Movie Review - Inside Out 2

After a brief slump in their overall quality of films, Pixar's Inside Out was certainly a return to form for the iconic studio following its release in 2015, telling a beautiful story which deftly blended humour and honest emotional depth within a unique premise full of loveable characters. While the film didn't end with any definitive need for a sequel, the idea of one was always welcome considering how much more could be done with the material at hand; new emotions, new hurdles in life, the works. Nearly a decade later, Pixar have of course taken advantage of this and brought us Inside Out 2, an entertaining animated adventure within what many critics deem to be another slump for the historically acclaimed studio. 

Taking place three years after the original, Riley Anderson (Kensington Tallman) faces new challenges in life as she enters her pubescent teenaged years, with her original five emotions of Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Anger (Lewis Black), Fear (Tony Hale) and Disgust (Liza Lapira) being driven out of headquarters by the overly paranoid Anxiety (Maya Hawke), joined by a cluster of teenage struggles including Envy (Ayo Edebiri), Ennui (basically boredom, played by Adèle Exarchopoulos) and Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser). Riley's quality of life begins to decline as a result, leading Joy and the other core emotions on a journey to save the girl they helm and love before its too late.

It goes without saying that Inside Out 2 is a visual treat, with animation just as gorgeous as its predecessor. It still boasts the same charming, colourful art style, though is somewhat darker this time to align with the more troubling themes. Said art style is then brought to life with beautifully rendered landscapes and characters, joined by strong vocal performances from the majority of the original cast and several newcomers, notably Hawke and Tallman in their roles as Anxiety and the teenaged Riley respectively. Pretty much everything when it comes to the visual and sound design side is spot on, even if Andrea Datzman's score is perhaps less memorable than Michael Giacchino's music from the original.

With Riley entering her teenaged years and thus coping with a new range of emotions that such youths will struggle with when growing up, Inside Out 2 of course explores some strong themes, with Anxiety and her core actions and motives certainly being at the centre of all this. Riley coping with these clashing emotions as she grows up is something audiences of all ages can certainly relate to, with some perhaps even more touched by Riley's struggles and Anxiety's influence depending on their own experience with such emotions, making this a film that has a deep core message that's also very flexible in its impact depending on the viewer. That said, this is still a film that knows when to cut back on the drama and embrace humour and charm, offering plenty of laughs approachable for a family audience.

But while Inside Out 2 has an emotional impact, it doesn't quite carry the same powerful tone of its predecessor, which at times left me genuinely tearful. This time round things can be sad, but aren't too heart wrenching, and it's fair to say that Anxiety is really the only one of the new emotions that most will remember; Envy, Ennui and Embarrassment don't have much of a, well, personality, and sometimes serve little purpose beyond being the subject of jokes which parody teenage livelihood. Perhaps the strongest emotional punch, however, comes with the film's ending, which I shan't spoil but will certainly commend for being poignant and thoughtful, and for addressing the influence Riley's emotional personas actually have on her actions and feelings in life in a way the original never even did. With all that said, Inside Out 2 finds itself being a worthy sequel to one of Pixar's best films, and enjoyable watch from start to finish.

Movie Review - The Super Mario Bros. Movie

As I've said many times before, and as most people certainly know, video games and movies don't often blend well; adaptations of even remarkably acclaimed games have led to the birth of some of the worst films ever made, with the original Super Mario Bros. film from 1993 being a notable example. It's clear the zany premise of Mario's universe wasn't apt for grim a live action setting, and so the next attempt at bringing him to the big screen is a colourfully animated affair; the end result is undeniably superior to the aforementioned atrocity from 30 years ago, but that's not saying an awful lot at the end of the day.

The story begins with our iconic protagonists Mario (Chris Pratt) and Luigi (Charlie Day) and their attempts to kickstart their own plumbing business within New York City, but things take an unexpected turn when one of their jobs results in them being transported to the magical Mushroom Kingdom, governed by the elegant Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy) and under threat from the evil Koopa king Bowser (Jack Black), who also captures Luigi and locks him away as one of his many prisoners. Mario consequently finds himself on a mission to save his brother and put an end to Bowser's attempts to seize the kingdom as well as Peach's hand in marriage.

Pratt's casting was of course met with controversy, but in the end he actually does a decent job; let's face it, while Charles Martinet has always pronounced some of Mario's most iconic phrases with an equally iconic voice, it's a voice that works better in small doses, and probably not one you'd want to hear speaking lengthy lines of dialogue across a 90 minute film. Pratt brings Mario to life with a fitting accented voice which occasionally shifts to a higher pitch to resemble Martinet's iconic voice for certain iconic lines; while such moments are slightly crude, they're also fairly amusing. When it comes to the rest of the cast, Charlie Day does a decent job as Luigi, though it's a shame to see the character largely shunted aside for the majority of the film as naught but a cowardly hostage, and Jack Black is not bad as Bowser; however, I didn't find him to be as remarkable as most claimed, though it seems neither he or the majority of the supporting cast had overly rich material to work with due to the film's mediocre script.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie's perks only really stem from its aesthetics and humour; when it comes to storytelling and characters, there's a lot to be desired. Mario himself isn't too memorable and Luigi barely turns up, but the biggest offenders are perhaps Peach and Bowser, with the former merely being a cringeworthy attempt to tick all the feminist protocol boxes: sarcastic and overly badass, whose mighty skills put the men around her to shame. Certainly nothing wrong with trying to flesh out her character a little more, but the writer's attempts at providing her with some backstory come and go with no impact, making her once again just crude role model for insecure young girls. As for Bowser, he's simply there to make endless jokes about how much he loves Peach, and has no threatening appeal whatsoever despite Jack Black's best efforts. When it comes to the likes of Donkey Kong (Seth Rogen) and Toad (Keegan-Michael Key), they merely adopt a number of generic, overly silly and tired character clichés and consequently feel like parodies of their original selves that most will barely remember.

This isn't a bad film at the end of the day; it once again offers a number of amusing jokes (though also an excessive overuse of slow motion ones), some solid vocal performances, a decent soundtrack and clever references to the video games that inspired it, but such qualities will only garner the interest of younger viewers or Mario diehards. When it comes to people outside of this demographic, there's not much to really keep them hooked, and as the film goes on it ultimately becomes more and more boring and predictable. In the end I thought Sonic did a better job with his movie debut; it was no masterpiece, but certainly a lot funnier and more engaging than this amusing yet repetitive adventure.