Inside Out 2 (2024)

Will Riley make the hockey team? Will she drop her best friends Bree and Grace for Val, the cool older player? You know the answers before the opening credits fade, and that outside story is the weakest thing here. The inside story is where Pixar earns its money. Puberty arrives overnight, a work crew rips out the old console, and four new emotions move into headquarters. Maya Hawke’s Anxiety is the big swing, a frantic planner who locks Joy and the original crew in a vault and starts building Riley a whole new Sense of Self out of self-doubt and nonstop planning. It’s the best picture of a racing mind a cartoon has ever drawn. Ennui gets huge laughs with almost no effort. Envy and Embarrassment barely register next to the originals. It made $1.70 billion worldwide on a reported $200M. An 8.3 because it gets anxiety right in a way most grown-up movies don’t. $204 says you catch your own Anxiety drafting worst-case scenarios before bed tonight and tell her to take a seat.

What works: Anxiety is the best new Pixar character in years, and the vault, the console and the Sense of Self turn growing up into something kids and parents can both read.

What doesn’t: The hockey camp plot is about as predictable as sports stories get, and Envy and Embarrassment barely register next to the original five.

Who it’s for: Anyone who has ever rehearsed a conversation in their head eleven times, and every kid about to start high school.