Movie Review: Inside Out 2

https://open.spotify.com/episode/621grJ8S5Qcpqr9tS9FQ3S?si=NMHqu4XrRBWLx1cjlWR0JA

There is definitely a case to be made that Inside Out is Pixar's best film in the last 16 years, and yes that includes Toy Story 3. That sets a pretty high bar for Inside Out 2 which, while it may not quite hit that same standard, still makes it the best second entry in a Pixar franchise. The story is somewhat a rethread of the first but the portrayal of anxiety in both its managed and unmanaged form is really well done and the emotional moments do land, especially in the third act.

That said, I do have two gripes about the movie.

1. The sense of self that Riley (with the help of Joy) has cultivated is partially the antagonist of the movie. The resolution comes when Riley's new sense of self develops and shows her to be someone more complex than someone who can be simply summed up with "I am a good person" and is instead interspersed with statements like "I can be selfish sometimes" or "I am a good friend" to highlight both the good and the bad. Now that is a vast improvement over the Anxiety-induced sense of self that is summed up with "I am not good enough" but considering this is a fundamental sense of self, having her initial one that is only defined by positive beliefs be something like "I am the best" would have made for a more impactful ending.
2. Right after Joy, Anger, Sadness, Disgust, and Fear are kicked out of headquarters they are put into "the vault" with all the rest of Riley's secrets. Seinfeld reference aside, there are three main secrets in this vault and one of which is clearly just there for sequel bait because it is a giant troll-like creature, no one knows what it is or what it represents, and when asked if it is going to escape with the weird Blue's Clues/Dora the Explorer-hybrid character and the generic Cloud Strife, the characters are simply told something along the lines of "it's not time yet." What's interesting about this is that the other two are things the emotions know about (the cartoon character is a show she used to watch as a kid and Cloud is a character she plays as in a fighting game) but represent a deeper truth that even Riley isn't willing to admit openly about herself (she used to like the cartoon but still likes it even now and she has a crush on the Cloud-clone). What is something about Riley that the emotions do not know about that is buried so deep in her subconscious that she will not even admit it to herself?

★★★★★