Inside Out 2 (2024)

3 1/2 Stars (out of 4)

Emotional State

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

For the record, the original Inside Out is my favorite Pixar feature. For me, it was the most ingenious, entertaining, and moving use of character, space, and color, the finest combination of form and content. When something hits that hard, you don't want to mess with it, so I approached Inside Out 2 with some trepidation. Happily, the filmmakers — an entirely new team of writers and directors — manage to re-capture the magic of the original, with the caveat that it isn't an original itself. (It can never re-capture that sense of discovery.)

Written by Meg LeFauve and Dave Holstein, from a story by director Kelsey Mann, Inside Out 2 takes place only two years after the first film (even though nine years have passed in our lifetimes). Riley Andersen (voiced by Kaitlyn Dias) is now thirteen. Our five emotions — Joy (voiced by Amy Poehler), Sadness (voiced by Phyllis Smith), Anger (voiced by Lewis Black), Fear (voiced by Tony Hale, replacing Bill Hader), and Disgust (voiced by Liza Lapira, replacing Mindy Kaling) — are still at work, trying to make the best Riley they can.

Unfortunately, puberty hits, as in life, with the blaring of an alarm. And, typically, it hits at the worst possible time, just as Riley is about to go off to a three-day hockey camp with her two best friends, Grace (voiced by Grace Lu) and Bree (Sumayyah Nuriddin-Green). To cap things off, she discovers that they will both be attending another high school next year, and playing on another hockey team, leaving Riley all alone.

That's when four new emotions, perfect for the teenage years, arrive. They are: Embarrassment (voiced by Paul Walter Hauser), Ennui (voiced by Adèle Exarchopoulos), Envy (voiced by Ayo Edebiri), and — the undeniable leader — Anxiety (voiced by Maya Hawke). Anxiety takes command, arguing that Riley needs to make the absolute most of this weekend, with absolutely no mistakes, to ensure a successful high school career. (There are some other, very funny new characters, but they are best left to be discovered.)

To make sure the job gets done correctly, Anxiety exiles our five originals from the command center, where they immediately get lost in Riley's ever-changing brain. Then, in the first few moments of camp, Riley meets senior Valentina (Lilimar), a hockey legend and Riley's idol. So Anxiety makes Riley jump through innumerable hoops to befriend her and land a much-coveted spot on the high school team, the Fire Hawks, a rarity for a Freshman, or be doomed to failure and loneliness.

It goes without saying that Joy and her cohorts must make their way back to the control center and try to "fix" Riley again, but the movie is more complex than that. One of the pleasures of the original film is watching the five emotions work their way through the story projecting mainly that one emotion, yet working together. In Inside Out 2, things get a little messier, more tangled up. Anger isn't always angry and Joy isn't always joyful. It's much closer to the reality of teenage emotions.

The new emotions are beautifully designed. Embarrassment is a giant teenager buried in a hoodie. Ennui (complete with Exarchopoulos's French accent) has a long mane of hair that generally covers her face or drapes over a couch in a dramatic way. Envy is a little dot of a girl with huge, awe-struck eyes. And Anxiety is built like a monster, with a wide mouth (in one funny shot she lines up five energy drinks and pounds them all at once), which initially suggests villainy. But the kicker is that, largely thanks to Hawke's fine voice performance, she becomes relatable, understandable. She's genuinely trying to do good things, but makes human mistakes.

Pixar is at its best when it deals with issues of mortality and/or death, and this movie is no exception. Joy, like Woody in the Toy Story movies, is all about keeping things the way they are. She loves what she does and she's terrified of change. But change is coming. Kids grow up. They leave toys behind. They seek new things and new experiences. And there's an ending to everything. We will all shuffle off this mortal coil. (This is something most Hollywood movies, with their endless sequels and reboots, do not understand: that stories are better when they actually end.)

So underneath Joy's primary mission is that secondary fear of the unknown that lies ahead. And the genius of this and other Pixar movies is that it faces this fear and comes out the other side. It lets us know that, however things turn out, we're going to be OK. This was the revelation of Toy Story 4, which finally allowed Woody to face his fear, rather than avoid it one more time. And indeed, this is a decision that Joy actually makes, rather than it being foisted upon her. When most Hollywood movies are about getting things back to normal, Inside Out 2 is a small act of courage for the world, and for all of us.