Movie Review - Inside Out 2

Director: Kelsey Mann
Genre: Family/ Animation/ Drama/ Comedy
Runtime: 96 minutes
Year: 2024
Starring: Amy Poehler, Maya Hawke, Phyllis Smith, Liza Lapira, Tony Hale, Lewis Black, Kensington Tallman, Diane Lane, Kyle MacLachlan. Paul Walter Hauser, Yvette Nicole Brown, Ayo Edebiri,
 
Description: Riley is entering puberty and experience 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.

Review: As a child, life is simple. A child’s emotions are still basic, but it’s a whole different story once puberty hits them. Snapping at parents, wanting to belong, getting bored and, above all, a lot more worries come along. So too for Riley, the happy-go-lucky girl who managed to embrace her sadness in the first film to become more balanced. Riley is now thirteen and that balance is in danger of disappearing completely to a host of new emotions affecting her life.

“Inside Out” was an outright hit where the various emotions of human beings were explained extremely well and in depth in a fun and colorful format. Nine years on, the second installment is released with an attempt to bring Disney out of its slump (they haven’t released the best films lately). In this, the emotions in Riley’s head succeed all too well. And again has much emotional depth.

Its greatest strength lies in the recognizability of the story and the accompanying emotions. Where we already dealt with Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear and Disgust, we are now introduced to Anxiety, Envy, Embarrassment and Ennui.

Amy Poehler is still as infectiously cheerful and determined as in the first film. She is the perfect Joy. But Maya Hawke as Anxiety is the big surprise in “Inside Out 2”. She perfectly manages to combine the hustle, anxiety, stress, panic and urge to control that fits the emotion. She delivers her dialogue with great energy and you can feel the emotion in every scene she is in.

All the emotions are incredibly well played. The interactions unfold with great humor and the jokes hit the mark. One of the other new emotions is Ennui (boredom), only with a small role, but makes to most of the scarce moments it is in.

With “Inside Out 2”, Disney seems to put its core values first again by creating a humanly relatable story in a warm and cheerful setting. The complicated emotions are perfectly laid out and made understandable. A great sequel.

Rating: 5/ 5