Inside Out 2

SPOILER ALERT

You may remember how astonished I was by Inside Out and what kind of movie it is. It highlighted the inner turmoil of a young girl who settled into a new home with her family in San Francisco by showing us the goings-on concerning her emotions, all of which attempted to navigate Riley's directions in life even in the face of unanticipated changes. However, as much as I admire the movie for its imaginative ideas, I questioned exactly how Riley's emotions correlated with her intuitions and whether they were parts of Riley or separate beings that happened to navigate Riley with her best interests at heart.

Well, not only did many people buy into this idea, but they were open to the possibility of a continuation to explore Riley's emotional state of mind as she grew up, like what the Toy Story films did with Andy with his toys as he grew up.

That's where Inside Out 2 comes in.

If Toy Story 3 is the perfect type of sequel that continued the themes and ideas of the first films, and Finding Dory and Incredibles 2 are terrific movies in their own right but fall just a tad short as follow-ups, I can officially say that Inside Out 2 falls somewhere in between. It continues the ideas and themes of the first film and comes close to being on par with it.

So, what's the story of this film?

Simply put, Riley had turned 13 years old and was on the verge of becoming a teenager. As she grew up, Riley became a Good Samaritan and made some new friends, Grace and Bree, in her San Francisco school. Of course, as Riley became a teenager, a new set of challenges, unanticipated feelings, and circumstances threw Riley and her emotions into a loop.

At the end of the last film, as the emotions' button module and dashboard have been expanded, it had a red light labeled 'Puberty' at the far end. As soon as that came into focus, it told me that Riley was on the verge of growing up, coming into her own, and experiencing her hormonal phases, which was what happened in this movie once the puberty alarm went off. It caught the emotions off guard, as did the workers who monitored Riley's memories coming to expand the dashboard further, not to mention the entire Headquarters, to make room for the 'new guys,' as they described them. Not too long after, the 'new guys' arrived in the form of not one, not two, but four new emotions, and all of them arguably more dubious than the original five.

The first of the new emotions was an excitably nervous wreck of an emotion named Anxiety. She came forth prepared to help Riley through her new phase in life. However, her ideas of assisting Riley become viewed as overload, usually by Joy.

The second emotion, named Envy, was cutesy but also lovesick and yearning. She was usually prone to look at other people and things with awe and offer suggestions, especially with Anxiety, on how Riley should respond to them.

The third emotion is a giant pink emotion named Embarrassment. He always hid in his hoodie and was squeamish over even the most minor issues he was usually involved with.

Finally, the fourth emotion is Ennui, or, as she genuinely represents, boredom. She usually lounged around on the couch and played with her phone, expressing a general disinterest in whatever happened in front of her, except for those concerning Anxiety, Embarrassment, and Envy.

Because Riley entered teenagerhood, the four emotions arrived under the belief that Riley was at a stage where she wouldn't have felt any of the original emotions—Joy, Sadness, Fear, Disgust, and Anger—by that point. So, they shooed the five emotions away, sending them off to be imprisoned in The Vault, where Riley kept all her darkest secrets and turned them into 'suppressed emotions,' so to speak.

Meanwhile, what’s going on with Riley outside of being a teenager? Surprisingly, there are plenty of things to note. One is that after proving herself as a valuable hockey player in middle school, Riley, Grace, and Bree were invited to head out to an ice hockey camp for the weekend, where they could all perfect themselves as hockey players and meet some new friends with similar interests. Unfortunately, Riley discovered that Grace and Bree were about to go to different high schools after their hockey play-out, leaving Riley in a brief emotional wreck.

But that all changed when she caught sight of one of the most popular high school hockey players, Val, the leader of a hockey team called Fire Hawks. As soon as Riley started chatting with her, only then did she begin experiencing all four of her new emotions. From there on, Riley, now under the watchful eye of these emotions, particularly Anxiety, tried to wriggle her way into Val's social circle, making cool talk and reacting to specific people and things more unpredictably than Riley usually would have, especially as far as her two best friends were concerned. So, what was Riley to do in her new social circle or with her two best friends? What did the new four emotions have in mind for Riley as she navigated her way through her teenage instincts? And what would the original five emotions have done now that they were stuck in the depths of Riley's head?

