Inside Out 2 gives film critics mixed emotions

The puberty alarm goes off at the start of Inside Out 2

The sequel to hit film Inside Out has brought some critics joy, but others felt a different emotion, which has become familiar from watching much of Pixar's recent output - disappointment.

Inside Out 2 revisits the emotions that controlled young Riley in the 2016 original - and that are now joined by new, powerful feelings after she hits puberty.

The sequel is "a triumphant creative return for Pixar", according to Variety, while the Independent declared that the "cynicism-free sequel might just save Pixar".

However, other reviewers disagreed. IndieWire said "no Pixar movie has ever provoked so little sense of wonder", and Vulture called it "another product of the Pixar slump".

New emotions, including Anxiety, take the controls

The first film won an Oscar and numerous fans for the way it showed Joy, Sadness, Fear, Disgust and Anger as characters vying for control inside the mind of 11-year-old Riley.

Variety's critic Owen Gleiberman said it was "the last great Pixar movie", adding that the sequel "comes close to matching the high of Inside Out".

In the follow-up, Riley is now 13, and is dealing with a range of new emotions led by Anxiety, voiced by Maya Hawke.

"Inside Out 2 can’t shock us with its out-of-the-box imaginative daring the way Inside Out did," Gleiberman wrote.

But its director and writers "build on the earlier film’s playful brilliance and come about as close as we could have hoped for to matching it", he added.

'Surprisingly wise and moving'

The Telegraph agreed that Inside Out 2 "proves Pixar’s still a force to be reckoned with".

Chief film critic Robbie Collin said it "gets Pixar back to doing what they always did best: juggling big concepts in fun and ingenious but also surprisingly wise and moving ways".

"It’s also ironically well-suited to a studio weathering an awkward transition out of its young-hotshot years."

The old emotions are locked away by the newcomers

In a four-star review, the Independent's Clarisse Loughrey wrote that the sequel "expands on its predecessor without redefining it".

"It's a lovely sequel, without a trace of cynicism to it, that also by necessity lacks a little of the freshness and originality of 2022's Turning Red or 2021's Luca."

She added: "Inside Out 2 is interested more in expanding than redefining its predecessor, but it's impressive how well even the film's more familiar elements still work."

The new film, she concluded, "proves that it's ludicrous, at this point, to accuse the studio of having run out of ideas".

'Loses focus'

USA Today's Brian Truitt was also a fan, saying the film "hits like an amusing, profound wrecking ball".

"Inside Out 2 frontloads the funny bits and then wallops you in the final act, which ambitiously depicts the desperate hopelessness when anxiety has a hold and won't let go," he wrote.

But he added: "The middle is where it loses focus, as Joy's group goes on a mission to set Riley right before it's too late.

"The original movie took a similar tack but did it better, and the sequel misses a real chance to flesh out the intriguing new emotions more."

Maya Hawke, pictured at the film's premiere, voices Anxiety

The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw had mixed emotions, awarding the film three stars.

"There are some laughs, but it sees the teen transition in terms of a moral crisis, of abandoning and then reclaiming the niceness of childhood innocence; it’s a little bit convoluted and repetitive and, in its sanitised, Disneyfied way, this film can’t quite bring itself to mention the most important new teen emotion of all."

The Washington Post's Amy Nicholson also noticed some missing characters.

"Disappointingly, the film’s PG rating keeps the two sensations we’d be most curious to see get a dusting of Disney magic - PMS and Libido - from crashing Riley’s hormonal rager.

"Instead, screenwriters Meg LeFauve and Dave Holstein clutter the screen with redundant feelings - Envy (Ayo Edebiri), Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser) - who don’t add much to the saga of Riley’s three disastrous days at an all-girls hockey camp."

'Like a corporate spreadsheet'

Pixar had underwhelming responses to a number of recent releases including Elemental, Onward and Toy Story spin-off Lightyear.

Vulture Alison Willmore wrote that Turning Red was a better film "about the messiness of adolescence".

"What stops Inside Out 2 from matching that film’s insights is its own format, which its subject matter has outgrown," she wrote.

And IndieWire's David Ehrlich lamented that the film feels artificial and formulaic - "more like a corporate spreadsheet than a glimpse into a real person's brain".

"It’s a story about the universal chaos of adolescence told by a studio that once prided itself on being original, but now - after suffering a little public embarrassment - shares every teenager’s mortal fear of being different," he wrote.

"Like Riley, Pixar seems determined to forget what made it so special in the first place. Here’s hoping that Inside Out 3 leaves plenty of room for Regret."

Inside Out 2 is in cinemas from Friday, 14 June.