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Inside Out 2 Movie Review

Inside Out 2 is a 2024 animated coming-of-age film directed by Kelsey Mann and starring Amy Poehler and Maya Hawke. It’s a disappointing Pixar sequel.

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“Maybe this is what happens when you grow up.

You feel less joy“

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Riley enters puberty and experiences brand new, more complex emotions as a result. As Riley tries to adapt to her teenage years, her old emotions try to adapt to the possibility of being replaced. The first ‘Inside Out’ movie came out nine years ago and it remains one of Pixar’s best movies. This installment, however, doesn’t compare favorably to the original. In fact, it’s one of the weakest movies from this studio that continues to flounder when it comes to sequels.

The original also had its issues – being too simple at times and too convoluted at other times – but this movie only further multiplied those flaws while lacking the strengths that made that first movie a classic – its big heart and evident imagination. With that being said, even though I was thoroughly disappointed with this particular movie, I still contend that there is a lot of potential for this franchise as the next installments could tackle Riley being an adult and even a mature woman. That would be a terrific choice if Pixar were brave enough to embark upon it.

My main issue with Inside Out 2 is its corporate nature. They tried so hard to make a movie that is universally relatable to everyone, thus failing to relate to anyone ironically so. They should go back to specific and artistic original movies instead of these soulless sequels. The new emotions in this movie felt very much overly calculated, even those that worked. I also continue to find it absolutely ridiculous that only Joy is effectively a positive emotion and every single other emotion is a negative one. We have fear, but we don’t have bravery. We have envy, but we don’t have pride for instance. This made these movies feel awfully nihilistic and simply not representative of the full human experience.

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The basic storyline with the core emotions embarking on a quest is pretty much recycled from before, but the movie lacked those imaginative moments that were countless in its predecessor. There is that phenomenal scene where they meet Riley’s deleted memories. The video game fighter character was especially funny and memorable in that section. But these scenes were fleeting in a movie that is otherwise overly frenetic in pace, busy in plot and not as engaging as it should have been and nowhere near as moving as the original was. I did not feel anything, which is a huge problem for a movie that is about a freaking teenager.

And that brings me to my next point – the sophistication was mostly lacking here. The first movie was smarter, but it shouldn’t have been like that. Teenagers are more complex than children, but this film didn’t correspond to that fact at all. The new emotions did not get much to do here with Envy, Embarrassment and Ennui (all star with an E funnily so) not getting all that much usage. I wanted more from every single one of them and again I wanted other more positive emotions included too.

But obviously the newly included character that wholly worked is Anxiety. Maya Hawke did a lovely job in this role and her performance is excellent, but it is the clever character design that made the character really stick with viewers. The angular and manic look to the character reminded me of the video game character Rayman. Anxiety is well developed, very memorable and the rare character and plot device that fully worked in this lukewarm sequel.

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Amy Poehler is just as terrific as she was before, but Joy was much less interesting this time around. The same goes for Sadness and the other core emotions. They got the short end of the stick in this sequel that also failed to properly develop the new emotions, not counting Anxiety of course. As a group, they are lovely. Individually, though, they left a lot to be desired.

As for Riley, the movie explored some issues that will be very relatable for teenage viewers and adults who remember being a teenager, especially women. She wants to fit in, she tries to blend in with the cool crowd, she feels envy, embarrassment etc. But the film dealt with these things in a typical manner that is more straightforward and comedic than truly moving and sophisticated. It’s like your standard Hollywood coming-of-age flick that just went through the most basic concepts of being a teenager without delving deeper into the more complicated feelings and issues that people at this age may go through.

Inside Out 2 is funny, I will give it that. There are moments here that did make me laugh. Some of the dialogue is very well written and some characters worked. The parents scenes were as amusing as they were before. The quest that they go on did produce some fun, adventurous results, but the action-heavy tone to the movie was its main detractor. I wanted more sophisticated dialogue and much more, well, emotions from a movie that is all about emotions. The animation is gorgeous and colorful as always while the score is lively and tender at times. The voice acting is strong across the board and the humor is on-point. But the messaging, world building and emotional engagement were mostly missing here.

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