I've seen this movie once, and already, assessing the story as I just described it to you, this leads to the #1 thing I like about this movie.

The first film focused more on the emotions scrambling to help navigate Riley through her turmoil upon settling in San Francisco. Everything about the emotions and what they did for Riley's benefit was exciting, whereas Riley's side of the story just felt like your everyday story about a young girl trying to comprehend the new home where she and her parents were to settle down after moving there from Minnesota, and that's it.

In this film, however, Riley’s challenges became more intriguing, for she not only started experiencing her instincts that came with being a teenager but also some new twists and turns regarding her social circle and achievements, especially when it concerned ice hockey. So, the idea of her best friends moving away, being in an ice hockey camp, and being in the company of one of the most respected high school ice hockey players around set Riley ablaze as she tried to navigate through her new phase in life and her social circles when she wasn’t busy worrying about ice hockey practice. And once you see all nine emotions do their thing throughout the movie, there’s a sense now that everything they’ve done correlated to what Riley experienced, felt, and did. Somehow, the connections felt more apparent here than in the first film. So, I like how they approached the story and the complications of being a teenager.

So, the way the story was told, plus the emphasis on the teenage complications that followed, was remarkable.

But it's not just that. Let's look at some of the characters first. In this case, I'll also introduce another element of the story that I thought was done well.

First, you have Joy. Still as optimistic and upbeat as ever, and after feeling quite contented with how things went for Riley and with her other four buddies, she was caught in a loop once the four new emotions settled in and was kicked out from Headquarters as the primary pilot behind Riley's state of being. At first, I thought Joy's role in this movie was rather simplistic: she continued her duties as Riley's joyful inner force, but when she was kicked out of Headquarters by the new four emotions, she had to process not only the four new emotions who came to stay but also how she responded to her other four buddies and Riley's different encounters. Among other things, Joy had flung away Riley's bad memories into the Back of the Mind, making a borderline garbage dump out of it and establishing it as a separate collection of memories from the Long-Term Memory.

But that's not all. Even though Joy was now on good terms with Sadness, there were some points throughout the movie where, as Joy talked more with Disgust, Fear, and Anger, she realized how neglectful she had been towards them as well. Even as she looked at the unpleasant emotions she flung away, she realized that it's not just Sadness that's important, but also the worst of all the fearful, disgusted, and angry emotions that Joy did not want Riley to struggle with so constantly. So, this time, there was more on the table for Joy than she thought she dealt with.

Which reminds me, how are the other four emotions?

Sadness almost felt the same as in the first movie, with her wisecracks and constantly downbeat thinking. But this time, whereas in the first film, she was naive about wanting to navigate Riley through her emotional turmoil, in this movie, she had grown more confident in knowing the most appropriate times to let Riley let out her feelings. At one point, even if Joy, Disgust, Fear, and Anger had to go all the way to the Back of the Mind to retrieve Riley's Sense of Self – I'll explain that very soon – Joy did entrust Sadness to head back to Headquarters with the help of the memory tubes where all the memories are dropped off in the Long-Term Memory. There, Sadness could've eavesdropped on the four emotions and seen what they'd been up to since they took over Headquarters. But as for the other part of her adventures in this movie, I'll elaborate on that soon, too.

As for the other three emotions, Fear, Disgust, and Anger, they all personified what they're good at. They're presented almost the same as in the first film, with Fear always being the neurotic scaredy-cat of an emotion, Disgust being the sarcastic and grossed-out emotion, and Anger being the most easily agitated emotion. However, because of what they dealt with in trying to pilot Riley's life while Joy and Sadness were absent in the last movie, there's a sense that this time, they were fully aware of what was best for Riley, especially when they had to confront something like Anxiety, Envy, Embarrassment, and Ennui. Much like Joy, they wrapped their heads around Riley's state of being and the four emotions' arrival, all with their experiences throughout Riley's initial settlement in San Francisco to look back on. So, even though they didn't stand out individually, they still left a mark with their accentuated personalities and general camaraderie.

But now, let's hop on over to the four new emotions.

