It’s Pixar in the cinema, y’all! Yes, after I missed Elemental on the big screen last year, and after a spate of Pixar releases that went straight to Disney+ due to COVID-19, that lamp be bouncing across my cinema screen once again, and hopefully delivering the goods. I’m really excited for this movie – it’s so hard to say with Pixar, who produce hit after hit, but I believe Inside Out could be in my top five Pixar movies of all time…? And if not, it’s still vibrantly colourful, wielding a conceptual intelligence that is off the charts. A minor worry I have going into this one is that we do see the parent characters in Inside Out only have the 5 emotions in their head, so how will this movie introduce more, and will this sequel prove too much of an afterthought or a cash-grab, to capture the same Pixar imagination? 🤷♂️ There’s only one way to find out, and I’m not going let a little plight get in the way of my hype! Joy is at the desk, ready to discover just who is this new pesky orange rascal set to stir the pot anyway?
It’s… Anxiety. Riley’s core emotions, headed by Joy, get a rude awakening when the puberty siren finally goes off at the desk. This sparks an unwanted upgrade, and the introduction of four new emotions, going by the names of Anxiety, Embarrassment, Envy, and Ennui. Anxiety quickly has some new ideas on how best to manage Riley’s new social interactions, as Riley begins a hockey training camp ahead of her first day of high school. With so much incoming change, Anxiety sees Riley’s core emotions as a bit of a drag, and shifts them down the shoot. Working with the new team, Anxiety starts to form a new sense of self for Riley; one that may yield short-term results, but form a chasm of consequences that Joy and the others must fight to prevent, for their once lovable little girl.
I’ll kick this off with the negative, but there’s little to cover. Actually, this review might resemble a blue and yellow bittersweet core memory, as most of my dour thoughts are sprinkled with a boatload of satisfaction. After a fantastic opening sequence, refamiliarizing us with the core emotions, I did worry the pacing was off once the action starts. The movie has got a lot to juggle, with so many prominent characters now, and with all the core emotions misplaced on their mission. By the time Joy gives her speech about being delusional to Anger, I thought it came and went too quick. Pacing is a problem I’ve seen before, and considered that speed comes about when a movie is more preoccupied with “producing the content”, instead of earning the feels. Emotionality is usually the crescendo of a careful build-up, and it takes consideration to get the balance right to appreciate the high note 🎵 Luckily, the other emotional heights within this movie work without quarrel – Joy and the team battling Anxiety from the imagination room was triumphant, and the conclusion, where Joy calms down Anxiety, while our other emotions hug Riley’s self-worth, is lovely. Circling back, I do also commend this movie for the scene where Joy is aware that she’s delusional, and owns it – way to turn a negative into a positive, compensating for a character flaw, and it just makes Joy a more worthwhile character and leader that we can trust 🌟
Imagine being the team that finished the last abstract masterpiece and being called back to the offices to develop the next one – not an easy feat, more so than most sequels go, and I wonder who got to sit up most nights reading developmental psychology books to make this sequel possible. This movie is fascinating from the beginning, with the introduction of Riley’s ‘Sense of Self’, that grows from Riley’s dominant memories to form beliefs. This movie also cleverly calls upon common idioms for its cheekier world craft, like the ‘brain-storm’, ‘stream of consciousness’, and ‘sar-chasm’, that provide obstacles for the core emotions to overcome. Furthermore, I think it’s an absolutely courageous decision that this movie makes, to have the audience mostly watching our girl Riley actin’ the fool – in the previous movie, Riley is on the big cope, earning our sympathies when outside stressors attack her, whereas in Inside Out 2, she is pushing the drama, and pushing it hard. I wonder if it’s a decision Pixar made lightly, because it seriously makes this movie a hard watch at times 😥 But, I mean, it also affectively puts us in the same position as Joy, reinforcing the stakes, as we want to see Riley get back on track, and it’s all in service of getting to the lesson at the end. I don’t know if the final message of this movie is quite as succinct as the first one; I think the first movie is great in stating how all emotions are essential – a conclusion I couldn’t wait for the first movie to get to, as it was obvious to me how sadness and bittersweetness were key. This movie has it that our emotions are a team, with our personality, or sense