may have been inspired by the TV series, “Herman’s Head” – I may have made an exception, since that movie did such a great job exploring emotions through the head of 11-year-old Riley and how she’s affected by her family’s cross-country move.
The idea of a sequel that shows Riley as a teenager with new emotions was teased at the end of Docter’s Oscar-winning film, and sure enough, 13-year old Riley suddenly hits puberty and everything changes. Joining the core five emotions from the previous movie are new ones: Anxiety, voiced by Maya Hawke, Envy (Ayo Edebiri), Ennui (Adèle Exarchopoulos), and Embarassment (a mostly silent Paul Walter Hauser).
Much of the set-up for Inside Out 2 begins with Riley finding her sense of self and belief system (as humans do at a certain age), but Joy has gone out of her way to bury Riley’s bad memories to game the system. When Riley and her best friends go off to Hockey Camp, Riley is put into new situations that forces Anxiety to feel the need to run the show, even if that means changing Riley’s core beliefs. That also means sending Joy and the core emotions away, since they’re set on keeping Riley on her current innocent and happy course.
One big difference for this sequel is that we spend a lot more time with Riley and her friends, watching Anxiety pushing her harder to get into the high school hockey team. And yes, there is a LOT more hockey in this one, maybe because hockey camp is the key setting, but it deals more with trying to find new friends without spurning your besties, instead of being about boys. (In fact, other than Riley’s father, there are no males in the movie at all.)
The new voice cast is phenomenal, especially Maya Hawke, who gives an energetic and spirited performance as Anxiety, while Liza Lapira and Tony Hale do a fine job taking over for Mindy Kaling and Bill Hader as Disgust and Fear. Much of why the film works is due to the sharp writing, though getting just the right voice performances is also what sets these movies apart from so many other animated films. As before, Poehler and Phyllis Smith (voicing Sadness) really stand out as unlikely emotional pals.
There are quite a few throwbacks to jokes from the first movie, but mostly, it’s a new story with many clever new ideas, including the ideas of a “sar-chasm.” Not everything works as well as in the first movie, such as the group’s foray into Imagination Land, and when they’re locked up in a vault with some of Riley’s deepest secrets, some of those ideas not necessarily gelling in the same way as Bing Bong did in the previous movie. (They offer a hearty laugh or two, and then the story moves on.)
Inside Out 2 may be too deep and heavy for the youngest of kids – they may just enjoy the lavish colors and the crazy action scenes – but it successfully picks up where Pete Docter left things and finds new ways to explore how human emotions work. The thing is that the subject matter is once again handled so well that you don’t have to be a girl or the father/mother of one to relate to some of what Riley goes through, as it is a fairly universal premise.
Even without the music of Michael Giacchino driving the emotions (of the audience, not the characters), Inside Out 2 manages to elicit more than a few tears towards the end as it shares the revelation (that most parents with teen daughters will already know) that teen girls’ emotions are far more complex than simply being happy or sad.
Offering just as many laughs and tears as the original movie and more clever ways into the complicated mind of teenage girls, Inside Out 2 is a more than suitable and satisfactory follow-up that makes one think Pixar is making its return to greatness.
Rating: 8.5/10
Inside Out 2 opens nationwide on Friday, June 14 with previews on Thursday afternoon.