Disney-fied
The 10-years-later sequel to Pete Docter’s ‘Inside Out’ is fine. It’s just not necessary.
Inside Out 2
Director: Kelsey Mann • Writer: Meg LeFauve, Dave Holstein
Starring [English]: Amy Poehler, Maya Hawke, Kensington Tallman, Phyllis Smith, Ayo Edebiri, Lilimar Hernandez
USA • 1hr 36mins
Opens Hong Kong July 11 • I
Grade: B
For whatever reason, there’s a lot of love out there for Pete Docter’s 2015 Inside Out, a wisp of a thing about a little girl’s emotional life and how those emotions guide her. The film was very much of a piece with Pixar’s whole character/story-forward vibe, and a reassuring balm after the rising number of 2, 3 and 4s in its library, a hint the Disney machine was truly taking over after its purchase in 2006 (Toy Story 5 is on the way). But given the love for Docter’s film and Disney’s love of IP it’s no surprise we have Inside Out 2, currently 2024’s biggest hit, raking in US$1.2 billion (and counting).
In Inside Out 2, Riley (Kensington Tallman), now a pubescent 13, is off to hockey camp with her besties Grace (Grace Lu) and Bree (Sumayyah Nuriddin-Green) ahead of high school. Since we met her, Riley’s core quintet of Disgust (Liza Lapira, stepping in for Mindy Kaling), Fear (Tony Hale for Bill Hader), Anger (Lewis Black), Sadness (Phyllis Smith) and grounding Joy (Amy Poehler) have managed to anchor Riley’s essential self and turn out a well-rounded young person. But as happens with teens, Riley enters a dick phase, alienating her friends while trying to impress the cool hockey captain Valentina Ortiz (Lilimar Hernandez), and increasingly succumbing to her newest emotions: Envy (Ayo Edebiri), Ennui (Adèle Exarchopoulos), Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser) and above all, Anxiety (Maya Hawke), who catastrophises everything, and takes over Riley’s life until Joy breaks the cycle and puts her back on the right track.
In some ways a sequel at least makes sense; except for its US$1 billion Toy Story 4 does not, no matter how Disney brass tries to spin it. Riley was a pre-teen in Inside Out, and so as a person was much less subject to complex emotions than she is as a 13-year-old. As a kid, things made her happy, sad, scared or angry and occasionally grossed her out. Sending her to hockey camp on the cusp of high school, throwing her into a new social space, with new dynamics and new relationships to navigate is logical. The thing is, Inside Out was a streamlined tale about our most basic emotions. Inside Out 2 struggles under the weight of having to find a way to express all these feelings, and in the case of Envy fails utterly. It’s a crowded film that also wants to examine the self, the formation of identity and the stresses of growing up and doesn’t hit quite the way the first entry did. Poehler is suitably high energy and glass-half-full in contrast to Hawke’s constant glass-half-empty nervousness (there’s a tiny bit of Big Mouth’s Missy in the performance). But there’s no gutting Bing Bong; no bittersweet moment that signalled the end of one life stage and beginning of another, which the film desperately needs. As it stands it’s as much product as movie.
But as with most Pixar work, even now, the film – by Pixar artist Kelsey Mann (Onward, Soul) in his feature debut – and its script by returning writer Meg LeFauve and television scribe Dave Holstein (Weeds) is chockers with little details and throwaway one-liners and moments that are genuinely inspired. Among the new emotions Exarchopoulos’s (Wingwomen) 100% French Ennui is perfection, and it’s legit sad to see the Final Fantasy-esque Lance Slashblade (that name!), a younger Riley’s game crush, disappear after just a few scenes. Voice actor Yong Yea nails the histrionic dialogue and the artists have a ball making his early-stage 3D mechanics bump into doorways and otherwise glitch all over the place. Pouchy’s – literally a fanny pack – suffering is eminently amusing. And yeah, duh, the art remains second-to-few (really, take a minute for Robot Dreams). The way the ice shreds off Riley’s edges when she’s skating is a wonder, even if it doesn’t create a vivid alternate world the way Elemental had to – which Mann worked on. Strangely, Mann and LeFauve makes no room for horny (is that an emotion?), which really goes hand-in-hand with anxiety. Maybe they’re keeping it for Inside Out 3 – if Disney can make it fit the brand. — DEK