Starting with the slenderest looking of the emotions, Ennui, I admire what she embodied and what little she conveyed with it. All she did was lie on the couch, seemingly uninterested in all the activities around her. But what made her interesting was how, on her phone, even though it seemed like she was looking up whatever caught her interest, she could pilot the emotional dashboard from her phone without even touching it physically. So even though Ennui seemingly did not do much throughout the movie, watching her play her hand in Riley's emotional affairs this way was still intriguingly unusual.

Next up is Envy. She's a cutesy character who may not have done much in the movie outside of acting as Anxiety's second-in-command. But whenever she looked at someone or something that looked cool, pretty, or desirable, she always stared at them with wide eyes, simulating the general longing or sour grapes anyone like her would have expressed upon seeing them.

Embarrassment is an admirable emotion. Outside of hunkering down, as his name and nature would've suggested, he felt observant and considerate enough to know when things got too out of hand for himself and his buddies. So, when Sadness successfully snuck back into Headquarters, of the four emotions, it was Embarrassment who caught on soonest to the follies of Anxiety's ways. He started by helping Sadness as she lay low and tried to set Riley back onto the proper path in life. Embarrassment barely said anything in the movie, but his body language and expressions told me almost everything I needed to know about him.

Finally, let's look at the #1 new emotion in the movie: Anxiety. Like I said, she was just a jitterbug of an emotion, with her frantic ways of thinking and preparing for anything wrong that Riley might've endured. Do you remember how I thought Fear was good at listing all the precautions for Riley to watch out for? It seemed as if Anxiety may have out-precautioned Fear, for she was always thinking of all the worst-case scenarios that Riley could've dealt with and tried to help her as such, even if she didn't realize that she was doing more harm than good. At one point, around the time she and the other three emotions kicked the original five emotions out, Anxiety, in her attempts to navigate Riley down the right path or what she thought was the right path, ripped off Riley's original Sense of Self and threw it in the back of Riley's mind, where Joy stashed away all the other bad memories. Riley had become so obsessed with her attempts to fit in with Val and the cool crowd while neglecting her two best friends in response to them moving away, mainly because Anxiety attempted to help Riley through this challenging process in her life without thinking about the consequences not only of what Riley would have done but also of what Anxiety alone would have done.

This addresses two things that stuck out to me about this movie.

One is that, with Anxiety navigating Riley through morally uncertain terrain as Riley herself navigated through her teenage phase in life, Anxiety had her do and react in specific ways that seemed unlike how we'd expect Riley to respond, whether her teenage instincts had anything to do with it or not. One of the most striking parts of the movie that made me feel that way was when Riley woke up in the middle of the night and snuck into her coach's office to get a glimpse at the coach's files and see where her hockey capabilities lay, to see whether she's fit to join the hockey team or not. That kind of sneaky lying around reminded me of when Riley snuck behind her mother's back to steal her credit card to snag a bus ride home to Minnesota. And because Joy was so desperate not to have Riley experience those negative emotions again, Joy and Anxiety eventually caught on to this noncoincidental occurrence down the line.

As for the second element that stuck out to me?

As I demonstrated with Don Bluth's complaints about the first movie, some people felt turned off by the idea that each person was controlled by their own emotions and had no methods of response or control over how they felt. But this movie showed the consequences of the emotions trying to steer Riley's life as they wanted it and that too much of one thing would only have hindered the person's potential opportunities to grow, as demonstrated by Anxiety's methods with Riley. Of course, getting back to Anxiety herself, she was always frantic about whatever situations could arise and whatever she thought would be the best response for Riley as she tried fitting in with Val and her friends while neglecting her best friends. It seemed as if, for all her 'control freak' tendencies, Anxiety still wanted to do what she thought was best for Riley even if she didn't realize that it was more what she considered appropriate rather than letting Riley decide what was. Of course, there have been some instances throughout the movie where Riley felt those emotions and tried to fight back against them, so it honed the likelihood that the emotions inside her head might be less like guardian angels and more like inner parts of Riley that each have individual consciousnesses and tried to process what Riley witnessed in front of her. That's why I thought the conjunctions between Riley's story and her emotions' side of the story felt more evident this time.