of self, working as the head coach calling upon them as necessary… After some consideration, I just think as we get further down the road into more adult psychology, it makes sense to me that not everything is going to be forthright, as people vary so much, the longer they live. Ultimately, I do value this movie exploring how anxiety can railroad you, and the machinations of a panic attack, using Riley’s team of emotions as the friends who can get you out of a jam – namely, by being contemplative of your envy, or contemplative of your anger. It’s also disconcerting to me, since this movie starts by showing how Riley’s core emotions have already learnt how to work as a team (Disgust coerces Sadness from making Riley cry straight away, until Riley is clear from her friends, for example), so this ending really just gets us back to where we were at the end of the last movie, but now with a more crowded headquarters. I did also find it intriguing that the movie centers itself around ice hockey, which, isn’t a dominant sport here in Australia at least, or all places around the world, but the movie makes use of a sports motif to its advantage, and Riley’s practice ends up working as a metaphor for the emotions working in connection as a team 🌟
I had in my head, (and would’ve been appropriately angry 😏) that Lewis Black had not been recalled to voice Anger. Alas, that’s not the case, and thank God, because who else could be the epitome of anger 😆 I don’t always highlight the talents behind voice roles, but I do love this group’s signature casting – Phyllis Smith as Sadness, Amy Poehler as Joy, Mindy Kaling as Disgust (😳). Maya Hawke fits in perfectly as Anxiety. Bill Hader was the original Fear, and he’s the one that I’d misunderstood had been replaced in this movie; but I actually found Fear was better while watching, so no primary bias here. I didn’t even click that it was Tony Hale until I saw the end credits, and well, I do love Tony Hale, so I shouldn’t be surprised. (Okay, I didn’t know Mindy Kaling was replaced as well, and here I was thinking that I finally liked her in something 💁♂️ It does suck that the original cast couldn’t reap the recognition of a sequel due to a pay dispute 👎)
Pixar is also so good at the tiny, almost insignificant, details that can separate their characters from run-of-the-mill animations – I’m talking about Riley’s teenage pimples in this movie, and I’m remembering the burn marks on chef Collette’s arms in Ratatouille as well. I know it’s not much, but it’s still nice to acknowledge. Also, I think the use of the puberty button across Inside Out and now Inside Out 2 is probably the best example of a throw-away joke that is then recalled for use in a sequel’s premise too. So many movies try to force recycled moments from previous movies and can often seem schlocky, but this was perfecto. I wonder if this movie is setting up to do the same thing with Riley’s Deep Dark Secret 😮 Gosh, I’m such a darn sloppy sucker for Pixar at times, but above all, and put simply, I commend Pixar when their ingenuity is priority. Pixar only just came out and announced that they have no plans to turn any of their materials into live-action, and how good is that?! While Pixar can suffer from a little bit of sequel-itus, I think there was certainly room for an Inside Out sequel… as evidenced by the movie we just watched! I’m all for spending another session with these cuddly and cute fluffy emotions too – my favourite Pixar characters outside of Toy Story, I reckon. Listen, I was a huge fan of Mr. Men & Little Miss growing up – one dimensional characters that inform us on one personality adjective at a time – and I kind’ve see Inside Out as an extension of that.
4.0
P.S. By the by, I choose here to touch on the current plight of struggling cinemas, since streaming and shortened VOD release times are largely eating into cinema’s profits. I saw Disney+ had an offer with Fandango where Disney+ customers could receive a $10 discount on their cinema tickets, to see Inside Out 2 in cinemas, and as long as the cinemas are still getting their cut, I think that’s a fantastic idea. As a Disney+ subscriber, I could’ve waited a month and been pretty confident that Inside Out 2 would be available on my telly by then, and really, especially if I were more than one person, it would make sense for me to do that. Disney+ don’t make any more additional profit out of me if I were to do that though, and neither do cinemas, so please, figure out a way where everyone can win! I’ve already suggested that Disney+ should withhold new releases for over six months, making primary cinema revenue essential. But since y’all aren’t going to do that, at least this Fandango deal is a sign of a plan B. And this Fandango deal sounds like a goodin’ – too bad it didn’t extend to Australia though. Maybe next time.
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