“Inside Out 2” attempts to bring back the hilarious warring emotions inside the mind of a young girl as she turns into a teen, but the storyline makes little sense and the main Emotion antagonist doesn’t visually fit into parameters set by the already established characters.
Directed by Kelsey Mann, with a screenplay by Meg LeFauve and Dave Holstein (story by Mann and LeFauve), the film brings back Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Anger (Lewis Black), Fear (now voiced by Tony Hale) and Disgust (now voiced by Liza Lapira) and adds the new emotions of Anxiety (Maya Hawke), Envy (Ayo Edebiri), Ennui (Adèle Exarchopoulos) and Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser). LeFauve co-wrote the screenplay with Josh Cooley (director of “Toy Story 4”) and director Peter Docter (“Monsters, Inc.” in 2001 and “Up” in 2009).
The emotions work behind a control panel and Riley’s personality is formed by her five most-important “core memories” that are five floating islands. These can be clearly viewed below the control room headquarters where the emotions work. Memories, which are small glowing orbs, are stored along long rows of shelves that form a long maze.
In the original 2015 Pixar Animation Studios film, Riley (then voiced by Kaitlyn Dias) moved from Minnesota to San Francisco at 11 because of her father’s (voiced by Kyle MacLachlan) new job. Riley didn’t like the new home or the pizza that comes topped with brocolli from the local pizzeria or her new school. Inside Riley’s mind, Joy ( Amy Poehler) tries to control Sadness (Phyllis Smith) because she feels Riley doesn’t need to experience negative emotions. With the move to California, some of Riley’s joyful memories became sad. Joy attempts to get rid of sad memories by throwing them into the pneumatic tube so they go into the memory dump. However, Joy, Sadness and the core memories are unintentionally sucked out of the Emotion headquarters.
Without Joy and Sadness, Anger (Lewis Black), Disgust (Mindy Kaling, the original voice) and Fear (Bill Hader, also the original voice) convince Riley to run away to Minnesota. In the end, Joy and the other emotions recognize that Sadness plays an important part in an emotionally healthy life.
In “Inside Out 2,” Riley (now voiced by Kensington Tallman) has turned 13 and plays hockey with her two best friends: Asian American Grace (Grace Lu) and African American Bree (Sumayyah Nuriddin-Green). She does well in school and both her mother (Diane Lane) and father (Kyle MacLachlan) cheer her on when her hockey team, the Foghorns, wins the championship.
At the game, Riley catches the eye of Coach Roberts (Yvette Nicole Brown). Coach Roberts is giving a weekend hockey clinic and our threesome score invitations. The morning that Riley’s parents drive Riley, Grace and Bree to the clinic, two things happen. Four new emotions-Anxiety, Envy, Ennui, Embarrassment–join Headquarters as that red button labelled “Puberty” goes off, and on the way to the clinic, Riley learns that Grace and Bree will not be attending the same high school.
At the clinic, Riley becomes star-struck by the star of the high school team, Valentina (Lilimar). She becomes tongue-tied in front of Valentina and driven by Anxiety she becomes a people pleaser. When Valentina thinks Riley is from Michigan instead of Minnesota, Riley doesn’t correct her. She ignores Grace and Bree and pretends to dislike a certain band so not to seem immature to Valentina’s high school friends even though Riley, Grace and Bree had recently attended a concert. Under Anxiety’s influence, Riley believes she will be alone if she doesn’t impress Valentina and her friends, all of whom are on the high school girls hockey team, the Fire Hawks.
When Anxiety takes over, banishing the original five Emotions and throws away the wonderfully white and luminous “self” that Joy has curated for Riley, the five original Emotions set out on a journey to the back of the mind to retrieve it. Along they way, they’ll meet characters from Riley’s childhood favorite TV show and some more recent ones like the anime character Lance Slashblade (Yong Yea). The old Emotions will, of course, eventually convince Anxiety and the other new emotions to work together.
If you have any question about Riley’s preferences given her adulation for Valentina, in the first film, a boy named Jordan was introduced. Jordan appears again in the short “Riley’s First Date?” In “Inside Out 2,” Jordan’s face is seen as one of the four heads on her Mount Rushmore. (If you like puns, there are others like the Rumor Mill.)
