Inside Out 2

Anxiety is officially a Pixar character now, and I couldn’t be happier about seeing my constant companion personified on screen, especially with that wild character design!

Set two years after the events of the original film, Inside Out 2 sees Riley (Kensington Tallman) as she crosses the threshold of becoming a teenager, bringing with it a new set of emotions that join Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Anger (Lewis Black), Fear (Bill Hader), and Disgust (Liza Lapira) in helping Riley navigate life and the hurdles that come along with it. Quite literally crashing Riley’s mind the morning she hits puberty, a new band of emotions, consisting of Envy (Ayo Edebiri), Ennui (Adèle Exarchopoulos), Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser), and Anxiety (Maya Hawke), soon start mucking things up for Riley, eventually resulting in her losing her Sense of Self — a disastrous development that could spell doom for Riley’s core personality. Bottled up by Anxiety and forced to watch Riley slowly become someone she isn’t, it’s up to Joy and her pals to find a way to remind Riley of who she truly is before her new emotions completely transform her forever.

A sequel that immediately benefits from the introduction of Anxiety and the other new emotions, Inside Out 2 puts Riley through a slew of teenager-related challenges, ranging from awkward high school situations to proving herself as an athlete to dealing with the serious subject of panic attacks, all of which are deftly handled by the creatives at Pixar in a way that felt real and relatable. Throw in some stunning animation and a great finale that perfectly encapsulates why we need all of our emotions, good and bad, to become the person we are ultimately meant to be, and Inside Out 2 succeeds in telling a poignant yet uplifting tale about Riley at the beginning of her growing up journey, resulting in a film that works on far more levels than it doesn’t.

Yet for as fun and structurally sound as the film is, I couldn’t help but notice the narrative balance between Riley and Joy’s storylines wasn’t always even, giving this movie a sometimes disjointed and oddly paced feel. Though great to see initially, the more the narrative switched between the chaos happening inside Riley’s mind and her teenage problems going on outside of it, the more it became clear that Joy’s story — the plot line that had far more time dedicated to it — was basically a rehash of the similar fetch quest Joy had been on in the first film, complete with eerily familiar goals and a kind of story progression that essentially mimics what came before. Because of this, even less time is given to filling out what makes Anxiety’s pals, Envy, Ennui, and Embarrassment, tick, with their characterizations leaving me wanting. These problems luckily didn’t come close to ruining anything for me, but they make parts of the film less exciting and enthralling than I expected.

Though this sequel falls slightly short of the original Inside Out’s brilliance, it’s still a worthy follow-up that further expands Riley’s internal world while successfully introducing enough new elements, interesting characters, and unique scenarios that make me want an entry from this series every time Riley enters a new phase of her life — Old Granny Nostalgia needs her moment to shine at some point! Regardless of what the future holds for this franchise’s big-screen adventures, Inside Out 2 is another important Pixar movie that kids, teenagers, and adults alike need to experience, and judging by the fact that it’s now one of the highest-grossing animated films of all time, I think the general audience agrees.