Inside Out 2

Inside Out 2 came out during a time when Disney really needed it. After barely surviving a terrible few years filled with underwhelming projects, several controversies seeped in political turmoil, and a growing divide between company and consumer after their watering down of properties like Marvel and Star Wars, Disney has been running an uphill battle and are still currently trying to win back favor. During this bleak period, a bright spot formed when the teaser trailer for Inside Out 2 performed record-breaking numbers (receiving 157 million views in the first 24 hours which made it Disney’s highest viewed teaser yet). Being a follow-up to the incredibly beloved 2015 film, a continuation of the life of a growing young girl and her sentient emotions might just be the film to reel back unenthused fans, as well as help improve Pixar’s image, which has greatly weakened due to most of their new releases been sent straight to Disney+. Having to contend with several toxic people who were begging for Disney to continue failing, it’s a great relief that Inside Out 2 managed to stick the landing.

Set two year after the events of the first film, Riley (voiced by Kensington Tallman) has now become a teenager and her core emotions; Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear and Disgust (voiced by Amy Poehler, Phyllis Smith, Lewis Black, Tony Hale and Liza Lapira) are ready to tackle this new developmental period with her, but with puberty comes a newly installed hub as well as new emotions joining the party, which includes Embarrassment (voiced by Paul Walter Hauser), Envy (voiced by Ayo Edebiri), Ennui (voiced by Adèle Exarchopoulos) and Anxiety (voiced by Maya Hawke). Anxiety in particular wants to help Riley prepare for her upcoming hockey camp, but her hyperactive manner of doing things results in Riley deciding to hang out with cool new kids as opposed to her two best friends, which puts her at odds with Joy, who wants Riley to be herself and happy. Seeing this as holding Riley back, Anxiety sends the five original emotions out into the depths of Riley’s mind, along with her newly formed Sense of Self which Anxiety begins to tamper with to better suit the perceived future she wants Riley to have. With the core five stuck out of the loop while Riley proceeds to lampoon her relationships, Joy and the others set out to retrieve Riley’s Sense of Self and restore it before Anxiety pushes Riley to a much darker place which won’t be easy to come back from.

Receiving very strong reviews and reaching a level of infamy by becoming the highest grossing animated film of all time with a box office return of $1.7 billion dollars (only recently being toppled by the 2025 Chinese phenomenon, Ne Zha 2), Inside Out 2 may not be as strong as its predecessor, but still manages a heartwarming, intelligent, mature film that ticks all the right boxes to produce a really strong family feature.

This premise was made to be continued, as being able to watch Riley go through each important stage of life and see how her emotions developed and change alongside her, sounds insanely smart and would’ve matched Pixar’s old trend of delivering family-based content with a mature edge. This movie seems to follow suit, with Riley’s growth into teen-hood coming with new problems, new emotional conflicts, and new situations that are played up to a cartoonish level but are also very relatable to a broad range of people. The film in general feels like a nice return to form for Disney, as the casual and laid-back energy of the film allows the characters, world, animation and the dialogue to command the story in a very seamless way, keeping it simple to follow whilst occasionally dropping in teen angst. It should be noted that the story for this sequel, written by director, Kelsey Mann and returning screenwriter, Meg LeFauve, is not that different from the first, with several scenes closely mirroring what happened in the previous adventure. While this could be an issue, the film knows what to keep familiar and what to change up, as the different emotions, developing viewpoints and mental evolution do provide a new take while the narrative mainly just provides the means to showcase these new ideas. Even though the original director, Pete Doctor, didn’t direct this film (instead only acting as an executive producer), it doesn’t feel like there was any shift in quality and everything still feels effectively done.

What also helps is that the script written by LeFauve and Dave Holstein is still just as clever at getting across these very complex themes and abstract concepts in a way that kids can comprehend but will also challenge them as well. It has the great wordplay that results in a lot of comedic moments (providing even stronger humor in comparison to the first), it has the great creative spark that made Riley’s mind so fun and inventive a place to inhabit, and it still has that intellectual maturity that makes this seemingly silly idea feel so powerful and deep. With that said, the film does feel like it’s a little quick paced and due to its short running time of only 96 mins, it feels like some moments that needed more time, aren’t given enough to leave as much of an emotional gut punch to the degree that the first film managed to pull off. It doesn’t reach the point of feeling hollow and there is one very solid moment near the end where Riley is having a panic attack, but it is the film’s one noticeable issue, which more than likely comes from this being Kelsey Mann’s first feature directorial job, so there’s still room to grow.

