42: INSIDE OUT 2

 

Featuring the voice acting of: Amy Poehler, Maya Hawke, Kensington Tallman, Liza Lapira, and some other actors, whose voices you will sort of remember. And god knows why these actors should be credited above the writers, director or the hundreds of artists who poured their souls into this. Anyway and Lewis Black. Story by Kelsey Mann and Meg LeFauve. Screenplay by meg LeFauve and Dave Holstein and directed by Kelsey Mann. Budget $200 million. Running time 96 minutes.

Pixar with the old mantra of 'Story is King' ruled the animation world for 10 glorious years, producing hit after hit from Toy Story to The Incredibles (my favourite), then came their first miss-fire the truly hateful Cars. Luckily this slight dalliance with  mediocrity saw them also enter a second creative flourish that saw the release of such sublime classics as Wall-E, UP and Toy Story 3. Each new Pixar film seems to herald something new and exciting, and even the sequels upped the ante expanding the story, but  then Disney started pulling the strings, and the bottom dollar became the most important thing and 'Story is King' got replaced with 'Greed is Good', as terrible sequels like Cars 2, Monster University, Finding Nemo 2 and Incredibles 2 got released along side genuine misfires like The Good Dinosaur. It seemed their hit rate was falling and where as Pixar could still produce stunning films, like Coco and Inside Out, it was also producing films whose message seemed to be King rather than story. Elemental, Soul, Luca, Onward, and the truly hateful Lightyear.

And whereas I used to go and see each and every new Pixar with excitement, now it's with a foreboding sense of tribulation. 

Inside Out 2 is a sequel to the 2015 Inside Out, which featured an 11 year-old girl called Riley struggling with her emotions. 

The sequel catches up with Riley, now 13, on the cusp of puberty as she tries out for the school ice hockey team just as new emotions explode onto the scene including Anxiety who's there to mess shit up. And mess shit up she does. The story follows Riley across a Ice Hockey weekend tryout run by the school to decide the line up for the next season and Riley is there with her two besties, all on the verge of new schools and new horizons. As she struggles to come to terms with her new hormones raging through her system, her old emotions are ousted from their benign control in favour of Anxiety, Ennui and Embarrassment leading Riley to turn her back on her old friends in favour of sucking up to the power elite of the teenage girl hockey squad. 

Through a contrived series of events the old emotions lead by Joy are forced to travel to the back of Riley's mind in search of a memory to save the day, while in the real world Riley embarks on a series of highly unusual activities, like breaking and entering, physical assault and heroin use to achieve her aims. Don't worry, Riley's not taking drugs, she's using the found drug stash to spike the food of the opposing players so she can beat them. Nah, I'm kidding it's Kett not Heroin. 

As always this is a beautiful looking film, it's message, tattooed across it's forehead in 12 feet tall lettering screams: JUST BE YOURSELF! and LOVE YOUR FRIENDS! and it's a delight to see that ordinary relationships are explored and not burgeoning sexual ones.

Sadly this is spoilt by the need of a plot, the one that sees the old emotions treking through Riley's ID in search of discarded memories, it's a journey whose ending is never in doubt and the need for the dramatic 3rd Act hook and a countdown is wearisome. And oddly enough I'd like to have seen more of Riley in the real world. 

And you know that the bottom dollar is everything because this is the first Pixar film I've seen at the cinema that didn't have a short shown before it. I miss those.

Anyway, I whidge therefore I am, this was good natured, sweet and fun and didn't outstay its welcome. 

8/10