Inside Out opens in theaters Friday, June 14. Surprising and disappointing in equal measure, Inside Out 2 manages to strike a mostly careful balance with its overstuffed new ensemble, while still failing to live up to the rousing highs of its far-superior predecessor. I'm talking, of course, about Pixar's Turning Red , a deftly symbolic film that captures the untidy emotions of puberty and adolescent girlhood in a way the studio's Inside Out sequel refuses to.
As far as the first Inside Out is concerned: Director Kelsey Mann builds on its concepts with imaginative spark, but finds itself unable to break past its own barriers of logic and metaphor, the way Pete Docter's original so powerfully did. Riley (Kensington Tallman, replacing Kaitlyn Dias) is now 13 years old, and far happier with her new life in the Bay Area. She has a pair of close friends, Bree (Sumayyah Nuriddin-Green) and Grace (Grace Lu), a hobby playing ice hockey, and a sunny disposition.
Her emotions also work in tandem to guide her through most situations; they're represented once again by the lively, fairy-esque Joy (Amy Poehler), the stout, hot-headed Anger (Lewis Black), the stringy, shaky Fear (Tony Hale filling in for Bill Hader), the broccoli-shaded Disgust (Liza Lapira, replacing Mindy Kaling), and the now more well-adjusted, teardrop-shaped Sadness (Phyllis Smith). Hale and Lapira tap into what makes these particular personifications fun to begin with in a way Hader and Kaling didn’t have the chance.
