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 (062724)
Many have complained about Hollywood’s reliance on sequels, remakes and
franchise films which often crowd out truly original films. Over the last few
months we have had: Bad Boys for Life, Ghost Busters-Frozen Empire, Kingdom of
the Planet of the Apes, Godzilla x King Kong: The New Empire and
Furiosa: A Mad Max Story,
although In all fairness Furiosa was everything it could and
should have been.
But Inside Out 2 has a true reason for its existence and it cleverly extends and
updates the narrative of the original 2015
Inside Out. Also, audiences are rewarding
its high quality with huge box office success, and it looks like it is going to
be one of the year’s few bona fide block busters. This film earned a phenomenal
one hundred million in its second weekend, and it could end up become the first
billion grossing film since
Barbie. Also, it is a hit with critics and is a
strong early contender for Best Animated Feature Film in the Oscar race.
But even more importantly the film represents a partial return to form for both Pixar
and potentially Disney, their parent company. Years ago, Pixar could do no wrong
and it went from triumph to triumph with Toy Story (96), A Bug’s Life (99),
Finding Nemo (2003), The Incredibles
(2004), and
Wall-E (2008). But they have recently fallen on harder times, and
few would consider the recent
Lightyear
(2022) and Elemental (2023) to be among
the best Pixar films.
The animation of Inside Out 2 is uniformly high quality (although not as good as
a Spider-verse or Miyazaki film) and often the cartoon’s characters, especially
Riley, seem just as real or even more real than many characters in live action
films. We have progressed a lot since the Saturday morning Scooby Doo and Josie
and the Pussycats cartoons.
The film was released almost ten years after the original but only two years
have passed in the Insider Out time chronology. The protagonist Riley is
seemingly managing her childhood well. She has a tranquil and stable existence,
relying heavily on her two fine friends: Grace and Bree, for guidance, emotional
support and empathy. She also has strong control over her main emotions:
sadness, anger, joy, fear, and disgust which were main characters in the other
film, and she seems like she is pretty together from a psychological and
emotional standpoint.
But then just as often happens just when everything seems perfect, life throws
her a big curve. Just as Riley is enjoying her high grades and academic success,
she is upset to find out that her two best mates are transferring to a new
school. Riley is demoralized to find out that she must begin high school and she
is going to try out for hockey without her support group.
To complicate things, now that Riley has turned thirteen, she begins to act
erratically around her friends and family. Also, she has started to smell
different and has huge mood swings with the onset of puberty. I am sure many
parents and siblings of kids that age have observed similar behavior patterns
and changes and can emphasize with her friends and relatives.
At the start of the film Riley’s brain is influenced by five emotions which are
personified as major characters. But now Riley’s mindscape is increasingly
dominated by new emotions including Ennui (who of course is French),
Embarrassment, and Envy. The ringleader, Anxiety (voiced by Maya Hawk) is mostly
negative on the surface, but she also serves to keep Riley on her toes. She
takes over Rily’s brain which is shown as a physical headquarters and is aided
by Ennui, Embarrassment and Envy. This new group of emotions displaces or evicts
the former dominant emotions out of her head. During the rest of the film,
Sadness and Joy (Amy Pohler) and all the other emotions from the last film
struggle to return to Riley’s head and reassert their influence. But this does
not completely make sense because don’t most youngsters feel more joy and
sadness than before in their teen years? Also, after a while Anxiety’s influence
becomes more negative because Riley is so filled with self-doubt under her
influence that she gives up on herself.
At first, exiling Joy has many positive consequences. Before Riley can join her
school hockey team, she must first pass the audition and impress the older
girls. She has a girl crush on her emo haired captain who is initially
supportive and friendly even though Riley often acts like an idiot around her.
But the other girls look down upon her at first because she acts like a kid and
always seemed overly fawning and joyful. Not transparently displaying her joy
makes the other girls think she might be more mature. But in her determination
to seem cooler, Riley snubs her old friends and pretends that she dislikes her
favorite boy band so that she can impress the older hockey team girls. Riley
goes through an interesting mental journey and many changes.
This is much more than just a kid’s film and it is better than it had to be.
Also, the film teaches a valuable lesson about the dangers of losing yourself
(Mean Girls has a similar lesson) in order to fit in with others which is
applicable and relevant to all age groups.
The film has some extremely goofy and odd side characters which are positively
inspired. Especially delightful is the character Riley has a crush on, Lance
Slash, who has a Conan-like build and swagger to spare. He also looks and acts
like a typical cartoon hero. He looks powerful, plus he talks tough and carries
a huge sword which looks like it could cut through a tank. But like many real
people he is less impressive once you get to know him. Disappointingly, whenever
danger rears its ugly head, he becomes a human ball and rolls away a'la Jack
Cole's Plastic Man, who can at least become other shapes.
Inside Out 2 was bound to be a bit less impressive than the original because it
does not deal with any moments as seminal as the birth of Riley and her first
years in the original film. Despite some striking scenes, as a whole Inside Out
2 is less groundbreaking or essential than the original. But it manages to tell
a good story and unlike many recent adventure and animated films (such as many
recent Star Wars projects) it never lets its politics get in the way of the fun
or the film’s aesthetic value.
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