One element of the movie that came forth that still felt as ingenious as in the first film was the worldbuilding. As I said, some of the events throughout the movie were reflected in Riley's inner aspects, which were tied to how she felt about anyone or anything, even as she grew older or entered a phase as complicated as being a teenager. Among them was The Vault, a prison where Riley left her deepest, darkest secrets. It is a fitting visual metaphor for the general necessities of shunning away what one feels ashamed or embarrassed of.

And it wasn't just the five emotions that got stuck in there. They also ran into, of all characters, visual recreations of characters that Riley remembered throughout her life, including Bloofy and a talking fanny pack named Pouchy. I could tell they were both spoofs of Blue's Clues and the talking backpack from Dora the Explorer. There was also a video game character, Lance Slashblade, who only performed as his video game mechanics allowed him to. Also, there's a massive, dark, stone-like figure representing the deepest, darkest secrets that Riley held on to throughout her life. He didn't say much about what Riley did, but his instinct to withdraw when asked about Riley's darkest secrets displayed him in a more unpredictable but no less sympathetic light.

Of course, it's interesting to compare this to Riley's Back of the Mind, where Joy had all of Riley's troublesome memories stashed away so that Riley would never have to think about it very much. It's interesting how it is reserved for Riley's bad memories while The Vault is reserved for Riley's secrets. I guess they each served different purposes, more so than I would have expected, similar to how I expected Fear and Anxiety to perform on their own merits.

Yet, I wouldn't have anticipated the new emotions' participation in Riley's phase to introduce new mindscapes, would you? In one of Ennui's first experimentations with Riley's reactions – and I mean with her hands instead of her phone – she had Riley respond to her favorite music, the ones that she and her best friends liked, with a rebuttal to make Val and her buddies think she was in the same league as them, causing a massive rift in between the Long-Term Memory in front of Joy, Anger, Disgust, and Fear. Riley's inner workers saw this coming and knew of its name, which, fittingly and cleverly, was 'Sar-Chasm.' In that portion of Riley's head, whatever one says to somebody else from across the rift would only have been expressed more mockingly than intended. It was typical to be established within Riley as she matured into a teenager.

During Joy, Anger, Disgust, and Fear's adventures to the Back of the Mind, they went through what looked like a storm that rained lightbulbs. Apparently, this was one of Riley's 'brainstorms'. That was also very clever and showed how one tried to think of ideas that might've helped them. I can't tell whether Anxiety did that or if that was just part of Riley's inner instincts churning up such a storm, but the implications are still there.

But let's get to what I consider the most important exposition of Riley's personality in this movie: her Sense of Self. In the first movie, the main components that made up Riley's personality were her personality islands and core memories. While her personality islands were still out and about, her core memories multiplied and expanded to a point where they went even deeper into Riley and formed the Belief System, establishing who Riley truly was. It works like this: where the emotions would usually have kept Riley's core memories, in its place is an elevator where they went down to the Belief System. Inside it were many memories, the most essential parts of Riley, floating around in a pond. As the memories were slipped into the pond, they unleashed their energy upwards into Headquarters to create a web of energy, almost like what you'd see in neuroscience graphs, that tells the emotions of what Riley was thinking. Not only that, but Anxiety tore out the original Sense of Self that populated Riley's head and flung it to the Back of the Mind to create a new Sense of Self for Riley. Anxiety did so by navigating Riley's life choices, big and small, so she'd fit in with Val by doing things that seemed more desperate than reasonable and put Riley in even deeper hot water than she meant to. So, such conflicting events helped add intrigue to the film.

But now, how about the human characters?

Much like in the first film, all the human characters were portrayed as regularly as we would have observed of anyone. They were not complex, nor did they show off. They just felt like individual people doing what they usually do.

We've seen enough of that from Riley's parents to get a general grasp on how they felt about life, especially with Riley becoming a teenager, and some of their external and internal banters about Riley and her hormonal phases were funny to watch, too.

However, this side of the story belongs to Riley, her two best friends from high school, and the new high schoolers she met at camp. What they displayed individually may not have stood out, but in the long run, such small moments added up and made them exciting characters nonetheless, especially Riley.

