MIDNIGHT REVIEWS Inside Out 2 Review
Midnight Reviews features reviews and thought pieces written and edited by a parent, at night, after bedtime.
Check out the podcast I co-host with Leslie Wai! Our season 3 opener will include us talking about this movie, as well as our own pitch for Inside Out 3!
Inside Out 2 (1hr 36mins)
Directed by: Kelsey Mann
Featuring: Amy Poehler, Maya Hawke, Kensington Tallman
Synopsis: Riley (Tallman) is starting to grow up, reaching her teenage years since we last saw her. She is trying out for a place on an esteemed hockey team but also dealing with the fact her best friends Bree and Grace (Sumayyah Nuriddin-Green and Grace Lu) are going to be going to a different school. How does this manifest? In new emotions, with Anxiety (Hawke) and others usurping control of Riley’s mind from Joy (Poehler) and the rest of the original gang.
Review: This review is going to start off with a problem. Not a problem Inside Out 2 has in terms of quality, more a problem it is forced to overcome, a problem created by its own existence. Inside Out 2 has the unenviable problem that it must overcome the fact that cinema-going audiences will already know what to expect the world of Inside Out. When the first movie came out, it was so different to anything in mainstream cinema, something new and wondrous that took our imagination whilst having plenty of its own to spare.
Does the sequel match up? Lack of imagination isn’t the problem per se; it’s actually something much more everyday and perhaps mundane.
The animation is great, as always. Pixar consistently knocks it out of the park, and during the opening fifteen minutes certainly the film presents a vision of what someone’s mind might look like if it was designed by Apple. Everything is smooth curves; anything sharper than safety scissors is not allowed in this movie.
Anxiety […] is wonderfully utilised.
Both the jokes and the integration of three side characters characters, whose styles are a complete mismatch for their surroundings, are great. Bloofy (Ron Funches) and Pouchy (James Austin Johnson) are a great pair, whilst the inclusion of Lance Slashblade (Yong Yea) is bizarre enough and dealt with well enough to be funny without alienating members of the audience who might think he’s too weird. Pouchy’s recurring gag creates several belly laughs.
Now Riley is older, she has some new emotions coming to the fore. When she was a child, things were simpler, with emotions like Joy and Sadness (Phyllis Smith) running things. But now we have Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser, potentially the shortest job he’s ever had), Envy (The Bear’s Ayo Edebiri) and Ennui (Adèle Exarchopoulos) being led by Anxiety. These emotions aren’t as clear cut; with Sadness, you know what you’re getting. How many children will understand the concept of Ennui?
Ennui as a character is a great idea, but may be too complex for a children’s movie; here she is boiled down to boredom in everything but name, with no significant creative choices being made that will surprise. She’s bored, her head hanging off the sofa, a phone in her hand. She has a French accent. Alongside Envy, she is as thin as when the emotions started becoming abstract in the original Inside Out.
Suffers from being overstuffed with great concepts.
This is Inside Out 2’s main issue. As much as the last film certainly gave more focus to Joy and Sadness, the others had enough room to breathe and enjoy their moments in the spotlight. Here, unless you’re Joy, Sadness or Anxiety, you’re going to be sidelined. It almost feels like there’s a longer cut where Envy has something to do.
In a similar fashion, the question of whether Tony Hale is a good substitute for Bill Hader doesn’t really get answered, as Fear receives about a minute, if that, to establish himself. What feels like wasted opportunities were perhaps wasted to avoid too lengthy a runtime.
Being compared to the first is also a problem for Inside Out 2 because it just isn’t as inventive as the first. A sar-chasm is witty, and the sequence where some builders burst into HQ in order to prepare Riley’s mind for puberty is a funny idea. But there’s nothing that touches the highlights of the first movie, like that abstraction tunnel or the movie studio creating Riley’s dreams.
Anxiety, from the minute she shows up to the final moments of the movie, is wonderfully utilised. Maya Hawke gives a performance where she isn’t simply talking quickly and releasing bountiful energy. Just from the sound of her voice, there is the feeling something is eating away at her. She is the de facto ‘bad guy’, but her actions are simply down to her nature as opposed to anything malevolent. It’s in Anxiety’s nature to be a great planner, just as it’s in Anxiety’s nature to worry about everything.
What’s great in Inside Out 2 is astoundingly well done.
The final confrontation is what the film builds up to the entire time without you realising it. It’s the emotional highlight as we crosscut between Anxiety, whirling around the control panel at unstoppable speed, unwilling and unable to give up control, as Riley in the human world suffers a panic attack.
Whether younger audiences will understand the movie as easily isn’t linked to quality. Are young children going to understand all of the concepts? It’s doubtful whether a six year-old would be able to explain ennui, but this is a movie about growing up. The audience has changed; in fact, I think teenagers will find the movie incredibly interesting and useful.
Like the change from childhood to teenage years, this film is clunkier, messier, much more complex. The original dealt with the fact that sadness is an intrinsic, necessary, healthy part of life. Here we have concepts more difficult to explain: loss of control (and when this is a good thing), the difficulties found in leadership, the confrontation you have with life when you realise what it’s really like.
Whether the film being clunkier and messier works as a metaphor and is an acceptable point will be up the individual viewer. Indeed, several different reviews label the film as better or worse because of it. An interesting debate for another time. For now, just know that what’s great in Inside Out 2 is astoundingly well done, but it unfortunately suffers from being overstuffed with great concepts that on the whole don’t get given their dues. Like the character Nostalgia (June Squibb), perhaps some of them could’ve waited for a better opportunity to make an appearance.
Inside Out 2 is available to view in cinemas.
Matthew D. Smith likes to overshare his views on movies and TV shows whenever and wherever he can. Indulge him, and follow him on Twitter or listen to the podcast he co-hosts with Leslie Wai.
