The latest film from Pixar studios was finally released this Wednesday in cinemas. We saw “Vice-Versa 2” before its release: is it as good as the first?
It is one of the most anticipated films of the year. After its success in 2015, Vice versa is back for a second episode this Wednesday, June 19 at the cinema. Riley is now a happy 13-year-old girl, until the teenage crisis turns her daily life upside down. After the first episode, the bet of a sequel was daring. And obviously, this second part does not benefit from the surprise effect of the first film. We find in Vice-Versa 2 the emotions we know (Joy, Disgust, Anger, Fear and Sadness), eclipsed by the new emotions that accompany Riley now that she is a teenager: Envy, Boredom, Embarrassment and especially Anxiety.
If the universe, the characters, the colors, the settings and the narrative mechanics (a journey into Riley’s brain and a battle of emotions to take control) are familiar and border on the sensation of déjà vu, director Kelsey Mann tries to infuse it with more complexity, adolescence obliges. New concepts enter, including nostalgia, guilty pleasures, but above all the “belief system” itself, which shapes Riley’s identity. Through ideas of friendships that fade and are created, personal and selfish ambitions, dreams to be realized… Vice-Versa 2 paints a very rich and tender portrait of this thankless age where we begin to shape our adult future, far from the usual clichés.
There are already a lot of elements in this second episode of Vice versa, sometimes too much, and we can regret that attention is not focused more on the upheavals of puberty from an emotional point of view in a large fresco. But it’s because the purpose of the film tackles a deeper problem that affects adolescents and sometimes follows them into adulthood: Anxiety. This is the real whirlwind of this film, the one that seeks to protect us to the point of completely paralyzing us. Anxiety is a colorful new character, magnificently played by Dorothée Pousséo in VF, which gives rise to the most moving scene of the film, in its finale.
Unfortunately, it is the only one of this ilk, since the emotional power of this second opus remains diminished compared to the first film which brought the spectators to the ground (with the unforgettable Bing-Bong in particular), Vice-Versa 2 lack of pivotal moments that devastate us and push us to put certain moments of our lives into perspective. The fault, mainly, is a cartoonish road trip of the main emotions to please the little ones which weighs down the rhythm and the subject. But Vice-Versa 2 remains a very good animated film and a good Pixar one, which fans of the studio will be happy to discover in the cinema.
Synopsis – Riley is now 13 years old. And the time for the adolescent crisis has visibly come, since the seat of emotions becomes a chaotic place with a precarious balance!
In the United States, the film was released on June 14. And it has already broken a record for its first weekend of operation: Vice-Versa 2 has already grossed $295 million at the worldwide box office, and with this score achieves the best start of all time for an animated film.
At the same time, the animated film has already earned $155 million at the North American box office according to the specialist firm Exhibitor Relations, whose data is shared by AFP. It is both the second best start for a Pixar film across the Atlantic (behind The Incredibles 2) and the best start for a film since the release of barbie in July 2023. To see if the French also respond this Wednesday.
Let us remember that the public has enormous expectations before seeing Vice-Versa 2 At the movie theater. It must be said that the first episode was a real popular and critical success, winning the Oscar for best animated film in 2016. The trailer for the sequel also proved the enormous expectations of the public, since it been viewed nearly 157 million times, reports AFP.
