Intro

It’s no secret that Pixar has been in a bit of a slump, both creatively and financially. They haven’t had a financial “hit” since 2019 with Toy Story 4 (which I still dislike). It arguably hasn’t had a genuinely great film since 2020’s Onward (my favorite film of that year). There are lots of theories as to why this is, but there’s no doubt that there’s trouble in Emeryville.

Many film pundits and critics are hoping that Inside Out 2 will pull them out of the slump and potentially save the disastrous box office this summer’s movie slate. I can’t speak to box office. However, I can report that the film is delightful, albeit falling short of the flawless original.

Synopsis

Inside Out 2 picks up about two years after the first film, and our girl Riley (Kensington Tallman) is now 13 years old. She’s loving life as an adolescent hockey phenom with super supportive parents and two amazing best friends. Her emotions all get along now and live in more or less harmony (despite two of them being recast).

Riley and her friends get invited to a hockey camp by the coach of the high school team. On the first morning of the camp Riley gets a one-two punch: she wakes up having started puberty and is told some hard news by her friends.

In Riley’s mind, puberty hits her emotions like a wrecking ball, literally. A remodel has to happen in order to make room for new emotions: Anxiety (Maya Hawke), Envy (Ayo Edebiri), Ennui (Adele Exarchopolous), and Embarrassment (Paul Walker Hauser).

Review

Joy (Amy Pohler) and Anxiety are the stars of the show, with both shining in their antagonism towards each other. I didn’t realize until watching this film how much Joy is based on Pohler’s character in Parks and Recreation and it’s obvious to me now that Leslie Knope’s unyielding optimism is why she was cast in the first place.

Hawke’s Anxiety so successfully anthropomorphized the emotion that left both me and my daughter stunned. I have spent most of my life living with the emotion and found the characterization of it to be spot on.

Like the first one, we get some really creative set pieces as we journey through different parts of her mind. Pixar always excels at world building and is at its best when it focuses on it. The new and changed concepts and visualizations introduced by puberty are just amazing. Funnily, my 13-year-old daughter said she felt a little too called out by the film, which suggests that they got it right.

When it comes to the creative forces behind the film, there are two changes that were a bit apparent to me. First, rookie director Kelsey Mann, NOT Pete Docter, helmed this one and Docter’s strong voice isn’t there. Although Docter produced it, he didn’t write it or anything. Second, they replaced composer Michael Giachino with one of his proteges, Andrea Datzman. And again, like Docter, Giachino is missed. But I understand why they wanted a more or less all female team for this story.

I will say that the there are signs that the film was changed at the last minute, which is common in films these days, but not usually Pixar. The film’s climax is very good, but it doesn’t stick the landing as well as I expected it to. There were a few loose ends that weren’t tied up, something that Pixar is usually very good at avoiding.

The Bottom Line

Inside Out 2 is a mostly return to form for Pixar. It is creative, hilarious, and emotionally fulfilling, despite it feeling smaller in scale than its predecessor.

 

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