I may not have remembered much from Grace or Bree, but watching them react to Riley's shenanigans or casual things still contributed to their intrigue as characters. As they usually have during their downtime, their personalities jibed off well with that of Riley, showcasing just how close Riley became with them ever since she met them. In Grace's case, she and Riley met when Grace embarrassed herself in front of their class with her show-and-tell project. Her mishaps prompted Riley to respond by helping her with her project. And that's how they met and became the best of friends. So, small moments like these helped define Riley and her friendship with Grace and Bree.

With Val, the elite ice hockey player, you would think she'd be either the stuffy one and neglect Riley or leave Riley and her idolization of Val crushed by any semblance of snobbishness towards her. But not so. Val felt as average a high schooler as you would expect. She just had different experiences and a different way of speaking with others, which set her apart from Riley and her buddies. And much like Riley's friends, Val's friends don't get enough time to shine independently. But again, the small moments they partook in made each of them slightly memorable and feel like regular people, as I know Inside Out does best.

However, what surprised me about the human side of the story concerns Riley. In the first film, she was portrayed just fine: a regular, ordinary girl adjusting to moving to San Francisco and expressing her homesickness of Minnesota.

But in this movie, all her feelings and life events were fittingly complicated. She was as excited as her best friends about being nominated to go to camp to prove their worth as capable ice hockey players, but she became disheartened about her best friends going to different high schools soon. It only got worse after she met Val and her buddies, in which case, she gave in to her teenage instincts and tried to fit in with them as part of her attempts to join the ‘cool crowd.’ But in so doing, she had been constantly refusing to acknowledge her other two best friends and doing whatever it took not to prove herself as a capable ice hockey player but rather to fit in with Val and her buddies. At one point, she even lied about where she came from and had her friends call her ‘Michigan’ because that’s where she came from when she came from Minnesota. So, you can feel the desperation from Riley’s end to win Val and her friends over, even if her attempts to do so have been hindering her own valuable social circle and her capabilities as an ice hockey player more than she thought she would’ve. So, to me, this surprisingly painted Riley in a more exciting, complex, and engaging light. She was rather simplistic on her own in the first film, but here, what she experienced in this movie was more interesting, thoughtful, and like a fascinating character study of how one feels when they have been in the presence of someone they liked and prepared to do them proud because of it. So, I like how intriguing this movie made her as a character with or without her emotions overseeing how she felt at any given moment.

It leads into, frankly, the most shocking part of the movie, in which case, I'm about to embark into hardcore spoilers, so you've been warned.

At the end of the film, Anxiety finally completed her new Sense of Self for Riley, only for it to not be as she wanted it to be because the new Sense of Self went, ‘I’m not good enough.’ After realizing what a colossal mistake Anxiety made in micromanaging Riley’s life choices, she tried to fix her mistakes, except it occurred just as Riley partook in her final ice hockey tryouts in camp. Riley became more aggressive as an ice hockey player under Anxiety’s influence, and it got the best of her when she accidentally crashed headfirst into Grace, leaving Grace injured and Riley sent to the penalty box. There, because of Anxiety finally catching on to the error of her ways, she tried to help Riley out, but in so doing, she left Riley to suffer a panic attack instead.

The presentation of the panic attack, both from inside Riley's head and from outside of it, demonstrates just what a complicated, messy, and frighteningly blurry experience this breakdown and reaction could be, and I'm impressed that the film displayed it as well as it had. When I saw this, it instantly reminded me of Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, where Puss suffered a panic attack after running away from Death as he came closer to claiming his life after using up the first eight of his nine lives. Both panic attacks were portrayed very well, and they also showed the different ways in which whoever suffered from it can recover from it and come out better than they were a mere few minutes ago. Puss in Boots: The Last Wish shows how one overcomes their panic attack with someone else's help, while Inside Out 2 shows how to do it on your own. But what shocked me even further was how some people legitimately thought that Inside Out 2 handled panic attacks even better than Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. I found that most astonishing because I usually look at Puss in Boots: The Last Wish and even Andi Mack as prime works of fiction that display panic attacks very well. So, it says a lot about how far along Disney and Pixar have come artistically when they displayed scenes like this with such precise details to help fuel their realism.

