Inside Out 2 (Blu-ray Review)
I don’t think anyone could have foreseen the massive success that Inside Out 2 turned out to be. The sequel to a film that is dawning on its 10th year, the new film tackled the main character Riley’s blossoming into a teenager in such a way that not only children flocked to see it in theaters. After a string of box-office misfires, no doubt hobbled by Covid, Inside Out 2 brings Pixar back to the forefront, with another wonderful entry into a budding franchise! Read more about Inside Out 2 inside the review and as always, the cover art at the end is clickable, so click it to get yourself a copy of the film!
Film: 
Disney and Pixar’s Inside Out 2 returns to the mind of newly minted teenager Riley just as headquarters is undergoing a sudden demolition to make room for something entirely unexpected: new Emotions! Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear and Disgust, who’ve long been running a successful operation by all accounts, aren’t sure how to feel when Anxiety shows up. And it looks like she’s not alone.
Riley is now 13 years old. She’s still a hockey player and has her 2 best friends by her side. As she enters a hockey camp, she learns that she will be going to another team without her two besties. Things become more apparently different as new emotions begin to pop up and make changes to the makings of Riley. These new emotions are Anxiety, Embarrassment, Boredom and Envy. These make Riley’s makeup just a tad more chaotic, as Joy and the gang try to get acclimated to the changes. But Anxiety has other plans. As new memories become stored in the Vault, Joy and her co-emotions are launched to an island where things Riley would like to forget are placed.
When the old emotions have to journey back to the headquarters, they learn that Anxiety and the new emotions are making Riley make decisions and choices she’s never made before. She’s choosing to make new friends on her future hockey team. Riley is also becoming envious of what her new friends have. Furthermore, Riley has started to become aware of her own embarrassments and tries to shrug them off by learning what her new friends like and pretending to like them. This is not typical for Riley and even if these actions are gaining her friendships, she has indifferent feelings about pushing her old friends away.
These sequences for Riley feel very relatable for adults in the audience. We’ve all dealt with these situations as teenagers and even as adults. There is a certain social need within everyone and to fit in is such a big deal at certain times in life. As we get older new emotions develop and how we navigate them is very much how Riley does over the course of the film. As for her emotions, they all try to find ways to work together. No new emotion acts as a villain, and it’s easy to see how they all feel they are not able to work together at first. Finding a rhythm is what needs to be done and throughout the film we hope they can all click so Riley can keep it together and make the new varsity team!
As always, Pixar has nailed the film. A joy from start to finish, Inside Out 2 keeps plugging away wasting no time as we barrel through the last few years of Riley’s life and jump right into present day with her. The animation is fantastic as always – Bright, colorful, engaging and flawless. As far as the last few Pixar films go, at least to me, there have been no missteps, only missed opportunities for success. However, in this new cinema landscape we are in, I am so happy to see this film becoming such a sizeable hit. This will make for more quality animation films, and ones that not just children enjoy, but adults as well. For me, Inside Out 2 is nearly perfect and I, for one, can’t wait to see another one!
Video:
Encoding: MPEG-4/AVC
Resolution: HD (1080p)
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1
Layers: BD-50
HDR: N/A
Clarity/Detail: Inside Out 2, for lack of a better word looks fantastic on Blu-ray. No doubt even better in 4K, the 1080p disc is nonetheless razor-sharp reference grade animation. The overall quality of the image is exceptional with eye-popping detail and color in every frame. Nothing looks to be dubious, and all is recreated on disc beautifully.
Depth: Foreground and background focus is lovely, with plenty of detail to take in on close ups and long-distance shots.
Black Levels: Blacks never lead to crush and moments in the dark show excellent shadow detail too.
Color Reproduction: Colors are of the candy-coated variety. This is absolutely how the film should look and the results are nearly jaw dropping!
Flesh Tones: N/A
Noise/Artifacts: Clean.
Audio:
Audio Format(s): English 7.1 DTS-HDMA, Spanish and French 5.1 Dolby Digital, English 5.1 DTS-HDHR, English 2.0 Dolby Digital and English AD 2.0 Dolby Digital
Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish, French
Dynamics: Inside Out 2 has an excellent sounding DTS-HD 7.1 track. The mix is up mixed to Dolby Atmos on Disney+ and 4K Blu-ray, but something tells me there’s not a huge difference between the two tracks. Spacing is excellent with detail in the surrounds and plenty of bass when the track calls for it too!
Height: N/A
Low-Frequency Extension: Bass works great for rumbly moments and the occasional music cue. There’s not a ton of moments where you’ll be feeling the rattle, but enough for you to notice it happening!
Surround Sound Presentation: Surround sound makes the world of Riley’s brain and body full and immersive! Echoes, music, teenaged groups, small crowds, air and ambience are all surrounding the listener and taking us into Riley’s world.
Dialogue Reproduction: Dialogue sounds perfect for this presentation
Extras: 
Extras for Inside Out 2 are not as varied as extras used to be, but the selection included is still nice regardless. The Blu-ray comes with a glossy slipcover, bundled DVD and a digital code.
Bonus Features*
- New Emotions– With Riley’s imminent puberty, the story of Inside Out 2 always suggested that there would be a party of new emotions complicating Riley’s world—and throwing a wrench into Joy’s hard-won stability. But exactly what those new emotions could be was a big question mark. Casting the new emotions in Riley’s mind was a fun exploration into the shifting mindset of a teenager and was also informed by some of the discarded scenes and characters from the original film. In this documentary we’ll discuss that process of creating Anxiety, Embarrassment, Ennui, and Envy—from narrowing them down from a long list of possible emotions to the design, animation, and voicing of these new, hilarious, and strangely recognizable characters.
- Unlocking the Vault– In a kind of visual commentary, a group of central creatives watch and discuss the scene “The Vault.” As they stop and start—and refer to various IP versions of the scene—we’ll hear about the inspiration for Riley’s repressed memories like Bloofy and Lance Slashblade, the development of the scene in Story, and the technical challenges of creating 2D characters that exist in the CG world of Riley’s mind.
- Deleted Scenes
- Cold Open– In this alternate opening, a now 13-year-old Riley awkwardly fumbles her way through an original song she wrote for a school audition.
- Broken Joy– After momentarily being unable to drive the console, Joy worries that she might be starting to malfunction.
- Pool Party– After Riley tries too hard to be fun at an older teen’s party – resulting in utter embarrassment – her “Anxiety” becomes “Self-Loathing” who then ousts our hero emotions from headquarters.
- Puberty Park– After seeing their faces printed on “wanted posters,” Joy and the others rogue emotions race through a puberty-themed amusement park while being chased by mind worker cops.
- Shame Spiral – At a lock-in with some cool, older girls, Riley and friends play a game of “Never Have I Ever” that goes a bit too far – wreaking havoc in Riley’s mind.
*Bonus features may vary by product and retailer
Summary:
Inside Out 2 exceeded my expectations! After seeing quality Pixar fare like Soul, Onward, Turning Red and Luca all either fail in the theater or go straight to streaming, I was a bit worried. My worries were pushed aside from the moment the first frame appeared at home. While I can’t wait to see the 4K treatment of this film, the Blu-ray is no slouch, and is well worth a look for fans of animation, collectors of Disney/Pixar and the big/little kid in all of us. This one is a don’t-miss-it smash!
