While Disney is often known for their theme parks with roller coasters and other enthralling rides, never before had they made a film that in of itself was a literal emotional roller coaster. This was the case in 2015 when they released their 15th film with Pixar Animation Studios: Inside Out. The hit film from that year released during an era for Pixar where they were starting to lose some of their critical acclaim and became much more reliant on sequels to previous hits to sell tickets. However, Inside Out was lauded at the time for being a breath of fresh air for the company. Does it still hold up almost a decade later or were audiences just desperate for something new? Let’s turn off the emotional voices inside our heads, think objectively, and find out.

The film has a relatively simple premise. 11-year-old Riley has just moved to a new town with her parents and is not adjusting to the changes well, going through the emotions that any normal kid would experience in that situation. However, rarely do we see the film from her perspective, as the film actually follows the misadventures of the personified emotion characters in her head. The emotions in Riley’s head are Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Fear (Bill Hader), Disgust (Mindy Kaling), and Anger (Lewis Black). The emotions have direct control over Riley’s emotional experiences and reside within a metaphorical fantastical representation of her mind. The film’s animation is gorgeous, colorful, and fluid in a way that makes every frame a delight to gaze at. It works incredibly well at depicting characters that are expressive and entertaining to watch as they interact with their simultaneously nonsensical and well-developed setting. The writing and performances from the main voice actors are incredibly effective at communicating a touching message about embracing all the emotions that make us human, and does so in a genuinely heart-wrenching way. Because of the subject matter of Riley’s emotions, the film is able to engage with its audience in a legitimately emotional way that anyone can relate to from their own experiences growing up, that does not feel at all manipulative or sappy like many of the more recent Pixar outings have felt at times.

Despite the many qualities that the film is able to boast, it is not without its flaws. It is more noticeable now after it has had several years to marinate, that the film has excellent themes and ideas but is often lacking the depth of characters to make the overall message reach its full potential. This is because the film only has 2 or 3 characters that have any legitimate depth to them. Joy, Sadness, and Riley’s imaginary friend Bing Bong (played by Richard Kind) are the only characters in the film that have any kind of emotional range or interesting goals and pursuits. The rest of Riley’s emotions are one-dimensional characters that serve the story well as funny caricatures, but fail to be engaging. Riley and her parents who live in the real world certainly have potential to be interesting, but the film doesn’t spend enough time with them for the audience to learn anything more than the most superficial information about them. The other big issue with the film is that it tends to play things a bit too safe and doesn’t have the same bite that the best Pixar films had in the ‘90s and 2000s. While none of the jokes are particularly bad, they feel a bit too tame even for a family film, and don’t do much to push the comedic talent of the actors involved. While none of these issues make the movie painful or unwatchable, they do drag the overall enjoyment down to where this feels like a very safe, middle of the road Pixar film that never reaches the highs of their early work or the lows they’ve had in the last decade.

While the film didn’t reach its full potential, the high potential of the concept alone has made it one that many fans have hoped would eventually get a sequel due to all the great ideas that could come from it. Thankfully, Inside Out 2 has recently had its trailers released and is set to hit theaters in June. This should be exciting for fans of the original, as there is so much that can be done with a sequel. However, the trailers so far have been fairly predictable, mostly showing that Riley is now hitting puberty and as a result is getting new emotions in the form of new characters. Not to say that this plotline sounds bad, but it feels a bit formulaic and could lead to feeling like a repetition of the original. Hopefully this is not the case and the new film is able to deliver on the potential and breathe some more life into the franchise.

Despite the sequel announcement being a positive development, it goes without saying that 9 years is quite a long time to wait for a sequel to an animated family film. In a lot of ways, it doesn’t make a ton of sense for Pixar to have waited so long instead of striking while the iron was hot a few years after the first came out. Pixar has been known for taking their time with sequels, which is admirable in principle. However, many of their sequels that came out over a decade after the original ended up being more disappointing than worth the wait. With a messy track record over the past decade, it is hard to say if Pixar can truly deliver with this film. But for all its worth, we won’t be able to make any real judgments on it until we sit down in the theaters and are taken on another emotional roller coaster with Riley at the helm.