This also reminds me, whenever I look at Anxiety, even though her actions laid waste to a lot of Riley's inner personality, I can tell she did what she thought was best for Riley even if she wasn't aware that it would only have hindered her capabilities as a human being.

And this is how you do a good antagonist. I think anyone watching this movie would catch on to how there's a difference between an antagonist and a villain, and that while a villain is remembered for the evil deeds that they've done and how much they not only knew that but wanted to follow through on it, the antagonist is just an opposing force whose actions and effects that could've entailed were met with oblivion. Anxiety was problematic, but she was not a bad guy. It was very fitting to say about a character named Anxiety because this reminds us of how everybody deals with such emotions, from Joy down to Ennui. Anxiety is just one of the chief emotions that people struggle with, even if it's not as bad a force as it feels, but rather a necessary one. So, Inside Out 2 felt respectable about portraying the new emotions as accurately as possible.

It leads me to the next part of the movie that I thought was just as well done as the first Inside Out, and that's the animation. Only in this case, I think it went a bit further with it.

Because nine years have passed since the first Inside Out came out, this movie took advantage of the technological advancements that both Disney and Pixar perfected with their animation and put them to good use, especially when conveying all the complicated aspects of teenage life that Riley's emotions dealt with.

The designs of Joy, Sadness, Disgust, Fear, and Anger still helped display them as perfectly as possible, making their designs go in sync with their general personalities and how they responded to each other. But it's the designs of the four new emotions that I was looking forward to discussing.

To start, I will admit that Anxiety's design looks like something right out of the Muppets, with her large eyes, wide mouth, and the gaps in between her teeth. However, her excitable nature and frantic methods of exercising her plans for Riley still demonstrate her zealousness when thinking hard about what she thought was best for Riley.

Envy's design was also pretty cute, partly because it highlighted her insecurities. She was small, had large eyes, and had puffy hair, demonstrating her cutesy nature. Still, her wide eyes signified how much she admired other people and reflected on them for what they have, to the point where it's obvious she wanted what she admired out of them.

Come to think of it, Anxiety is zealous, while Envy is jealous. Go figure!

Embarrassment's design was also charming. Embarrassment was massive and had a huge nose, but he was always shy and covered his face in his hoodie when either humiliated or trying to back away from doing something that Embarrassment was afraid to do wrong. Add his general shyness as a character to it, and you have an emotion that's as huge as he is adorable, primarily because of his personality.

I was astonished by Ennui's design. With her thin body, long pointy nose, and general lack of pleasant aspects to her character, she stood out even compared to her eight other companions. But I like how it highlighted how she's not a bad guy any more than Anxiety was, and she just responded to anything with general disinterest, but never to a point where it's neglectful. She still showed some concern, like when Sadness snatched her phone so Sadness could have piloted the dashboard through Ennui's phone. Outside of making Ennui look like a bigger phone addict than Bethany from the Jumanji sequels, if Ennui can navigate how Riley felt through her phone, imagine what the other eight emotions can do with it, as Sadness did.

Hopping over to the human side of the story, all the characters throughout San Francisco and at the ice hockey camp were conveyed as naturally as they deserved to be, especially after Pixar perfected it with Soul. Everyone looked, moved, and acted as they would have, especially the teenage characters. Interestingly enough, whenever I think back to Grace and Bree, I look at their designs as if they resembled those of Meilin’s buddies from Turning Red, only they felt less cartoony by comparison.

Also, something about the surrounding areas of the ice hockey camp looked very pretty. I’ll wager that it’s within the forests of Northern California, and it seemed very eloquently displayed with its lovely greenery and how much it contrasted, but also complimented, something as foreign to the state as ice hockey.

