Inside Out 2 gives film critics mixed emotions

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”.

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.”

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”.