The film jumpstarts with the now 13-year-old Riley playing with her two best friends on their school's hockey team while also reintroducing us to Riley's emotions from *Inside Out*. The first 30-40 minutes cram a ton of exposition and are also at their funniest, bombarding the audience with continuous jokes, mixed with the highs and lows of burgeoning and burdening puberty. Almost every emotion plays a part in the story, where Sadness, who dominated the first film, has minimal screen time here. Anxiety almost repeats the same mistake, but the writers were smart to break this emotion's presence and time, focusing on the side quest Joy and the original emotions partake in while also splitting the time with Riley's new emotions Ennui, Envy, and Embarrassment. The center of the story focuses on Riley attending a three-day hockey camp, where she is forced to make some important decisions that will shape her entry into high school and expanding social existence. However, due to the structure of the film, the secondary side story—Riley's friends possibly separating versus "cliquing" with the "cool" kids—doesn't seem as important or as fun as watching Riley's emotions visually work overtime. At the same time, this helps the film avoid too many clichés or predictable directions. Regardless, the messages conveyed should be well received by audiences of all ages.
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