But I think one of the most impressive parts of the animation centers around the inmates that the five emotions met while in The Vault. Bloofy and Pouchy were presented in 2D hand-drawn animation, which I thought was fitting given the type of preschool show these characters originated from in this movie's universe. On top of that, Lance Slashblade came from a video game that Riley and her best friends played once upon a time. Unlike The Hammer from Regular Show or even Rumble McSkirmish from Gravity Falls, where they conveyed the likenesses of a video game character but were still conveyed in 2D hand-drawn animation, Slashblade was designed with more of a pixelated presentation, thus honing more of his video game graphic likenesses. Watching all these characters with different types of animation working with each other was astonishing because it demonstrated how flexible animation is in serving a designated purpose and that each type of animation displays the likenesses, characteristics, and even personalities of the character onto which the medium is applied. And to see that coming from Pixar, I thought, was just a step in the right direction. Because Disney and Pixar did these characters so well, I'm looking forward to seeing what other new forms of animation they have lined up for future projects.

In addition, the voice acting worked just as well as in the first film.

Amy Poehler, once again, demonstrated her worth as Joy as she honed her lovely optimism and sense of being throughout the movie. But the moments where she got fed up or lashed out at others were where she showed how Joy was not always the joyful or optimistic emotion that she is on the outside. We've already seen that when she broke down in the Memory Dump in the last film, but here, she expressed how there's only so much she can handle at a time before feeling like she's about to lose it. So, I thought Amy Poehler honed that part of her character very well.

Lewis Black once again voiced Anger, and outside of maintaining his irritable attitude and his common-sensical sense of reason, I like just how understanding he made Anger as an emotion and how, despite what his name and personality imply, he's not the type of emotion who lets his overreactions overshadow how he felt about Riley, his fellow emotions, or anything else. At one point, Anger even demonstrated how much of a supportive emotion he could've been when other emotions like Joy were down on their luck. So, Lewis Black honed that part of Anger's personality perfectly, especially when he had to convey that side of Anger and not just his funny side.

Phyllis Smith came back to voice Sadness, and as always, she excelled in honing her nature and more humorous side. Only this time, I sensed a little more confidence in Sadness's voice as she ultimately came through with what she was determined to do, but never to a point where it felt out of character; it all fits.

But let's get to the other two actors, Tony Hale as Fear and Liza Lapira as Disgust. They both replaced Bill Hader and Mindy Kaling from the first film, and I wasn't sure how well they would've portrayed their characters when I thought they were portrayed just well in the first film. But thankfully, they each had enough inflections in their voices to match Fear and Disgust's likenesses to a tee – Hale with Fear's frantic instincts and Lapira with Disgust's snarkiness – while also making it their own.

However, the other newcomer voice actors deserve credit in this movie.

Starting with Kensington Tallman as Riley, she did a great job of honing her teenage instincts while still maintaining Riley’s personality as she got sucked into a whirlwind of complicated feelings as she went to camp. She honed Kaitlyn Dias’ likenesses very well while establishing different aspects of her personality that felt like uncharted territory both for us as the audience and for Riley.

The other voice actors who played the emotions played them with finesse.

Ayo Edebiri played Envy with a fawning voice. But she also gave Envy a more reasonable tone in Envy's voice as she assessed what Envy found so adorable about anyone or anything and some slight cunning regarding how Envy felt Riley should respond to it.

Famous French actress Adèle Exarchopoulos honed Ennui's sense of disinterest. She always talked in an almost monotone voice to emphasize the boredom that the character represented.

Paul Walter Hauser, who already made a splash in Black Bird, provided the voice of Embarrassment. His slightly feminine tones helped hone the character's personality and reactions, and on the rare occasions when he spoke, he allowed Embarrassment to unleash his inner self, even if it was not how Embarrassment meant to express himself.

But let's hop on over to who I consider the biggest star in the movie outside of Amy Poehler as Joy: Maya Hawke as Anxiety. Hawke was on a roll as Anxiety, bringing her to life the same way Robin Williams did with Genie or Ellen DeGeneres with Dory. Her mile-a-minute conversations helped elevate her character to a level where she lived up to her name while performing and talking too fast to grasp what had occurred before her. But when Anxiety seemed mellow or didn't know what to think, Hawke allowed her character to settle down, speak more smoothly, and, primarily when she reasoned with other characters, convey just a twinge of unintended underhandedness in her voice. It honed Anxiety's more unethical ideas of life navigation for Riley, even if it contradicted her goals and intentions with Riley.

With all this in mind, you would think this movie might be either on par with the first Inside Out or even better than the first Inside Out, right? Well, it comes close, but like I said, it's an 'almost' factor. That tells me that some things kept this movie from being the perfect equal to Inside Out.

