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First Impressions
My initial first impression of this film was that it was going to be basically the same story as the first one only that Riley is now older and the emotions are now going to have to navigate Riley's life based upon the things life brings you when you are older. Sounds kind of a bland storyline but it would make sense enough for a sequel.
"Inside Out 2" Spoiler Review
Have you ever had an expectation for something? Thinking it would go one way and not another? Thinking that it's not possible for it to go any other way that would make sense to you? Yeah that's exactly what happened with this film. Although I wouldn't say it did it in a bad way, just that I completely didn't see this turning into what it actually turned into.
Reminder: I try to only see one trailer to a movie to get a glimpse at what's it about because trailers seem to spoil more and more nowadays.
Now back to the film. My first impression was not far off from the premise of the movie. Riley is older, yes, she's going throug the teenage stages of life, yes but what Disney has seemed to fixate on the most here is the introduction of one of the new emotions in Riley's life...anxiety. Now given there are a number of new emotions introduced in this film but they all seem to take a big step back and anxiety stays up front for the entire show. Why? Puberty.
As the film opens with the family making a large move across the country from farmtown to the busy city of San Francisco, you start to see her become sad that she's so far away from what her life used to be, her friends, hockey, etc. Then one night, the puberty light goes off in the emotions headquarters and that's where our story begins to really take off. Now obviously Disney has to tread lightly here because there's a number of things that happen to a young girl when puberty hits (spoiler: they don't cover any of it). In fact, I'm not even sure why the light even goes off because once anxiety comes onto the scene, that's all the movie becomes about.
Let's be honest though, Disney did a great job navigating around this sensitive yet funny subject. While I'm sure they could've opened up the flood gates with family friendly puberty jokes, the year is 2024 and, well, let's just say people are a little more sensitive now unfortunately. Instead of the puberty jokes, they fixate on her anxiety of moving away and being in such a different environment than what she's used to. Pair that with the emotional stress of having to choose between her real friends and being "cool" in high school, you get a anxiety driven teen that ends up making the rash decision to run away. This includes ignoring all of her parents texts and calls. But before she can get too far out of town, she realizes that running away isn't the answer and makes her way back home. Oscar worthy right?
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If you didn't know, Maya Hawke plays Anxiety. She's the daughter of Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke. You might know her best from Netflix's Stranger Things. She does an amazing job of portraying the over anxious character. As soon as she comes onto the scene, she steals the show. I mean, Anxiety literally takes over the movie in a villainous way. Given that these characters are actual emotions, they're portrayed pretty well but they don't have a lot of screentime. They're just kind of...there. While one of them does help Sadness save the day, I kind of wish the other emotions had more screentime, especially Ennui (a.k.a. boredom). Not sure why they didn't just call this character Boredom but that's neither here nor there. In my opinion, this was a missed opportunity to really knock out some boredom jokes.
Will My Kids Understand This Movie?
So it's good to know that Riley is now 13 compared to the first movie where she was 11. Even though there's a 9 year gap between the first and second movie. As stated above, Disney doesn't touch on a lot of the things that come with teen girl puberty. There's no mention of liking boys or anything that comes with high school so if you're worried about anything like that, you're good. But some of the other things that come with being a new teen is there and parents (and probably young teens) will relate to. We see Riley getting angry a lot more, talking back to her parents, and running away from home. We also see one of the hardest things about being a teen and in a new school...fitting in.
For context, Riley goes to high school with a few of her friends and they end up attending this hockey camp which also happens to have a team there that is Riley's favorite. Once she gets approached by one of the team's members, she immediately is bitten by the popularity bug and eventually ends up blowing off her friends to hang out with this new team and later becomes so obsessed with making the team, she goes to the extremes to make it happen...which is only because anxiety has taken over Riley and all of the other emotions are trying to stop her and bring the old Riley back. I think for both parents and young teens, this can be very relatable which is one of the core meanings of this movie.
Conclusion
Inside out 2 is, overall, a great family film. Is it better than the original? No. They easily could've done away with the other new emotions and just kept Anxiety and you would have the same movie outcome. While I would've liked Disney to touch on some of the other things that come with being a new teen, this film still works in telling a story about a young teen who struggles to fit in to her new environment. Kind of a bummer that its all about making a hockey team. It really should've been about her trying to fit in in actual high school. That would've been a lot more relatable in my opinion. It's definitely worth renting the movie at least.
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