I love loved Pixar movies until they stared making sequels of awesome movies. Yes, Toy Story series was a success, but then every other sequel they’ve made was no where up to their own standards. That apart, their recent films since Coco back in 2017 weren’t great either. So in short, I wasn’t impressed when they decided to make a sequel to one of my favourite films, Inside Out!
Directed by Kelsey Mann, Inside Out 2 tells us the story of now thirteen year old Riley, who’s on the verge of hitting puberty. With this, the five emotions in Riley’s head, Joy, Sadness, Fear, Disgust and Anger, are now joined by new emotions – Anxiety, Envy, Embarrassment, and Ennui (aka. boredom). Soon, Anxiety takes over the console, and bottle’s up the existing emotions (quite literally!). This leads to Riley taking some drastic steps eventually resulting in a panic attack. All the emotions now need work together for Riley to calm down, and rest of the movie (last 10 minutes) deals with how they manage that.
While Inside Out was complicated, Pete Docter, director of the first film, was able to make it simple and relevant, and this made everyone, kids and adults included, love the movie. Come the sequel, Kelsey isn’t able to do similar justice; the movie is super complicated, and my five year old who loves the original, couldn’t make sense of anything. The plat is super busy and screenplay felt rushed – the entire concept of ‘sense of self’ wasn’t explained well either. All of this led to a average film.
Amy Poehler and rest of the voice cast do justice to their characters, but they aren’t able o pull off the charm of the predecessor. Production is good, as you’d expect from the Disney-Pixar studio.
Is it worth your time and money?: Meh! Inside Out 2 isn’t a bad film. But they’ve definitely made a mess of what could have been a potential success. For that reason, I’d say wait for it to stream on Disney+.
Worth mention: Nostalgia!
Acting: 9/10
Story-Screenplay-Direction: 6/10
Technical Aspects: 8/10
Verdict: 7.5/10
