‘Inside Out 2’ Review: New Feelings Propel a Pixar Sequel Enchanting Enough to Second That Emotion
12.06.2024 - 20:17
/ variety.com
Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic In “Inside Out 2,” Riley, the displaced tween from “Inside Out,” is now 13 years old (the voice role is taken over, with vivid nuance, by Kensington Tallman), which means that she’s on the verge of a whole new set of emotions. In the Headquarters of her brain, a siren flashes (it’s the one we saw in the earlier film marked Puberty), which means it’s time for renovation workers to bust into the place, tear down the walls, and install a new console that can accommodate Riley’s budding adolescent feelings. The original quintet of Anger (Lewis Black), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Fear (Tony Hale), Disgust (Liza Lapira), and the beloved Joy (Amy Poehler) are still around, but they’re now “suppressed emotions,” shoved to the back of her mind.
(Over the course of the film, they’ll literally travel there). “Inside Out,” I would argue, was the last great Pixar movie. I loved “Toy Story 4” (2019), and “Finding Dory” (2016) was irresistible in a way that evoked the magic of “Finding Nemo,” but “Inside Out,” released in 2015, was arguably the last film to be worthy of the Pixar name at its visionary, eyeball-tickling, head-spinning peak.
It had the audacity to build an entire world inside the mind of Riley, and to turn that world — the warring emotions, the good and bad memories stored in collectible marbles — into a kind of enchanted philosophical amusement park. “Inside Out” was bedazzling entertainment, yet the movie went deeper than that. In deconstructing how the human personality works, it told a tale that was moving and profound.