REVIEW: Inside Out 2 (2024)

Movie Reviews

I usually do my best to go into a movie as open-minded as possible. However, I’ve been dreading Inside Out 2 for a while now. It’s no secret that Pixar (or, more accurately, their Disney overlords) have officially sold their souls to the devil to focus on sequels and franchises. Before that news came out, I was already apprehensive at the notion of a sequel to 2015’s Inside Out. This was a satisfying, self-contained story about the complex emotions involved in growing up. Why bother expanding on that, and how could it compare to such an intelligent, touching movie? Well, the movie is here, and I saw it this weekend. Let’s take a look. 

Riley is 13 now and getting ready for high school. She heads to a summer hockey camp with her best friends, Bree and Grace. However, they throw a wrench into the fun when they tell Riley they will attend a different high school. Overnight, the situation is made worse, as Riley hits puberty and new emotions like Anxiety and Embarrassment arrive. Can Joy and her cohorts help Riley navigate these changes? 

Before we get into the thick of it, like other Pixar sequels Finding Dory and Incredibles 2 before it, Inside Out 2 recasts some central players. Kensington Tallman replaces Kaitlyn Dias as Riley, and Mindy Kaling and Bill Hader are out as Disgust and Fear. The assumption around the two comedians has been that Disney wouldn’t pay them what they cost, but I assume Dias simply got too old. Disgust is played by Liza Lapira here, with Tony Hale as Fear. Diane Lane and Kyle MacLachlan return as Riley’s parents, as well as Amy Poehler, Phyllis Smith, and Lewis Black as Joy, Sadness, and Anger. Maya Hawke plays Anxiety, joined by Ayo Edebiri’s Envy, 
Paul Walter Hauser as Embarrassment, and Adèle Exarchopoulos as Ennui. The replacement actors aren’t too noticeable, but replacing Kaling and Hader leaves a bad taste in my mouth. When a movie’s sequel doesn’t have the same director or half of the original cast, I have to ask why it exists. I also don’t think Fear and Disgust, in particular, are as funny as they were in the first movie. 

I don’t love any of the new characters. Anxiety’s schtick gets old fast, and they try way too hard to make her relevant and relatable. I have anxiety myself, and I found her to be gimmicky, predictable, and repetitive. I get that her choices are supposed to be bad; her arc is somewhat similar to Joy’s in the first movie. But it makes her incredibly unlikeable, and Riley takes a big hit in the process. Ennui is a stereotype, Embarrassment is very one-note and unfunny, and Envy is like Anxiety’s sidekick…for some reason. I never associated these two emotions, personally, and I don’t get what the film is trying to say in this regard. It would help if these emotions felt like complete characters, as Joy and the rest did in the first movie. Yes, they each represented a particular mood/feeling, but there was more depth to them than that. I remember an interview Pete Docter did with Terry Gross for the first movie about the research into the psychology that went into Inside Out. Pixar has always done research like that for movies, and experts are credited in Inside Out 2, but it doesn’t feel as gutsy or honest, again, like other Pixar sequels.

Despite Anxiety going through a similar control freak arc to Joy’s from Inside Out, Joy’s own arc here feels repetitive, too. I don’t want to get too specific and spoil the movie, but I also think the writers need to be reminded that Riley already went through the growing pains of accepting different emotions. The first movie was largely about the inevitability of change and how our minds and emotions develop during adolescence; why are we doing it again? This time, however, the stakes are lower. Both Riley’s emotional payoff and Joy’s are muted and lack impact compared to the first movie. I can’t watch Inside Out without crying, usually during Bing Bong’s big scene and Joy’s breakdown. Joy has a similar scene here because of course she does, but it doesn’t work because we’ve been here. Joy already learned that she can’t control Riley, and the set-up/payoff combo isn’t nearly as satisfying this time. I don’t know anything about director Kelsey Mann, who apparently based Inside Out 2 on his experiences with his daughter. But Pete Docter became Pixar’s CCO for a reason; namely, Monsters, Inc., Up, Inside Out, and Soul. The guy is an intellectual and a master at bringing the emotions out in unconventional narratives, often with unconventional lead characters. Inside Out was based on Docter’s own daughter. This feels cheap to me; for one thing, it’s a pale imitation of an incredible movie. But taking one man’s love letter to his child and repurposing it for another doesn’t feel right to me. Incredibles 2 is the most disappointing movie I’ve seen in my life, but at least it was Brad Bird playing with his own creations (albeit under the thumb of Disney). I think it would feel equally wrong to have had some other people direct that, continuing a very personal story about a man’s struggles with family, work, and self-worth. 

I’m disappointed by how irrelevant Riley’s parents are in Inside Out 2. It’s about her friends, even though they also aren’t in it much, and we don’t get to know Bree or Grace at all. However, Riley’s familial relationships were central to the first movie and a significant source of conflict in the film. These Pixar sequels often shift around the importance of certain characters, but this really disappointed me for some reason. There’s even a cute scene in one of the trailers where Riley’s dad feels fireworks when he kisses his wife that isn’t in the movie. I wouldn’t love Inside Out 2 if this were in it, but it shows some character and involves central figures from the first movie. 

I don’t want to be dramatic or let my emotions decide for me, as the movie would put it. But I’m not thrilled with Inside Out 2, which is yet another Pixar sequel that retreads well-worn territory. If you have kids, I’m sure they will enjoy this movie. It’s not offensive and doesn’t disrespect the previous film like so many sequels (including Pixar’s recent ones), but it’s nothing special.