There seems to be a total lack of adult supervision of these 13-year-olds as well as the other assembled minors. That’s part of what makes the plot difficult for me to accept. There would have been more bonding and reasons for Fear and Anxiety to step forward as well as Embarrassment if the kids were dodging parents in the evening.
Further, in the first film, the parents and others did not have these five new Emotions in their headquarters. And re-watching the ending sequences of the first film, made me wonder that Fear and Anxiety do not resemble Riley at all.
Visually, the main Emotion character, Joy, seems too different from her new antagonist when compared to the previous the previous two emotion in conflict: Sadness and Joy. Joy and Sadness have the same hair and eye color. Their eye design is essentially the same. 
They both have pert noses and nice teeth.
Of the five original characters, the only one with markedly different features is Fear, who is a relatively minor character of the five.
The new antagonist Emotion is Anxiety. You might think that fear and anxiety are the same, but psychologists disagree.
From what I gather, fear is an automatic and mostly instinctive response to things happening, while anxiety is a reaction to things that may happen but have not yet occurred. The author of “Anxiety and Fear: What’s the Difference,” Hilary Jacobs Hendel, considers the core emotions to be fear, anger, sadness, disgust, joy, excitement and sexual excitement. (Inhibitory emotions are anxiety, shame and guilt).
What Pixar gives us in this film are: Anxiety (Maya Hawke), Envy (Ayo Edebiri), Ennui (Adèle Exarchopoulos) and Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser). Ennui, a French word, is explained in a Time magazine article.
Elsewhere, the basic emotions are: sadness, happiness, fear, anger, surprise and disgust or joy, trust, fear, surprise, sadness, disgust, anger and anticipation.
So there are other emotions that could have been chosen. My main concern is that the character design makes this new central character not only unattractive, but also seemingly from almost better suited for another cartoon.
Anxiety has eyes that are only similar to Fear and like fear has bad hair. Anxiety also has bad teeth. His face is all bulbous eyes and a gapping oversized mouth with teeth borrowed from a jack-o’-lantern. Anxiety is portrayed as a very unattractive character. Where Fear has an unattractive sausage nose and no hair, Anxiety has no nose and a sprig of untidy orange hair. In the poster, Fear needs to be close to Anxiety to tie the character in visually. Anxiety and Fear seem to be caricatures of short, skinny male nerds. In addition, Anxiety also reminds me of two famous cartoon birds. See below.
The design of Anxiety reminded me of the Muppets, like Beaker (who has a nose) or Pepe the King Prawn. I also wondered why Envy was portrayed as a small girl with big eyes when Envy/Avarice was one of the Seven Deadly Sins or Capital/Cardinal sins/vices. It is not a sin to be afraid and it is not a sin to be anxious. Fear of God or bad consequences can be a good thing. And anxiety over doing the right thing isn’t negative either.
If you look at Joy and compare her to Fear or Anxiety, you’ll want to pick Joy. One has to wonder why disgust is attractive in a 1950s way instead of disgusting. Yet Fear isn’t necessarily a bad emotion and Anxiety can also have a positive influence, particularly for a scholar or an athlete. Riley is presented as a top athlete and a top scholar, something that seems too good to be true.
Portraying anxiety as appearing at puberty seems late. And the National Health Service note that anxiety young children can experience separation anxiety. Later, children will feel anxiety about tests and new social situations.
The Mayo Clinic also lists separation anxiety as “a typical phase for many infants and toddlers.”
Of course, with an increasing self-awareness and a new found interest in whatever one’s romantic preference might be, Anxiety, Envy, Embarrassment and Ennui are amplified as well as Fear and often, when parents are involved Anger. Yet remember, in the first film, the parents didn’t have these additional five emotions (if you include Nostalgia).
While I wasn’t totally won over, by “Inside Out 2,” especially since the plot is almost the same as the original with additional players, I did feel sad, thinking about friends who had lost the joy in their lives. Don’t lost your joy, but also take time to plan for what might happen.
“Inside Out 2” premiered on 10 June 2024 at El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles and was released in the US on 14 June 2024.
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