There’s a world of emotions inside of every person, which means there’s plenty of room for a sequel to Pixar’s 2015 modern classic “Inside Out,” a film showcasing the world inside the mind of a pre-teen girl. And appropriately, the aptly titled “Inside Out 2” showcases that same girl’s mind, now at the frightening cusp of puberty and filled with anxieties.
Picking up a few years after the end of the first film, Riley, voiced by Kensington Tallman, has now turned 13 and her emotions Joy, voiced by Amy Poehler (“Parks and Recreation,” “Mean Girls”), Sadness, voiced by Phyllis Smith (“The Office,” “The OA”), Anger, voiced by Lewis Black (“Accepted,” “The Daily Show”), Fear, voiced by Tony Hale (“Arrested Development,” “Veep”), and Disgust, voiced by Liza Lapria (“The Equalizer,” “Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23”), must now confront a new group of emotions who’ve taken hold of Riley’s mind: Embarrassment, voiced by Paul Walter Hauser (“Black Bird,” “Richard Jewel”), Envy, voiced by Ayo Edeberi (“Bottoms,” “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem”), Ennui, voiced by Adèle Exarchopoulos (“Blue Is The Warmest Color,” “Passage”), and their defacto leader Anxiety, voiced by Maya Hawke (“Stranger Things,” “Do Revenge”).
There’s clearly a lot to dig into with a concept like this. Introducing just Anxiety herself could provide for a boatload of new storytelling material, but the new emotions all balance out well without overloading each other or the story. The returning cast is all excellent, with Black in particular adding some more depth to his Anger through a softer vocal performance and Hale and Lapria doing a good job filling in for their role's original voices. Hawke meanwhile is an absolute powerhouse. Her Anxiety is a delight, running rampant with fantastic delivery and pained self-idolizations. Much like Poehler in the first film, she turns what should be a predictable one-note character into one that’s easy to feel for.
Not much has changed in the visual style from the first film, but that’s not at all a bad thing. Instead, Pixar and its animation wizards have continued to flesh out the existing world within Riley’s mind. The textures and colors continue to pop will vibrance and glee, and there are now different styles of animation, such as hand-drawn 2D and early PlayStation-style graphics, for minor characters and elements that make for great bits of variance.
The musical score also maintains the greatness of Giacchino’s score from the first film, even if it doesn’t retain Giacchino. Andrea Datzman fills in his shoes competently, crafting new and great musical motifs when needed and blending them with the original film’s themes when appropriate. However, in actuality, there isn’t a whole lot different between the first film’s score and this one, and that actually leads to the only real issue with the film.
Given the nature of the film and the world that Pixar has created with these tales, there’s only so much co-writer/director Kelsey Mann and writers Meg LeFauve (“Inside Out,” “The Good Dinosaur”) and Dave Holstein (“Kidding,” “Weeds”) can do to differentiate things. It can therefore feel like the story itself is simply repeating what came before but with some variances. It’s within those variances though that Mann, LeFauve, and Holstein mine for unique scenarios and emotional humor.
That humor has a bit more of a cheeky, almost Simpsons-esque sense of silliness to it all, mining individual moments for visual and script gags. More than any Pixar film previously, there's a squash and stretch to everything, mimicking the kind of playful exaggeration in the likes of old school Looney Tunes cartoons. Anxiety chugs 5 energy drinks at once whilst Envy's eyes grow to be the size of her head, creating not only an amusing visual palette, but a stark different between the human world and the emotion world. It not only helps separate these worlds but draws a distinction between these humorous moments and the ones that are deeply serious and deliberate.
Even if it feels routine, it's still a deeply emotional journey to go on with these characters, and Pixar once again refuses to take the easy way out. The third act is remarkably complex and complicated, arguably more so than the first film’s, to a degree that feels almost unnecessarily ambitious. It refuses to take a simpler, easy way out, instead tackling the changes associated with growing up and puberty head on. So many films focus on the awkwardness of those physical, external changes, but it feels refreshing to see one directly tackling the internal.
“Inside Out 2” has plenty of similarities to the first film, but these lay the groundwork for more expansions on its initial concept and the characters, internal and otherwise, therein. The vocal cast is still exceptional, with Hawke and Poehler turning in some truly fantastic performances, and it’s still an exceptional visual treat. There’s some déjà vu, but it doesn’t harm what’s still a fun, funny, and emotionally charged adventure that refuses to take the easy way out. It may be a sequel to a beloved original film, but make no mistake, nobody would’ve made this like Pixar has. 4.5/5
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