Movie Review

Emotions run wild in brilliantly heartfelt sequel Inside Out 2

Joy (Amy Poehler) and Anxiety (Maya Hawke) in Inside Out 2.

Photo courtesy of Pixar

For all of the great films that Pixar has put out over the past 30 years, the one thing they haven’t quite mastered are sequels. The continuing success of the Toy Story series is the exception that proves the rule, as sequels to Cars, Monsters Inc., The Incredibles, and Finding Nemo have all failed to measure up to the originals. So it is with trepidation that fans of 2015’s instant classic Inside Out approach its nine-years-in-the-making sequel, Inside Out 2.

I’m happy to report that no such anxiety is needed, as the film builds upon the original in numerous fantastic ways. Despite there being nine years between films, Riley (Kensington Tallman) has only aged two years, from 11 to 13. Her core emotions – Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Anger (Lewis Black), Fear (Tony Hale), and Disgust (Liza Lapira) – are working in harmony to keep Riley level-headed as she navigates middle school and playing hockey.

That equilibrium is threatened when the onset of puberty for Riley brings in new emotions, like Anxiety (Maya Hawke), Envy (Ayo Edebiri), Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser), and Ennui (Adèle Exarchopoulos). Anxiety in particular seems bent on being in charge of Riley’s mind, especially when she gets invited to a hockey camp with a chance to impress her possible future coach and teammates. Joy and the other original emotions must fight for control, or risk losing Riley to the dark recesses of her brain.

Directed by Kelsey Mann and written by Dave Holstein and Meg LeFauve, the film proves that Inside Out is the most mature and relatable of all Pixar franchises. The changes the filmmakers make to advance the story are all sensible, keeping the heart of all of the returning characters intact while still allowing for growth and change. This is the second Pixar film to address puberty (following 2022’s Turning Red), and they show again how adept they are at addressing the touchy subject in a lighthearted but still honest way.

The film adds on the concept of all of Riley’s life experiences coalescing into a core belief system, and the idea is so simple and wonderfully conceived that it fits right in with everything established in the first film. While the plot involving the emotions inside Riley’s brain follows a similar trajectory to the original, it’s the details that keep the film humming. The physical manifestation of abstract ideas like stream of consciousness, brainstorm, and sarcasm demonstrate the outside-of-the-box thinking at Pixar, as well as the unique flexibility that animation provides.

The brilliance of the film lies in how expertly it melds the two worlds of the story. There is a constant back-and-forth between what Riley’s emotions are doing inside her brain and how that affects her in the real world, and the results are hilarious, intense, and poignant. Anyone who is or has a teenager will recognize all too well the menace that Anxiety is in the film, and the way the filmmakers portray it both in and outside Riley’s brain is exceedingly well done.

There are times when the person playing a voice character can be negligible, but that is not the case here. Poehler, Smith, and Black remain the perfect matches for Joy, Sadness, and Anger, respectively. Hale and Lapira, taking over for Bill Hader and Mindy Kaling as Fear and Disgust, measure up well to their predecessors. Each of the new emotion voices are also great, especially Hawke and Exarchopoulos, and Tallman, Diane Lane, and Kyle Chandler are easy to believe as Riley and her family.

When the first Inside Out was announced, the idea of emotions being anthropomorphized seemed very strange. Now, two films later, it is the most natural thing in the world, and proof yet again that Pixar remains the gold standard in animation. With the rich complexity of the brain to play with and plenty of years left for Riley to grow up, it’s conceivable that Inside Out can be mined for multiple other sequels in the future.

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Inside Out 2 opens in theaters on June 14.

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Movie Review

Meta-comedy remake Anaconda coils itself into an unfunny mess

Photo by Matt Grace

Jack Black and Paul Rudd in Anaconda.

In Hollywood’s never-ending quest to take advantage of existing intellectual property, seemingly no older movie is off limits, even if the original was not well-regarded. That’s certainly the case with 1997’s Anaconda, which is best known for being a lesser entry on the filmography of Ice Cube and Jennifer Lopez, as well as some horrendous accent work by Jon Voight.

The idea behind the new meta-sequel Anaconda is arguably a good one. Four friends — Doug (Jack Black), Griff (Paul Rudd), Claire (Thandiwe Newton), and Kenny (Steve Zahn) — who made homemade movies when they were teenagers decide to remake Anaconda on a shoestring budget. Egged on by Griff, an actor who can’t catch a break, the four of them pull together enough money to fly down to Brazil, hire a boat, and film a script written by Doug.

Naturally, almost nothing goes as planned in the Amazon, including losing their trained snake and running headlong into a criminal enterprise. Soon enough, everything else takes second place to the presence of a giant anaconda that is stalking them and anyone else who crosses its path.

Written and directed by Tom Gormican, with help from co-writer Kevin Etten, the film is designed to be an outrageous comedy peppered with laugh-out-loud moments that cover up the fact that there’s really no story. That would be all well and good … if anything the film had to offer was truly funny. Only a few scenes elicit any honest laughter, and so instead the audience is fed half-baked jokes, a story with no focus, and actors who ham it up to get any kind of reaction.

The biggest problem is that the meta-ness of the film goes too far. None of the core four characters possess any interesting traits, and their blandness is transferred over to the actors playing them. And so even as they face some harrowing situations or ones that could be funny, it’s difficult to care about anything they do since the filmmakers never make the basic effort of making the audience care about them.

It’s weird to say in a movie called Anaconda, but it becomes much too focused on the snake in the second half of the film. If the goal is to be a straight-up comedy, then everything up to and including the snake attacks should be serving that objective. But most of the time the attacks are either random or moments when the characters are already scared, and so any humor that could be mined all but disappears.

Black and Rudd are comedy all-stars who can typically be counted on to elevate even subpar material. That’s not the case here, as each only scores on a few occasions, with Black’s physicality being the funniest thing in the movie. Newton is not a good fit with this type of movie, and she isn’t done any favors by some seriously bad wigs. Zahn used to be the go-to guy for funny sidekicks, but he brings little to the table in this role.

Any attempt at rebooting/remaking an old piece of IP should make a concerted effort to differentiate itself from the original, and in that way, the new Anaconda succeeds. Unfortunately, that’s its only success, as the filmmakers can never find the right balance to turn it into the bawdy comedy they seemed to want.

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Anaconda is now playing in theaters.

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