Popcorn Perspectives with Danny Minton
Week of June 10, 2024
Inside Out 2
Rated PG for some thematic elements
No Rotten Tomatoes Score at time of writing
In Theaters
It’s been almost 10 years since Pixar released the brilliant Inside Out, which was a risk-taking project about the emotions that go on inside a little girl’s mind. Now, Riley is hitting puberty and several new emotions are added to the mix, including anxiety, envy, embarrassment and ennui (a feeling of weariness or dissatisfaction). Hot off a big hockey win, Riley and her two best friends are invited to attend a 3 day hockey camp, where she will get to prove herself in the next level. With these new emotions on board, which team up to kick the original emotions to the curb, Riley goes through a tremendously complex decision-making crises, which has the chance to either help her succeed, or possibly force her to make destructive choices. Inside Out was such an unexpected hit, winning the Oscar for best animated feature film and even scoring a nomination for best original screenplay. That being said, I was quite concerned when I discovered that much of the original production team was gone. With only original co-screenwriter Meg LeFauve along for the ride this time, and a new, largely unproven director in Kelsey Mann, there was cause for concern that Pixar was either not putting their best foot forward, or they are changing up the guard. While the shoes were a bit too big to fill for obvious reasons, including originality, the filmmakers did a very good job of continuing Riley’s journey with intelligence, heart and humor. And just like the first film, the subject matter will cause you to get very self-reflective, causing you to constantly find relatable memories and emotions to go along with what is on screen. There are some major plot holes, such as when they go into adult’s minds and all of the new emotions are missing, but they are forgivable given how much more complex that would have been to try to make sense of everyone’s individual brains. Overall, I found the film to be short and sweet, and most important, relevant to any audience member regardless of age or gender. B+