My rating	IMDb		Rotten Tomatoes
	Critics	Audience	Critics	Audience
9/10	74/100	8/10	92%	95%

Numbers obtained from IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes on June 15, 2024.

After so beautifully portraying the importance of embracing sadness in Inside Out (2015), Pixar did it again in Inside Out 2. This time, however, things get messier and more complicated as our protagonist, Riley (Kensington Tallman), turns 13 and the puberty alarm inside her mind goes off. The console controlling Riley’s emotions gets changed and, with it, every single one of them is exacerbated and way more intense.

Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Anger (Lewis Black), Fear (Tony Hale), and Disgust (Liza Lapira) are suddenly joined by Anxiety (Maya Hawke), Envy (Ayo Edebiri), Ennui (Adèle Exarchopoulos), and Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser).

Anxiety is fun at first, with good ideas and intentions in order to prepare Riley for the future, since she won’t be at the same school as her best friends the following year. But Anxiety doesn’t want to share ideas with the “old” emotions and quickly finds a way to get rid of them – just like Joy was trying to ignore Sadness in the first movie.

The idea of Anxiety taking control and changing Riley’s sense of self is so scarily relatable that it’s what makes Inside Out 2 linger in your head for a long time after the movie is over. Sure, there are many extremely funny and light-hearted moments throughout, but watching Riley slowly turning into someone else can give the audience – oh, well – anxiety!

Just like in the first movie, Pixar does an excellent job of showing how our minds work in a very clever and funny way. There’s the vault, with Riley’s deep, dark secrets; there’s the back of the mind, where bad memories are sent to be forgotten; there’s the stream of consciousness, etc. Every single one of them is beautifully animated and delightful to watch.

While I did miss Michael Giacchino’s whimsical score, Andrea Datzman does a good job with a slightly more intense score, mirroring Riley’s actions and feelings.

It is still too early for me to categorically say if Inside Out 2 is better than the original – it surely requires a second viewing. But it is safe to say that it’s as different from the first one as puberty is different from childhood. It’s bigger, louder, messier, and definitely harder to fully comprehend. But it does provide an amazing time at the movies!