Throughout the ages of cinema, one fact remains unchanged: sequels of great movies hardly — if ever — trump their originals.

Take as an example the case of Inside Out 2, a continuation of an innovative premise from Inside Out that’s set in the logic-centre of the human brain where basic emotions — Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear and Disgust (Amy Poehler, Phyllis Smith, Lewis Smith, Tony Hale replacing Bill Harder, and Liza Lapira replacing Mindy Kaling) — guide the growth and personality of an individual according to their developing and discarded memories.

Their human, also their entire world for that matter, is Riley (Kensington Tallman), who in part 2, having just turned 13, is on the verge of puberty.

This brand new age brings a sudden reconstruction of their echo chamber (ie the control room and the massive control panel the emotions man to transmit their feelings to Riley’s immediate consciousness) that gets upgraded with the arrival of new emotions.

Inside Out 2 introduces new emotions as its protagonist goes into her teenage years, but the sequel does not outshine the original

This new crew consists of Envy (Ayo Edobiri), Ennui (Adèle Exarchopoulos), Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser in role of few, if any dialogues) and their boss-cum-guiding emotion Anxiety (Maya Hawke).

Anxiety, like Joy from the last film, is a control freak; in the context of the plot, she is pretty much the villain of the story, even if she means well.

The parallel runs in line with the idea of this sequel. Inside Out 2 means well, and is an extension of the story but, like Anxiety, the premise brings little new to the conversation or the emotional growth of the film series.

Inside Out 2 is neither as deep, nor as emotionally rousing as the first part. While one does get teary-eyed at the climax — and all good Pixar films need to do that out of obligation to provide an emotional high-point and closure to tie up their stories, I suppose — for the most part, the screenplay by Meg LeFauve and Dave Holstein (directed by Kelsey Mann), rushes through scenes as if they’re a part of an action film.

Inside Out 2 should not be taking cues from action films, but it does as far as pacing goes. Like most action films, this creative choice (made out of business aspects and logic rather than emotion) stunts the growth of the characters.

Riley, guided by Anxiety, becomes a self-indulgent monster-teen who forsakes her two best friends when they arrive at a hockey camp, where senior star players she looked up to make room for her to join their team.

Unlike the first part, the humans become negligible aspects of Inside Out 2, as the film mostly shifts to Joy and her crew’s point-of-view, who try to make their way back to the control centre after being thrown out by Anxiety. The changing landscape of Riley’s consciousness, explored at length in the original, is not as imaginative.

A sequence with a vault of forgotten memories serves as the film’s best moment, but one knows it is, at best, a good place-holder in a good-enough film that could never out-imagine the original.

Inside Out 2 is released by Disney and HKC. The film is showing in cinemas across Pakistan, and is rated “U” and is suitable for audiences of all ages and emotions

Published in Dawn, ICON, June 30TH, 2024