First, let's talk about Joy's outburst with Fear, Anger, and Disgust in the Long-Term Memory. Let's say that some of her expressions don't feel like the type of expression you would expect to hear in a general PG-rated film. I mean, granted, if it were presented as is without all the PG or animated-inspired filtering, it would have felt like something out of an R-rated film. But personally, this is a PG-rated film. I feel like they could've been a little more creative with Joy's outbursts and still taken advantage of what the PG rating would allow. Just look at The Incredibles films and how they put their PG rating to good use.

However, that's nothing compared to what I thought was the most disappointing part of the movie, and that centers around a character named Nostalgia. Is she a bad character? No, far from that. She showed up a few times in the movie to talk to the nine emotions about certain events and situations that Riley went through in her life, with most of them having little to do with what was going on in the movie or what the emotions dealt with. In response to this, the emotions politely and courteously asked her to be on her way as they would tell her that they would know when to call her up.

However, as sometimes witty as that felt, the idea of a tenth emotion joining the other nine emotions in this movie feels like a big deal. And because this character's name is Nostalgia, that means Riley would've been prone to reminisce about her past experiences, whether in Minnesota or with her best friends in San Francisco, and look back on them with fondness.

Not only that, but her design also looks fitting. She dressed like an old lady with white hair and a cup of tea, and she spoke with a genteel voice as she reminisced about what Riley used to do or what or who she liked. So, to see her not make as much of an impact here as she could have feels like a huge missed opportunity. Once Riley got back onto the ice rink after being sent to the penalty box and experiencing her panic attack, I expected this to be where Nostalgia would have finally intervened to put Riley at ease. Like, say, flashbacks of her times playing hockey on the icy ponds in Minnesota. That would have felt like a perfect opportunity for Riley to express her nostalgia about Minnesota and why she loves what she does. Not only that, but I could see her as an excellent counterpart to someone like Joy because of how pleasant she usually came across as being. So, it is a shame that Nostalgia was not utilized as often as I thought she deserved to be.

But those are the only issues I have with this otherwise fabulous second chapter of Inside Out. Inside Out may have already been an innovative movie about exploring what the emotions we feel may be like, but Inside Out 2 took things further by introducing us to new emotions to accompany the old ones, further complications people regularly deal with, and inner turmoil that signifies how we may not be as unified or healthy as we want to admit we are. It's no animated 'Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret' – I believe Turning Red fits the bill a touch more than this film does - but this movie has already shown its worth as such, judging from the people's reactions to it. Many people looked at this movie and said it is one of those movies where they felt like they were seen and that it understood what they went through. Surprisingly, it also did so well that it became Disney's first-ever billion-dollar grossing film since Frozen II. And considering how Disney was still recuperating after the COVID-19 pandemic, that is a big deal.

Because Inside Out 2 explored complex emotions, it only added to the intrigue, dilemmas, characterizations, and overall conflict of the story to the point that it made the first movie look rather simplistic. The complications in this movie make this movie for me, even if some of its minor shortcomings still felt noticeable. Looking at how successfully Inside Out explored the themes of teenagerhood with this sequel, dare I say it, I would be OK if Pixar decides to do an Inside Out 3 and possibly show what Riley’s emotional state would be like as she enters adulthood. So, for that reason, I’m tempted to say that it does come as close as possible to being on par with the first Inside Out, and I can think of no sequel from Disney or Pixar over the past couple of decades that has had this kind of effect on other people since Toy Story 3.

If that’s how far along Disney and Pixar have come in recouping their artistic integrity, then that is a good sign for both studios. It leaves me convinced that they have enough creativity and ingenious ideas to weave elements of gold out of them, so I entrust them to do the best with what they have. And Inside Out 2 is a step in the right direction.

Plus, because they proved their worth with Inside Out 2 in crafting sequels that felt more like 'second chapters' rather than extended cash grabs, I will keep my fingers crossed that they work the same magic with Moana 2 later this year.

Inside Out 2 is definitely an emotional whirlwind, but it's the kind that everyone needs to experience for their own betterment.

My Rating

A strong A-