The Lighter Poignancy of INSIDE OUT 2 (2024 Film)
Director: Kelsey Mann
Audience: Tweens+
Pixar’s first fifteen years of features is the greatest track record I’ve seen for any studio—a sea of masterpieces whose weakest offerings are still pretty good.
As such, it was a cinematic miracle that they were able to produce Inside Out, their most profound and hard-hitting film for me, in their wildly uneven post-Cars 2 era. Granted, it’s because it’s so hard-hitting that I go years in between rewatches, but it’s still the Pixar film I admire the most on a thematic level.
And since I hold Inside Out so highly but am very weary of Pixar’s current track record, my first response to the news of Inside Out 2 was, “No. Leave perfection alone.” The closer it got to release, though, the more it became the kind of movie that I needed to be good and was terrified it wouldn’t be.
And now I can rejoice: it is good! Both better than I feared and lesser than I wished. But I could never have reasonably asked it to match the original.
With the move to a new home and school deteriorating Riley’s personality and relationship with her parents, the original has more dire stakes, with three moments that bring me to tears every time. Here, the stakes of Riley and her emotions trying to figure out her social life, her future as a hockey player, and who she is as a person don’t feel as substantial, at least not for me.
Which, of course, doesn’t mean they’re not substantial on their own terms.
And while the subject of puberty it brings up may not go into non-PG aspects of it, it would still probably raise awkward questions from younger viewers.
The story’s lighter stakes do allow for even bigger laughs than before, though.
There’s a sequence introducing Riley’s deepest secrets, personifying a toddler show she still likes and a video game character she crushes on (I knew all too well what that one was like growing up…). With the former’s knack for talking to the audience and the latter’s PS2 graphics, overdramatic speech patterns, and special move set, this whole sequence had me laughing to the point of coughing, and I really wish Lance Slashblade were in more than this one scene.
And while the story overall isn’t as poignant to me as the original’s, it brought me to tears in its conclusion (SPOILER), where the emotions realize that they can’t decide for Riley how she views herself, that they can’t suppress all the negative memories that have shaped her into who she is, that her self-worth can’t be boiled down to one belief. How they embrace this especially moved me.
I feel that Pixar in its prime could have come up with a sequel on the same level as its predecessor like Toy Story 2, but this may be Pixar’s best sequel next to it, or at least next to Toy Story 3. It thankfully isn’t another Cars 2 or Incredibles 2, and perhaps my appreciation for it will grow even more.
Since this movie that I needed to be good and was terrified it wouldn’t be turned out good, the upcoming Zelda movie BETTER TURN OUT LIKE THIS!