The best of the Disney/Pixar films have been able to somewhat shape our views of the world, regardless of age.
As a kid, the aftermath of Toy Story had me admittedly silently trying to sneak a look at my toys, to catch them in the act of being alive. It took me a while to stop looking at a fish tank in a doctors office differently thanks to Finding Nemo, or what it would be like talking with my ancestors after Coco. And yes, even after nearly a decade, I still sometimes wonder what the emotions in my head are like after the original Inside Out.
Sequels in the Disney/Pixar library have not always been too great (I exclude the Toy Story sequels), but the ending of 2015’s Inside Out left so much left to explore that a sequel seemed inevitable. While the sequel did take nine years to happen (and to give us all time to recover after the fate of the beloved character Bing-Bong), it does take place basically where we left off.
Not all the voice cast is back, as Kensington Tallman takes over for Kaitlyn Dias as Riley. Still, it would be a tall task to have anyone replace Amy Pohler as Joy, the first emotion Riley felt. The same could be said for Phyllis Smith as Sadness and (perhaps most of all) Lewis Black as Anger. Finally, while Bill Hader and Mindy Kaling were wonderfully cast as Fear and Disgust (respectively), their replacements, Tony Hale and Lisa Lapira, do solid work.
If you have seen the poster or the trailer, you know new emotions are in Riley’s head this time around. The main one is the orange Anxiety (played finely by Maya Hawke), shadowed a lot by the Cyan Envy (the always valuable Ayo Edebiri). Adèle Exarchopoulos voices the bored Ennui emotion, while Paul Walter Hauser is the Pink Embarrassment emotion. There is also the never not hilarious June Squibb as Nostalgia.
Like the first film, one of the secret ingredients is that there is no real “villain” of the story. Sure, the new emotions do send away the old ones (this is in the trailer so it does not give too much away), but they are all doing so only so they can look after Riley (her storyline is that she is at a Summer Hockey Camp with her friends the summer before High School). They all have Riley’s best interests in mind (I like at the beginning how it is clear the emotions are not actually controlling Riley through her big Hockey game, but cheering her on nonetheless).
While the film is indeed well written by Meg LeFauve and Dave Holstein (the story came from the minds of LeFauve and the film’s director Kelsey Mann), there are still little bits that did not seem as ironed out as well as the first film. While I liked the idea of the characters of Bloofy and Pouchy (characters from a fictional TV kids show that Riley still secretly likes), their involvement in helping the emotions raised a few more questions than I would have wanted (I am obviously not a psychologist or anything, so I could be wrong).
Parents, the film does not have a big emotional wallop of the original or other Disney Pixar films like the Toy Story sequels, Coco, WALL-E, or (most of all) Up. Still, there are moments that would go over the heads of kids in their single digits or so. Either way, nothing here to really worry about when it comes to the PG rating.
As the original ended with a sequel being inevitable, so does Inside Out 2 leave a third film inevitable. There are clearly more emotions to be had and explored as Riley grows older (how bold would it be if the filmmakers tackled depression, something all ages are too familiar with!).
For now though, this is easily the best Pixar has done in years.
Overall:
Nothing else to say 