Inside Out 2 - Movie Review

Critics Score - 7 of 10

General Audience Score - 8 of 10

Kids Score - 8 of 10

The original Inside Out is not only one of my favorite Pixar films, but one of the films I’ve seen the most in a theatre, I think five total times. As it came out in 2015, my two boys were very young so the colorful characters and storyline of grappling with our emotions and becoming aware of our feelings made this film a staple in my household. We even had a set of the five original stuffed characters laying around our home a while. Well, we now have an expanded Inside Out universe with Pixar releasing a sequel to the original film, Inside Out 2, which continues the story of Riley as she begins to navigate the waters of adolescence. The film stars most of the original cast of voice actors minus Bill Hader (Fear) and Mindy Kaling (Disgust) who’s serviceable replacements will only be really noticeable to hardcore fans of the original, like myself. With the amazing Oscar winning Pete Doctor at the helm of the first, it’s not really a huge surprise that the sequel would be a challenge for any director, let alone Kelsey Mann, who directed some of Pixar’s weakest links, The Good Dinosaur and Lightyear. That being said, this film is a perfectly serviceable sequel to the original, it captured some of the fun, ingenuity and humor of the first film. Unfortunately the story and character arcs are almost a copy and paste formula from the first film, with it being almost embarrassingly similar to anyone looking at it objectively. The new characters/emotions add some depth and interest to the story but this film doesn’t come close to reaching the same highs of the first film, it never could have. This is not nearly as poor overall as Mann’s other two entries, this film will leave most general audiences and kids satisfied but critics and cinephiles likely won’t be turned inside out for Inside Out 2.

SYNOPSIS - The world building of Riley (Kensington Tallman) and her emotions continues as the film opens with the lights coming on in a hockey arena. We watch the scoreboard light up, the Zamboni machine running across the ice to clean and smooth it and Riley taping up her hockey stick before we see the original five emotions getting prepped for the game. Joy (Amy Poehler) comes running across the screen, she’s smiling and lit up like a Christmas tree as she grabs and puts on a headset, stepping up to the console of Riley’s mind in preparation for the game. “This is Joy, coming to you live in Riley’s mind”, she announces before we watch Riley’s parents clapping and cheering her on before Riley calls the team in for a huddle. Joy introduces the different emotions Riley experiences as she’s playing the game and we meet Anger (Lewis Black) who takes the controls as Riley aggressively goes for a shot on goal. Fear (Tony Hale) steps in for a moment as Riley remembers she forgot to put in her mouth guard, but then Disgust (Liza Lapira) spits the mouth guard out as Riley realizes it’s someone else’s. Finally Sadness (Phyllis Smith) makes an entrance after Riley trips one of her opponents while trying to steal the hockey puck away and gets sent to the penalty box. As the game continues, we begin getting flashbacks of what has transpired between the original film and now. Riley has turned thirteen, gotten braces, is growing out of her clothes and made new friends at school that are also on the hockey team with her. In place of the core memories, a new item appears in the emotions headquarters, it’s referred to Riley’s sense of self.

As we continue trying to introduce new plot devices, we discover a spring loaded ejector contraption that Joy had installed where she shoots all the negative memories that Riley has to the back of her mind so they’re never recalled or thought about again. Following this explanation of where all Riley’s bad memories go, Joy next introduces Riley’s belief system, a subterranean cave where she puts memories into a large floating pool of water which create tethers up into the sense of self previously mentioned. As Joy walks around touching the ropes running up, sounds of the memories in Riley’s voice fill the cave such as, “Mom and dad are proud of me”, “I’m kind”, and “I’m a really good friend”. That night while the emotions sleep, they’re awakened by a beeping noise coming from the main console. Whereas in the first film, one of the emotions was always in charge and monitored the helm of the ship at night, here they’re all asleep and they come out to inspect the noise. The light on the console with the word “puberty” under it is blinking intermittently and as the five characters approach it, rubbing their eyes in confusion, it suddenly sets off a siren and begins flashing like crazy. But as Riley heads off to a hockey camp with her two closest friends for the weekend and the rambunctious Anxiety (Maya Hawke) shows up, quickly followed by Envy (Ayo Edebiri) and others, the central narrative of Joy and company having to navigate this new cast of emotions begins to come into focus. When Anxiety uses the ejector contraption to shoot Riley’s sense of self to the back of her mind, Joy, Sadness, Fear, Disgust and Anger must traverse Riley’s mind in search of it to restore Riley back to normal.

All sequels start fresh out of the gate with a distinct disadvantage, lack of creativity. Old characters, old motivations, old worlds, old plot devices, sometimes even old character arcs and storylines. This film tries it’s best to infuse new elements, from it’s new characters and emotions that Riley must grapple with as a teenager to it’s plot devices and character arcs. But the screenplay by Oscar winner Meg LeFauve just felt so contrived and unoriginal, it hits virtually all the same story and emotional beats as the first film. LeFauve also worked on the script for the first Inside Out film, which she won her Oscar for, the major difference being that Pete Doctor worked alongside her and created the story from which the script was derived. On Inside Out 2, the director Kelsey Mann wrote the story from which the screenplay was adapted and that is where I mostly place the blame for how cut and paste this sequel is. An event in Riley’s life triggers something, Joy and Sadness must adventure out into her mind to find it and get back to headquarters before disaster strikes. Yawn. From a technical level this film has impressive visuals, the color palette is beautiful, but again, it is cut and pasted straight from the first movie. And the digital effects work weren’t quite as grabbing as they were from the first film, or even as good as the other Pete Doctor film Soul from a few years ago. The original score by Andrea Datzman also lags well behind Michael Giacchino’s wonderful work from the original, saved only by it’s rehashing some of his same melodies. Amy Poehler and Phyllis Smith bring the same energy that helped make the first film what it was and do much of the heavy lifting to keep this film lighthearted and enjoyable. The new supporting cast of Maya Hawke and Ayo Edebiri amongst others lend a helping hand and all have their moments of fun. But the film is saved in part due to it’s use of some very clever humor, along with the zany new characters I just referenced, which makes it quite engaging for most of the first half. But as the film finishes the second act and gets into the final, it loses some serious steam as the tired narrative embodies a “been here, done that” feeling. This film is absolutely destroying at the box office, and not without good cause. It’s a good movie that families will flock to, it’s got something for everybody, but for a film about our emotions, Inside Out 2 just doesn’t make your emotions run high.

SUMMARY - While this film has its moments of cleverness and fun, humor and creativity, it’s lacking in almost every sense that it’s predecessor excelled. Inside Out 2 is a really good summer film the whole family can enjoy, but this, like virtually every Pixar original film that spawned a sequel, the original is untouchable by comparison. Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Cars, all vastly better than the ones that followed. Oh, and Inside Out too.