Inside Out 2

 

Score:  B

Directed by Kelsey Mann

Starring Amy Poehler, Maya Hawke, Kensington Tallman, et al.

Running time: 96 minutes

Rated PG

Long Story Short:  Inside Out 2 brings Pixar back to the world of one of its biggest original hits, this time with the Emotions contending with an adolescent host.  Like the first movie, there are plenty of clever ideas and gags, but the sequel falls well short of the masterful 2015 film.  It's just too overstuffed, and doesn't bring enough freshness to the world despite the new Emotions and real world setting.  Still, it's a perfectly good option, especially for families looking for a summer theater trip.

The Emotions of young Riley (Tallman) - Joy (Poehler), Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust - continue to steer the girl through life, which is now entering the treacherous high school stage.  Riley loves hockey, and she attends an important camp with her two best friends; her performance at the camp could determine whether she makes the high school team.  Joy and the others feel confident that they can help Riley succeed, but their usual directions start to go awry - and they also find new company in Riley's head, led by a determined Anxiety (Hawke).  The Emotions must act fast to prevent the hockey camp from becoming a train wreck for Riley, and also work out their own new roles in her life.

Inside Out 2 is a fine animated film, but it is a pale follow-up to a Pixar classic, trying to stuff in too many themes and characters with not enough originality.  The structure is quite similar to the first Inside Out with the action playing out in two areas: Riley's real human life and the anthropomorphized Emotions working inside Riley "HQ": control rooms, vast memory vaults, etc.  I would have expected to like the sequel to follow the original's successful formula, but it just didn't work as well - primarily because it's overstuffed in both "worlds": more time on Riley's life, and a new batch of Emotions.  Those colorful beings are still fun, with all the originals returning.  Unfortunately, two of them have new voice actors, which I found pretty distracting (Hader and Kaling had been perfect for Fear and Disgust).  Familiarity brings fondness, but the filmmakers also realized they needed to spice up Riley's internal world with some new Emotions.  Anxiety and Embarrassment are particularly good but again, it just ends up being too much, a dilemma for the film.  Meanwhile, though it makes sense to see how the battle of the Emotions is playing out in Riley's life, her hockey camp story is fairly bland.  Partly this is the difficulty of aligning real events to match the internal work of Emotions but there are some highlights, too, including Riley's sudden overreactions to the Emotions' prompts (thanks, puberty).

The overarching genius of the original Inside Out was in the way that it literally connected traditional movie action/plot to fundamental human psychology.  Somehow, it also melded all the intricate details with a cohesive message (i.e., the importance of sadness).  The sequel has some great psychological and human themes as well - but maybe too many of them.  I really liked the final theme, of humanity's complexity - we each hold many, often contradictory, feelings and qualities and have to balance them, but it's also what makes us resilient.  The other ideas leading up to it are thoughtful, too, but it's so much that the impact of each diminishes.  It feels odd writing this, but there's almost too much dialogue here - the film could have done more showing and less telling.

***

Since Inside Out was one of my favorite Pixar movies, I really looked forward to the sequel.  I enjoyed it but, maybe inevitably, was disappointed.  I should also note that I was feeling pretty tired during a good portion of the movie, so that could well have affected the way I felt about it.  Unless a second viewing completely changes my mind, though, I am pretty convinced of one thing: Pixar needs to get back to making original movies and keep the sequels to a minimum.  Last year's Elemental was a great example, I loved it - unfortunately, because it didn't do well at the box office, Pixar is probably going to lean even more into the sequels (especially now that Inside Out 2 is over $400 million in just two weeks).  I want to emphasize: this is not a bad movie by any means and, as with just about all Pixar movies, both kids and adults will enjoy it.  But I am a bit depressed by what the box office returns for the last two Pixar releases will mean for the creative direction of Hollywood for the foreseeable future.

* By http://www.impawards.com/2024/inside_out_two_ver2.html, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=75269099