Sequels have been a sensitive subject for Pixar, but it’s hard to deny the natural premise of “Inside Out 2.” It’s been nine years since “Inside Out,” yet in the gap between that film and its new sequel, Riley, a young girl full of emotions, has grown from age 11 to 13. She’s grown up, just a little.
Or maybe a lot more. In the middle of the night, the old gang of Joy, Sadness, Fear, Disgust, and Anger are roused from their beds by a soft beep, as if a fire alarm needed new batteries, but soon it becomes a full-blown emergency. A red light flashes on their consoles. “What is this?” one asks. “Puberty,” reads the button. Soon, construction workers begin to trickle into the control room for “Demo Day,” and wrecking balls make room for “the others.”
A new set of emotions arrive that are said to be more sophisticated: anxiety, jealousy, embarrassment and boredom. The next morning, Riley finds herself unusually smelly. As they say, life comes at you pretty fast. “Inside Out 2” is not just a modest, inch-things-along sequel, but a follow-up of cataclysmic proportions.
It’s tempting to revisit “Inside Out” — a high-water mark not just for Pixar but for American movies of the ’10s — as profane, as its sequel is deftly sensitive to one of life’s strangest chapters. This time the playful sense of imagination is a little less boundless. One could certainly watch “Inside Out 2” like a parent who looks at a teenager and thinks the younger version is cuter and less weepy. But the filmmakers of “Inside Out 2” have again managed to filter complex psychological development into a bright, entertaining head trip that delivers an emotional jolt in its best moments.
I consider Joey the real hero of the first “Inside Out.” That movie, in fact, was based on the blue-haired sprite’s desperate race to preserve all the happiness of childhood. Aided especially by Poehler’s superb voice work, Joey — a kind of stand-in for parents wanting only the best for their kids — was less a relentless parent’s lesson than another emotion that sometimes it’s best to let go.
This time around, Riley feels more like the main character, although Anxiety, an agitated, orange, bug-eyed Muppet-like thing, is making decisions faster. Riley is taller now, has some good friends and is still playing hockey. Her internal landscape is changing, too. Boy Band Island is over. And from her pool of memories, new strands are growing a tree-shaped belief system. Who Riley really is, at her core, is tested and reconstituted in “Inside Out 2.”
Some of the minds behind the film are new, too. Pixar veteran Kelsey Mann takes over the directing reins from Pete Docter, making his feature film debut. The screenplay is written by Meg LeFauve, who co-wrote the original film, and Dave Holstein.
My memories of “Inside Out” – if my memory is recorded correctly – are mostly of all those glowing balls of the past and the crazy swirls of Joy and Sadness that go through the back of Riley’s mind, a joke-filled inner space both literally and metaphorically. Also, we can’t forget the voice of Richard Kind as Bing Bong.
Much of the same is true in “Inside Out 2.” But this film is a little different, with Riley in mind. As the school year comes to a close, Riley attends a weekend hockey camp that is a preview of her high-school life to come.
New tensions are developing. Riley learns that her friends are moving to another school. On the ice, what was once a carefree game has become a more complicated experience plagued by self-doubt. At camp, Riley really wants to impress an old star player named Val. To do so, anxiety takes hold of Joey, and frantically makes Riley abandon core beliefs to create a new identity. Joey and the others, who have been removed from the control room, have to work frantically to re-establish the resistance, while also learning a lesson about the need to reconcile with—not just try to forget—less happy memories.
“Inside Out 2,” which comes after a period of soul-searching for Pixar, recaptures some of the animation studio’s magic and reminds us that rekindling the ambitious spirit of Pixar’s heyday isn’t so easy. The sequel stays close to familiar neural pathways. There are new brainy jokes — the resonating depths of a head-“trench,” a brainstorm that rains light bulbs — and a new cartoon relic of childhood to take the place of Bing Bong: a character named Blufie, voiced by Ron Funches. It’s easy to see where this “Inside Out” is going and a little hard to be surprised by what unfolds.
But its aim is remarkably true. Confronting the struggles and realities of anxiety, especially for teenage girls, could hardly be a more admirable task. And here it attempts to show how new impulses can overwhelm a young person and disorganise her inner compass.
Pixar, like other studios grappling with the new media landscape, has moved forward with more short-form and digital-friendly content in recent years. But the doc has inspired Pixar to focus again on feature films that are slated for theatrical release. So in many ways, Mann’s film feels like a much-needed feature-length refuge from today’s anxiety-inducing devices. Unlike many of Pixar’s parental allegories, this film is, impressively, for kids.
“Inside Out 2,” released by The Walt Disney Company, is rated PG by the Motion Picture Association for some thematic elements. Duration: 96 minutes. Three out of four stars.
Follow film writer Jake Coyle on Twitter: http://twitter.com/jakecoyle
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