Is “Inside Out 2” really the movie of the summer?
By: Hallie Jones
Nine years after the release of the Oscar winning film “Inside Out,” Pixar released its sequel, “Inside Out 2.” This movie grossed $1.6 billion in sales, making it the biggest box office hit this summer. With the amount grossed in sales, “Inside Out 2” is now the highest-grossing animated movie of all time surpassing “Frozen ll” ($1.4 billion). It also is the 13th highest grossing film of all time. Over $650 million (more than a third of the sales) was made and in the United States and Canada alone. After the release of “Inside Out,” the director, Pete Docter, was promoted to Chief Creative Officer of Pixar, leaving the directing role of “Inside Out 2” to someone else. The person who took on the job was Kelsey Mann. He said that the film was a task that brought lots of emotions, but was a job that he could not pass up and took on joyfully. “I really wanted to direct ‘Inside Out 2’ because I felt like there was more of a story to tell. At the end of the first film, Joy asked the audience a question. She says, ‘After all Riley is 12 now, what could happen?’ Well, I wanted to answer that question.”
His motive behind adding the new emotions was to, “Tell a story that made teenagers lives that much easier.” When in the making of the film, Mann tried to connect to his teenager self and all the changes he went through to help with the changes in directing. Mann added that one of his first directorial decisions was to broaden “Inside Out 2,” and to give it a fresh look. “Riley is a teenager, and her world is expanding. She is adding new emotions to the console. I thought, why not expand the aspect ratio?” Mann described. “So, we did that for the film because it’s something that Riley’s going through and because I love going to the theaters and seeing a big wide aspect ratio up on the screen.”
“Inside Out 2” goes inside the mind of a 13-year-old girl, Riley (voiced by Kensington Tallman), who is hit with puberty and new emotions come along with it. The old emotions, Joy (voiced by Amy Poehler), Fear (voiced by Tony Hale), Anger (voiced by Lewis Black), Disgust (voiced by Liza Lapira), and Sadness (voiced by Phyllis Smith), now introduced to more complex emotions, are quickly thrown under the rug and Riley’s old personality with them. Riley is now left alone with her new emotions, Anxiety (voiced by Maya Hawke), Envy (voiced by Ayo Edebiri), Embarrassment (voiced by Paul Walter Hauser), and Ennui (voiced by Adéle Exarchopoulos), while her original ones navigate through the mind to get her old personality back and to get back to the mind headquarters. Who will Riley be without her old emotions and her personality, and how will the old emotions navigate back to her?
Riley now at a loss of personality, is being controlled by anxiety, and becomes more hockey obsessed. She cuts off her best friends, and now is trying to find a way to make the high school team. The old emotions try and navigate to get Riley’s old personality back from the back of the mind— where they store bad memories. Anxiety now is trying to build a whole new personality. Joy realizes that the old memories make Riley who she is, and you cannot only look at the good ones and block out the bad ones.
I think “Inside Out 2” is a great movie. It builds from the first one well by adding a whole new storyline that supports the cliffhanger at the end of “Inside Out.” I would say that the way they portrayed Anxiety was a little harsh, and the end of the movie was very rushed. I feel like they should have given Anxiety more justification to why she was so paranoid. I feel like they should have given more parent parts in the movie to break up the tension with Anxiety. All in all, the movie was great, and I would give it a 4.5 out of 5 stars. I would recommend it to anyone who has watched the first one and wanted to see more about Riley and her emotions throughout life and to those who are struggling with anxiety and mental illness in general.
