Movie Review: 'Inside Out 2' Starring Amy Poehler

Inside Out 2 (2024)

Directed by Kelsey Mann

Written by Meg Lefauve

Starring Amy Poehler, Maya Hawke, Lewis Black, Tony Hale, Adele Exarchopoulis, Phyllis Smith, Ayo Edibiri, Paul Walter Hauser

Release Date June 14th, 2024

Published June 14th, 2024

I used to anticipate a new Pixar release like other people anticipate a new Marvel release. The beauty of animation and the ambitious stories being told were inspiring. Pixar shaped generations of kids, helped them to think critically, and helped them learn to appreciate art while remaining magical and a joy to look at. The pandemic and Disney's internal rot as they let hedge fund managers and stock analysts take hold of their creative products has now infected the once pristine land of Pixar.

The company that once prided itself on pioneering the world of animation has now begun laying off employees. They have slashed budgets, cut back on the creative teams, you can see the diminishing returns in both box office and in the quality of the animation they are putting out. It's still an industry standard but we've gone over the peak of Pixar, it's all downhill from here, it would seem. My thesis statement for this Pixar hot take is Inside Out 2. Sequels, reboots, and prequels are the last refuge of scoundrels in Hollywood and while Pixar has been in the sequel business for a few years, the growing reliance on memorable intellectual product or I.P is beginning to dim the once bright star of the animation genre.

Inside Out 2 takes us back inside the mind of Riley (Kensington Tallman). Now thirteen years old, puberty is hitting Riley hard and changing her sense of self. This is trouble for the uncomplicated emotions from her childhood, anthropomorphized in Riley's mind as Joy (Amy Poehler), Fear (Tony Hale), Anger (Lewis Black), Disgust (Liza Lapira, replacing Mindy Kaling), and Sadness (Phyllis Smith). Joy, the leader, has protected Riley's mind and memories for 13 years, recently developing a way of taking negative memories and hiding them away in the back of Riley's mind.

However, when the puberty alarm sounds, Joy can't stop it. Instead, a crew comes in and begins demolishing HEADquarters and new emotions start moving in. Most prominent among the new emotions is Anxiety (Maya Hawke). Anxiety takes it upon herself to take over as the leader. She's here to protect Riley by trying to anticipate any possible outcome to any situation so she can help Riley be cool and have friends and avoid saying anything that might make other girls her age not like her. The story comes to a head as Riley and her two closest friends head to a weekend hockey camp and Riley finds out that her friends have to attend a different High School.

Upset and scared about her friends going to a different school, Riley, with anxiety at the helm, makes a point of abandoning her friends before they can abandon her. She's lucky to make the acquaintance of an older girl, a young hockey legend with a shock streak of red hair and the charisma of a young star. When she invites Riley to join her circle of friends, Anxiety pushes Riley to go with her, even as it means leaving her two oldest friends behind. Anxiety rationalizes that they need new friends for High School now that her old friends are leaving.

Since Joy opposes Anxiety's new take charge attitude and her desire to completely change Riley's sense of self, Anxiety and her co-horts, Envy (Ayo Edibiri), Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser), and Ennui (Adele Exarchopoulous), bottle up the older emotions and repress them by placing them in a vault deep in Riley's mind. Needless to say, the ever inventive Joy plots a way out. But before they can return to HEADQuarters, they have to go and find Riley's sense of self which Anxiety broke off and sent to the back of Riley's mind.

As in the first Inside Out, the story is not complicated. You can probably guess that Riley needs all of her emotions to work together to create her new sense of self and thus the journey is bringing the new and old emotions together. You might assume that Anxiety is the villain of Inside Out 2 but you'd be mistaken. Anxiety is misguided and her leadership takes Riley in some bad directions, but what she really needs is Joy to take care of her, lead the HEADquarters, and manage each of these new emotions so that none of them, not even Joy, takes complete control over Riley. The emotions are a team that together makes up who Riley is.

Despite the new characters, Riley's new emotions, the core of the story is almost exactly the same as it was in 2015. The same lesson about emotions learning to work together and grow as a team is at the center of Inside Out 2 just as it was at the center of Inside Out where Joy had to make room for sadness and learn to work as a team help Riley learn and grow. The only wrinkle is Anxiety who does add a little depth to the concept as not quite a villain, not quite a hero, but we are still aiming for the same goal, learn to work together. It's not a bad message, but the beats are a little too pat and familiar. It feels like the easiest way to make a sequel to Inside Out.

The animation of Inside Out 2 should be as good or better than in the 2015 original. Innovation and technology should be growing and improving. And yet, Inside Out 2 somehow looks less crisp, less colorful, and less vibrant than the film that was released 9 years ago. The look of Inside Out 2 is still bright and colorful but it's clear that every other animation company has caught up with Pixar whose visual style has stagnated and now feels boilerplate and standard rather than cutting edge and ahead of its time.

The patience and care that Disney has shown in the past has repeatedly paid off with one great Pixar movie after another. But, now that Disney Execs are taking more control, it's becoming harder and harder for Disney to give Pixar the time and patience that Pixar's team typically needs to make one of their animated classics. With fewer animators and a tighter timeline and budget, things will never be what they were at Pixar ever again. This is how we get Inside Out 2, a still quite good but not great addition to the Pixar resume. This is not a bad movie, not by any stretch. But, as we dive deeper into Pixar's I.P era, Inside Out 2 does feel like a signpost marking how the best days of Pixar are behind us and that makes the flaws of Inside Out 2 stand out just a little bit more.

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