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Hello everyone, and welcome to Media Musings! For once, I am not late to something coming out! But this movie was timed pretty perfectly for me to see it and make a blog post about it in the same week.
Honestly, my experience with this franchise repeated itself again here. Back when the first Inside Out came out, I was mildly interested, but not sure how I entirely felt about it. Eventually though, I watched a few old trailers of the movie and became interested. So, I got the movie’s DVD and realized it was far better than my expectations set out.
When the second Inside Out’s trailer released, I was on the fence about whether or not to see it. It seemed almost a bit cringe-filled with the puberty jokes and whatnot. But then, I realized that Pixar’s marketing barely reflects the true quality of their movies, and this movie could have the potential to have a real emotional core with their audience. But just in case, I waited until the initial reviews came out. When almost everyone agreed on it being really good, I immediately planned to go see the movie in theaters. Now I have, and I don’t regret it in the slightest.
Even though I knew Inside Out 2 might have some clever themes in place, this really surprised me nonetheless. I’m so impressed with how it turned out, and I think it’s one of the best Pixar sequels out there. There was next to no bad moments, and everything wrapped up really neatly. Let’s go into a little more detail, shall we?
Also, no spoilers here! Especially because I want people to see it. Go see it as soon as possible, I demand you!
First, a very simple synopsis, one that people can probably get from just watching a trailer or two. Riley’s a teenager now, and everything’s great. Except not really, because puberty starts. Everything gets wrecked, and four emotions suddenly appear: Anxiety, Envy, Embarrassment, and Ennui (boredom). Also technically Nostalgia, but she’s only used for a quick gag. The new emotions eventually decide, however, that the old emotions aren’t needed anymore, and banishes them from headquarters. So, the old emotions have to get back before the new emotions change Riley forever.
Now that we’ve got that settled, let’s talk a bit about the parts of the story I liked, without going into spoilers.
The base concept of this movie really seems like it’s similar to the first movie. It does certainly hold some elements from the first, but this movie also knows how to tackle fresh topics, places, and conflicts. There are less unique places this time around, though of course there’s the occasional location centered around a pun. Classic Inside Out humor. For the most part, this movie is focused around the characters rather than the places. It makes this work pretty well.
Speaking of, the characters are much better this time around. Especially the more background ones. Anger, Fear, and Disgust did not have much to do in the first movie, mostly feeling like the afterthought. Here, they do much more, and most of them feel layered. Joy and Sadness are as good as ever, Joy even feeling more developed and grown here. Just as a main character in a sequel should be.
Most of the new emotions are pretty good too, filling their own role in the movie. Envy and Ennui left a little to be desired, but they were pretty much always meant to be Anxiety’s supporters. None of them feel too annoying, either. With such an ensemble cast, this movie feels like it would be crowded or pushes characters to the side, but it’s really good at the focus balancing act.
Oh, and did I mention Riley’s better too? Though more time in the mind is sacrificed, Riley’s new screentime is worth it. Last time, she really felt like some sort of puppet by the emotions, which in some cases was true. But here, she feels like her own person, with the emotions just assisting with some of her actions. It really feels like Riley is more than just the emotions, though of course, they help a lot with some of her choices.
Also, Riley’s conflict blends so seamlessly with the emotions’. There were times in the movie where I wondered in places how this related to Riley. In this movie, nearly everything in the mind is some sort of metaphor to how Riley, and real people in these situations, would think. Even the old emotions being kicked out makes a lot of sense with Riley’s situation of trying to change herself. Anxiety taking over is incredibly accurate to many people too, with all the flaws in between.
The few problems I have with this movie are really tiny nitpicks. Joy’s character arc can sometimes feel a little mismatched, and the lesson of this movie could have used a tiny bit more support. I can’t supply any more detail here, but know that these are pretty small. They really didn’t take away from the movie for me.
Finally, let’s discuss the characters! Mainly the emotions and, wow, there are 9 of them to talk about now? I might have to make their descriptions brief.
We’ll start with the old emotions, the ones that have been in Riley’s head since the first movie. Joy is the most developed and has an extremely wide range of emotions, ironically. She’s basically the protagonist here. Sadness has less focus here, though you can tell she’s really formed a friendship with Joy. Also, she gets her own sideplot in the movie, so that’s fun. Anger has some incredible jokes and expressions, though he gets a fair share of calm moments. Sometimes, he even acts as a supporter of the group. Disgust actually gets a decent amount of attention here, especially in her interactions with other characters. Not much to say about her though. And finally, Fear. He’s probably the most minor of the group, though he’s probably the funniest of the five.
Now, we move to the new group. Envy is pretty interesting. A lot of people have debated about whether she’s actually envious or not. Honestly, she’s more of an Anxiety supporter, but that’s fine with me. Embarrassment actually does more than I thought he would in this movie, and he’s probably the second-most interesting. Ennui is really minor, but the few interactions she has are funny or interesting. And finally, Anxiety is by far the most important. I’d even say she has more focus than Joy does. Anxiety is extremely accurate to the actual emotion. Though she’s an antagonist, she has good intentions, even if her ideas can spiral out of control. She’s probably my favorite character in this movie as well.
Overall, Inside Out 2 is really good. I haven’t seen a Pixar movie so good in a long time, and I hope they keep the quality up in the future. I’ll give this movie a 9/10. See you guys next time!
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