Reviewed by Colin Jacobson (January 7, 2025)
With a worldwide gross of $858 million, it felt inevitable that 2015’s Inside Out would eventually spawn a sequel. However, I didn’t think it would take nine years for a second chapter to emerge.
That became the case, as fans needed to wait until 2024 for Inside Out 2. Since it generated almost a remarkable $1.7 billion globally, I think it’s a safe bet to assume Pixar won’t wait another decade or so for Inside Out 3.
After Sadness (voiced by Phyllis Smith) created a few issues previously, Joy (Amy Poehler) righted the ship for the human these emotions navigate: then pre-teen Riley (Kensington Tallman). However, as 13-year-old Riley enters puberty, some new feelings emerge and threaten to upset Joy’s neat ‘n’ tidy apple cart.
In particular, Anxiety (Maya Hawke) takes the lead and sends Riley’s life into new and potentially destabilizing domains. Joy and the other pre-existing emotions attempt to regain control and bring Riley back to her prior state of existence before these interlopers entered the picture.
If you click the link above, you’ll see that I loved the original Inside Out. Arguably the last genuinely great Pixar movie, it set a very high bar for the sequel.
As such, I feared Out 2 would fail to reach the same status or even come close. Some of that concern related to the high quality of the 2015 flick, as movies that good don’t come around too often.
However, my worries primarily related to Pixar’s slump over the nine years between Inside Out flicks. After Inside Out, the studio’s offerings varied from pretty good to disappointingly uninspired.
I find myself hard-pressed to cite any genuinely bad Pixar offerings between Inside Out and Out 2, as even the worst – such as 2015’s Good Dinosaur or 2022’s Lightyear - still mustered adequate entertainment.
However, given Pixar’s track record from 1995’s Toy Story through 2010’s Toy Story 3, “adequate entertainment” seemed insufficient. 2011’s Cars 2 became Pixar’s first prominent misstep, and despite occasional winners like the original Inside Out and 2020’s Soul, too many of the studio’s presentations felt depressingly ordinary.
Does Out 2 inspire completely favorable comparisons to the greatness of the 2015 Inside Out? No, but it fares much better than I feared it would.
Face it: outside of 1999’s Toy Story 2 and 2010’sToy Story 3, Pixar’s sequels tend to feel uninspired. Some fare better than others, but all seem okay at best, as even 2019’s Toy Story 4 couldn’t continue that franchise’s winning streak.
With five Pixar sequels between Toy Story 3 and Out 2, it became inevitable that I feared the latter would offer another uninspired chapter in a burgeoning franchise. Happily, that doesn’t become the case, as even though Out 2 doesn’t live up to the highs of Inside Out, it does pretty well for itself.
Out 2 loses most of its points due to a lack of originality. Hollywood tends to believe that when it comes to sequels, audiences want “the same but a little different”, and we get that from Out 2.
In terms of plot, the two films share a lot of similarities. Both focus on Joy’s resistance to change and a quest through Riley’s inner mind to revert to Joy’s preferred status quo.
Both also wind their way through Riley’s development to get to a place where she accepts new developments. The emotions act as the real main characters of the two flicks, with an emphasis on Joy’s ability to grow and accept fresh stages of Riley’s life.
Due to the similar structures and plot points, it becomes very difficult for Out 2 to deliver the freshness and cleverness of its predecessor. Again, it doesn’t provide a carbon copy of the 2015 flick, but the two hew pretty closely a lot of the time.
Despite the lack of originality, Out 2 still finds plenty of fun ways to explore Riley’s shift from pre-teen to adolescent. Of course, the presence of the new emotions manages to add spice to the proceedings.
These manage to come across as their own entities and not just variations on the pre-established characters. Granted, Anxiety seems more annoying than the others, but that acts as part of the point, and she gets room to grow in a believable manner.
The push toward Riley’s teen years makes perfect sense and echoes a teaser at the end of the first movie. The 2015 film hinted at Riley’s burgeoning attraction to boys, and the flick’s home video release included a short called Riley’s First Date? to expand that event.
Perhaps because First Date? already gave us a glimpse of Riley’s new view of boys, Out 2 largely avoids that topic. While the concept of cute guys pops up, the focus remains on Riley’s desperate attempts to fit in with female peers.
I like this choice, as we’ve gotten enough stories about girls who struggle with romance. The look at female relationships comes with more fertile ground, and Out 2 explores it well.
Honestly, Out 2 becomes a pretty darned satisfying movie. Its only real “flaw” is that it can’t deliver the originality of its predecessor, but it still stands on its own to become an entertaining and insightful journey.
Footnote: added scenes pop up during and after the end credits.
