Originally published to 8 News Now on June 12, 2024.

2015’s Inside Out was a remarkable film. The Pixar effort gave us an inside look at a child’s mind, with colorful, frequently hilarious, and occasionally heartbreaking depictions of its development and maturation process. Pixar consulted psychologists when creating these characters and set pieces, which serve as analogies for the human brain, emotions, and the less tangible aspects of the psyche. What resulted could have been sterile and uninteresting recess-during-a-rainy-day fare but instead became a moving tour de force that became an indelible part of Pixar’s already impressive oeuvre. That’s where the 2024 sequel, Inside Out 2, comes in: with much to live up to. In a summer where many sequels from major studios have felt a bit like cinema by committee, the idea of a sequel to Inside Out felt ill-advised.

The good news is that Inside Out 2 is a masterpiece. Pixar has produced another poignant look at the mind, this time that of a teenager. We rejoin Riley Anderson and her familiar emotions. Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust still operate Riley’s “headquarters,” with Joy directing traffic, having learned her lesson from the first film that all emotions are necessary for Riley. This lesson is tested as new emotions enter the fold in the form of Embarrassment, Ennui, Envy, and Anxiety.

What unfolds is a whirlwind of emotion (pun intended) that matches the original film in its creativity. The sheer imagination on display by thousands of creative minds tasked with building upon the world of Inside Out is unrivaled in cinema. The film feels as though its artists had unlimited freedom to create the visual parallels that make up Riley’s teenage mind as long as those analogies made sense. Ultimately, it does more than make sense; it’s a stunningly beautiful piece of art with meaning.

Anxiety is the star of the show in Inside Out 2. Voiced fantastically by Maya Hawke, the character is given the “justified villain” treatment. Much like Thanos or the Joker, an argument can be made that Hawke’s Anxiety is correct in her actions, creating a wonderful nuance that parallels the real-life human brain. And the film does all this while being a brisk and hilarious romp.

Frankly, it would have been nice to see Bill Hader and Mindy Kaling return to voice Fear and Disgust, respectively. Their replacement voices, Tony Hale and Liza Lapira, do a fine job, but the lack of continuity is noticeable. It would be fair to assume that, as a result, those two emotions would take a back seat in the story, but in actuality, Fear and Disgust play approximately the same sized part as they did in the first film. Minor quibbles with the recasting of Hader and Kaling aside, Amy Poehler, Phyllis Smith, Lewis Black, and the rest of the Inside Out cast continue to be wonderful, showing depth and growth in their characters from the first film. Inside Out 2 proves that a trip into Riley’s mind is not just worthy of one visit but could provide more insight while we revisit Riley’s mind, and by proxy, our own, again and again.

Inside Out 2 is the best animated film of the decade and lives up to the original’s high standards. The sequel creates an entertaining, insightful, and poignant jaunt that comfortably reaches Pixar’s “S-tier,” sitting alongside its predecessor as one of the studio’s best.