The way the first film was able to so effectively showcase emotions in a physical manner was incredibly impactful, taking what were in all honesty basic designs, and making them brim with likability, character and energy through the extremely strong voice cast and writing. This film mostly continues this trend, with both the returning and the new cast members doing a great job carrying that needed heart, expected cartoonish charm, and respectable adult sensibility. All the five core emotions are still done really well, all the voice actors are still giving it their all, the animation on each of them has only improved with time, it’s nice that Anger, Fear and Disgust are given more focus as they mainly only acted as the somewhat opposing force of the last film, and while it’s hard to say the film really develops them to a new place once its concluded, it feels like each is used very well throughout. The same can also be said for the new emotions, who are certainly more complicated and therefore aren’t as simplistically relatable as the core five, but they are still very memorable with fantastic designs, great expressive animation and really solid voice work.

The highlight is easily Anxiety, who is really made into a great character through Maya Hawke’s great voice acting, her wonderfully frizzled design, and her stance as the character’s antagonistic force without ever feeling evil. Much like how the first film brilliantly showcased the pros and cons of Joy and Sadness, this film does the exact same thing with anxiety, and it’s easily some of the best writing in an already great script, exploring how she in doses can be helpful and be seen as a precautionary state of mind planning for potential future problems, but without guidance and restraint, can be formed into a paranoid spiral that actively destroys who you are in the search of being accepted by those around you, it’s extremely well executed. Envy, Ennui and Embarrassment are not used as much and do fall a little into the background as the film keeps going, but they look and sound great, and do get moments to shine, so they aren’t entirely useless. The stuff with Riley and the conflict between her friends and fitting in with a new crowd is done well, but the really good material is with the emotions and how they infer Riley’s mental state through their actions, to the point that sometimes the cartoony exaggeration of the situation can result in some unique overreactions (Riley’s mood swings feel particularly noticeable this time, but that is how puberty feels like).

The upgrade in animation from one film to another isn’t something that will be easily spotted by those who don’t pick up on specific details (helped out by the fact that the first film still looks good all these years later ), but upon closer inspection, you would be able to see all the areas where the technology has improved in order to make this imaginative environment and idea all the more visually appealing. The slightly blurred shade around all the characters which brough an almost abstract and amorphized feel to their looks was already a great touch, but their amazing facial expressions, wonderfully fluid motion, and distinct flavor of character that comes out through their movement really brings this environment as well as this literal concept to life. Riley’s mind is allowed to be home to a variety of fun ideas and concepts, and while nothing goes extremely different or wild this time around, the places they do go does results in some good scenes and fun ideas (a particularly funny moment occurs when the emotions are stuck within Riley’s mind vault). The colors are extremely vibrant and popping, the various different locations look crisp and clean, the real-world portions still have a plastic shine to them that can be a bit of a preference situation, but is still very well animated, and even though it isn’t a film that pushes the visuals to new heights, it’s still very good quality. The music this time around by Andrea Datzman may not be as magnificent as the original Michael Giacchino score, but it still retains that sweet, magical, child-like sound that is very contemplative and quaint, never being overplayed and knows when to take a backseat and let silence do the talking.

Inside Out 2 really feels like the saving grace that Disney needed to win people back, and while this won’t qualm all the haters, it feels like it shouldn’t have anybody outright hating it. It might not be as strong as the first film, which took more time to flesh out its tender moments and had the advantage of being completely fresh and unpredictable whereas this is a sequel, but because of how strong this idea, cast and script is, it doesn’t even matter if it’s familiar. It’s still heartwarming, mature while also silly in the right doses, has a great cast of characters with great voice actors, touches on pretty complicated emotional issues in a balanced manner that both kids and adults can view in entirely different ways, and is thankfully the first time in a while where a Disney film has been able to capture that much-beloved feeling of magic that everybody was sorely missing. In spite of the rough patch the company is in right now, Inside Out 2 is a truly great sequel that will surely touch your hearts.