Wouldn’t it be funny if Riley turned out to be a serial killer and these sneak peeks into her pre-adult mind were intended more to be a cautionary tale of imbalance unchecked than a comic study of human nature? Yes, the girl with all the feels is back, and, guess what? More feels than ever, cuz PUBERTY! Is this a horror film? This could be a horror film.
Riley (voice of Kensington Tallman) is really good at hockey. This is worth note because Inside Out 2 has A LOT of ice hockey in it. And much of the “real-life” plot of Inside Out 2 has to deal with Riley proving she’s good at hockey. This is ridiculous as Riley already has a skill set capable of making most national teams. I played amateur ice hockey in the Bay Area for years. Riley would have been the best player on any team I played for or against. Riley could probably center the San Jose Sharks first line – although that’s damning with faint praise. The idea that Riley “might not make” a high school hockey team in the Bay Area – a land without a great deal of hockey fervor— is unintentionally funnier than any joke the movie had to offer.
After Riley leads her middle school Foghorns to a championship trophy, the coach wants a word. Not her own coach, but the HIGH SCHOOL coach (Yvette Nicole Brown). Coach Roberts has an opening for Riley and her two besties, Bree (Sumayyah Nuriddin-Green) and Grace (Grace Lu), to join a pre-season camp, starting tomorrow. Yes, this entire story takes place over four days, all filled with hockey.
And wouldn’t you know it? On the inside, Riley is about to boil over, for this is the exact weekend the new interior p
uberty-inspired [read: adult] emotions come to destroy life of Riley. Out with the old: Joy (Amy Poehler), Anger, Fear, Disgust, Sadness. In with the new: Anxiety (Maya Hawke), Envy, Embarrassment, and Ennui – although, if you ask me, “Ennui” is really more Blasé. Seriously, the wrecking crew comes in, they install a new panel, and scrawny orange muppet-like Anxiety suddenly takes over.
I’m not sure I jive with the Pixar vision of anxiety. In my mind, Anxiety is King Kong; it shows up and then your world is anxiety, period. Only by chaining and sedating it do you have a chance of dealing with any other emotion. And while the depiction of Riley’s anxiety is of a caffeinated muppet, Anxiety takes over not unlike King Kong, not only immediately controlling the new panel, but banishing the old emotions to mind jail, or whatever.
This is not a movie for young kids. I know it’s animated and Pixar and has some puerile humor, but I don’t honestly believe most humans under the age of ten are going to understand the physical representation of sar-chasm (a literal abyss which turns all speech into sarcasm). I love the innovation here, especially in a film devoted to physical representations of intangible concepts, BUT, tell me your six-year-old
isn’t going to stare blankly at the screen and think, “What the Hell?”
Like the original, Inside Out 2 is clever, insightful, and occasionally moving. Unlike the original, there’s a decided “Been There, Done That” feel to the film. When Joy and crew visit “Imagination Land” deep inside Riley’s mind, for instance, I did expect to see something like “Mt. Crushmore” (a monument to all Riley’s current boy crushes). It’s not like the film was bereft in surprises; the Warrior-with-a-weak-attack is my favorite five-minute character of the year. However, the moment that brings Inside Out 2 back to Earth is the fact that when Anxiety takes over, Riley becomes a person we do not like very much. Even if that’s the exact point of the film, you don’t want an audience saying, “Please stop showing Riley and go back to the plight of her trapped emotions.”
Perhaps I ask too much from Pixar. Inside Out 2 is decidedly enjoyable … at least for those of us capable of keeping our own anxieties at arm’s length. This is a deep film about how a mind can be at war with itself and how we let our emotions take over our personality. And there certainly is insight into the teen mind here when we have, sadly, abandoned youth. I say the film is definitely worth watching, but planning a full family outing to do such is a mistake.
There was once a teenager called Riley
Whose emotions plotted coups most wily
Her inner turmoil
Made her mind boil
Be a while before we find the kid smiley
Rated PG, 96 Minutes
Director: Kelsey Mann
Writer: Meg LeFauve, Dave Holstein, Kelsey Mann
Genre: A war with oneself
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Misunderstood teenagers
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Their pre-pubescent sibs
